Chapter 25 get serious (3)

In Hitchcock's movies, almost all the heroines are blond. This is an incredible problem, but until now, researchers are still unable to draw conclusions about his hobby.Perhaps, the director who has been making suspense films like this all his life has something wrong with his mind!There is another very interesting phenomenon about Hitchcock's movies, which is worth repeating, that is, he likes to appear in his movies, not as the leading role like Chaplin, but as an inconspicuous little role, No dialogue, just a slight reveal One face has nothing to do with the plot, he just likes to play games with the audience in this way.There is such a story, in 1944, when Hitchcock was filming "Lifeboat", as usual, he was going to appear in the movie, but this time there was a problem, because Hitchcock was fat (this is his signature image), and the movie tells the story of 9 survivors on a lifeboat. All the scenes were shot on the lifeboat. These 9 people belong to the protagonist. Hitchcock only wants to play a small role. How can this be manage?He originally wanted to play a floating corpse in the water after a shipwreck, but with his size, it would be dangerous.At that time, Hitchcock strictly controlled his diet and reduced his weight from 150 kilograms to 100 kilograms. So he thought of a good way to post photos of himself before and after weight loss on newspapers, and fabricated a weight loss plan. In an advertisement for medicine, when the actor reads the newspaper for the camera, the audience can clearly see his photo.But after this clever idea was realized, Hitchcock's family would have calls from dieters asking about diet pills every day.

Hitchcock made films in England in his early years, and was invited to the United States in 1940 to film them. That is probably the most familiar Hitchcock film to Chinese audiences.After that, Hitchcock had a high reputation throughout the mid-1940s, but he was still not satisfied, so he shot "The Rope" in 1948, which was a movie made with 3 shots, and the entire shooting location It is in one room, so it is very experimental, and it is also a test for the performance of the actors.Unfortunately, the film was a box office flop when it was released, and audiences were impatient with a film that lacked Hitchcock's usual thrills.Hitchcock has been shooting entertainment films all his life, and gained a high reputation. During his lifetime, many directors imitated him, such as: French New Wave director Truffaut, American director Spielberg and so on.But Hitchcock also hoped that while shooting entertainment films, he could make some serious films that exposed social injustice. In 1952, he made "I Confess," about a priest accused of murder, which was a box office flop.The idea of ​​this film is still considered by researchers until today, and it has made the most acute questioning of law, morality, and human nature.

Another Hitchcock critique of the law, The Palatine Case, starring Gregory Peck, tells the story of an innocent man who nearly gets sentenced. In 1957, Hitchcock also made a similar film "Revenge of Wrongs", which was changed according to a real case. Except for the male and female protagonists who were played by stars, all other characters were played by the parties themselves, but perhaps these themes were too heavy. Hitchcock was not allowed to play to his strengths. Afterwards, Hitchcock did not make such films, but returned to suspense film shooting, and entered his own "golden age".Hitchcock's later films became more and more mature and exciting. While creating an atmosphere of suspense, they also focused on portraying characters and revealing the good and evil in human nature. Even so, in the final analysis, Hitchcock is still an entertainment director. However, the hats of Spielberg's "commercial film director" and Chaplin's "comedy film director" still cannot be taken off.