Why did Alfred Hitchcock deliberately underdeveloped his characters?
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most masterful directors of all time, with his touch on cinema still being felt today through his pioneering of a classic genre that wouldn’t be what it is without him. From the dolly zoom to his voyeuristic gaze, the director became a trailblazer of the thriller and creation of suspense, coining the infamous metaphor about the bomb under the table in relation to how he induces fear in his audiences.
Whether it be the haunting mystery of Vertigo, Rear Window or the terrifying threat in The Birds, the director created a vast filmography that has influenced countless modern directors and bleeds into films being created today, with an inescapable legacy that remains timeless. But perhaps part of this comes from his unique approach to his characters and relationship with the audience, cleverly luring people into a very specific state.
More than anything else, the characters in Hitchcock’s films are somewhat guided to manipulate the audience to feel a specific emotion, with the director revealing how he cared less about the characters and their possession of identifiable traits, but in how they could be used to guide viewers through carefully planned moods.
This is something that is particularly prevalent in Psycho, and when asked about whether he directed his audience more than the actors, Hitchcock said, “Yes. It’s using pure cinema to cause the audience to emote. It was done by visual means designed in every possible way for an audience. That’s why the murder in the bathroom is so violent, because as the film proceeds, there is less violence. But that scene was in the minds of the audience so strongly that one didn’t have to do much more. I think that in Psycho, there is no identification with the characters”.
He added: “There wasn’t time to develop them and there was no need to. The audience goes through the paroxysms in the film without consciousness of Vera Miles or John Gavin. They’re just characters that lead the audience through the final part of the picture. I wasn’t interested in them. And you know, nobody ever mentions that they were ever in the film”.
It’s a fascinating technique that reveals the innovation behind his approach and willingness to work against the grain, somewhat sacrificing his stars for the sake of a wider emotional experience. The actors almost become props/vessels to manipulate the audience, bringing them into the story in a more immersive way.
He expanded on the impact this had on his collaborators, saying, “It’s rather sad for them. Can you imagine how the people in the front office would have cast the picture? They’d say, ‘Well, she gets killed off in the first reel, let’s put anybody in there, and give Janet Leigh the second part with the love interest.’ Of course, this is idiot thinking. The whole point is to kill off the star, that is what makes it so unexpected. This was the basic reason for making the audience see it from the beginning. If they came in half-way through the picture, they would say, ‘When’s Janet Leigh coming on?’ You can’t have blurred thinking in suspense”.
The director is correct in saying that suspense cannot be ambiguous – it has to be an inescapable feeling with no room for confusion as to where the suspense is coming from. Through this technique, he has somewhat hijacked the medium, forever changing our approach to fear and how the nature of spectatorship can be used against the audience.
