I spend a lot of time spouting out names when it comes to film making. It was recently pointed out by ^Katerina423 that some people may not know who some of these people are, even when they hold Legendary status in the filmmaking world. So at her request, and in tandem with The Dark Muse #1, I'd like to introduce you to an old friend.

Generation after Generation of film watchers are familiar with the name Alfred Hitchcock. Even the most amateur filmmakers are familiar with the term Hitchcockian. All too many, however, know little or nothing about his films or the genius whose name is perpetuated in the zeitgeist of horror/suspense. Having died in 1980, before many of the rising generation were even born, this is hardly a surprise. Alfred Hitchcock is as much an iconic name as Andy Warhol, Charlie Chaplin, and Ernest Hemingway. Most immersed in American culture have a vague understanding of the art form attached to these names, but far less have actually embraced it and comprehend the brilliance that elevated them each to such a pantheon of Genius.

Alfred Hitchcock began his filmmaking career in his home of England in 1920. He directed his first film, The Pleasure Gardener in 1925. It was a black and white silent film. "Talkies" wouldn't come along for another two years, and color (as we know it) wouldn't show up for another ten years. Although he had many successes, one of the first titles that many people recognize is The Man Who Knew Too Much. Originally made in 1934 with Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre, the film that is usually more often know was Hitchcock's own remake from 1956 starring James Stewart and Doris Day. The films, however, that have transcended into legend are: Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Notorious and North by Northwest.

Legends over time become larger than life, but their greatness is founded in truth. Hitchcock laid the foundation for the horror and suspense genres of filmmaking that every current and future filmmaker stands upon. While he drew upon techniques from many other artists and styles, his use of them was to instill discomfort in a way that no one had previously managed to achieve to such great affect. These techniques are referred to as being Hitchcockian; and there is even a zooming technique called "The Hitchcock Zoom," in which the central figure seems to remain in place while the landscape around him/her enlarges or shrinks creating a Vertigo effect. This was developed by Hitchcock specifically for the film Vertigo and has been used in hundreds of films since.

Hitchcock once said that "Suspense is like a Woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement." He believed that no one could dictate to someone else what was frightening, so he used techniques of storytelling, lighting, camera work and editing to present clues and insinuations to his viewers allowing for them to fill in the missing pieces. Nothing he could film would ever be as scary to them as what their own fears imagined.

In the film Psycho, the infamous shower scene only has three brief frames of the knife actually touching Janet Lee's body- and it is barely scratching the surface. The true horror of this scene comes in the sounds: the woman screaming and the violent thunks of the blade into what our mind tells us is a human body. Hitchcock actually went to great lengths to find the exact type of melon that he felt would best represent the sound of a body being stabbed. When presented with the images of blood splashing the wall, Janet screaming, and a knifing being held high in the air by "Mother Bates"...our minds fill in everything else, even though we are never really shown a woman being murdered, only pieces of the act. Such use of subtlety in what seems a bold scene is what allows modern day horror movies to build fear; when the killer or monster is only seen in flashes through a dark stairwell or a foggy corridor. We see only a weapon, a bloody hand, or a grotesque silhouette and on cue our minds create the rest.

This is not to say that Hitchcock did not understand the human condition. The Filmmaker, in fact, had an incredible understanding of the most basic primal fears that are shared by most people. Throughout his films are characters that suffer domination, wrongful persecution, violations of trust, situations with unknown rules, sexual deviations with predatory tones, and the most basic fears of falling, darkness, and death. Even his most complicated plots revolved around the most elementary of fears. Norman Bates in Psycho feared his sexuality. Det. Ferguson in Vertigo was afraid of heights. Jeffries in Rear Window is crippled by his immobility-physically and emotionally. In The Birds, Melanie Daniels is afraid of not being loved. Hitchcock, himself, had a terrible fear of egg yolks. While he would eat an omelet or a soufflés, he couldn't bear the sight of a yellow yolk, especially one that was broken and running. Perhaps such inherent fragility is what unsettled him, and that would be altogether Hitchcockian.

MUST SEE HITCHCOCK FILMS: (order of film release - Kahl Favorites are starred)
-The Man who knew too much (1934)
-39 Steps
-Spellbound
-Notorious*
-Strangers on a Train*
-Dial M for Murder
-Rear Window*
-Vertigo
-North by Northwest*
-Psycho*
-The Birds

This list will get you started and once you've got a taste for him, you can dig into the dozens of other Masterful films! Check out a few Hitchcockian images below: