If you're at all interested in cinema or filmmaking, you undoubtedly have watched Alfred Hitchcock's work. Its influence continues to this day. This great video breaks down just what it is about his films that makes them so enduring and compelling.
One thing that always stood out to me about Hitchcock's work is that it's truly timeless, and that alone makes it worth a closer look. At a more macro level, the characters and plots are vehicles for something deeper, an overriding philosophy of humanity and the human experience that permeates his films. Every move the director made was an intentional, calculated decision that played on the psyche of the viewer, whether that was fear, anxiety, psychosis, lust, heroism, saudade, melancholy, or even occasional happiness.
Hitchcock's technique was so high-mindedly precise that it seemingly bordered on inscrutable and ineffable, but within that science lurked core philosophies: humans have desires and fears, the unconscious is richer than the conscious, and film is a vehicle in which one can play on the two aforementioned characteristics. By watching his work with a constant eye toward those traits, everything from the overarching structure to the way individual shots were framed becomes clearer, more easily understood. They didn't call him the Master of Suspense for nothing.
[via No Film School]
