My Writing Plan Dj

Essay Plan:  Introduction

The Introduction For my essay will be that what objectives I will come up across to eventually later find the answers that I will be researching for:

• To find out how Hitchcock use’s Freud’s Theory’s of psychoanalysis in vertigo (e.g. Symbols) by deconstructing the clip of vertigo.
• To Also research Hitchcock’s intention in using woman as a femme fatal and his views on woman especially ‘blondes’ and his style of work as a movie director.

Paragraph 1

The First Paragraph I will be looking at the style and technique that Hitchcock use’s throughout vertigo also his use of technology and it’s restrictions etc.

• Hitchcock and his career
• Film Noir and its use’s
• His theory of creating Fright in his films.  (tongue & Cheek)
• How Hitchcock uses’s Film Noir in Vertigo & Neo Noir.

Paragraph 2

Second Paragraph will include the use of Psychoanalysis And Hitchcock’s temptations

• How are Freud and Hitchcock linked in a way
• Hitchcock’s use of Voyeurism
• Vertigo’s Mise-en-scene
• The Effects of Symbolism in Film, How Hitchcock implements it in vertigo (Phallic symbols)

 

Paragraph 3

On the Third Paragraph I will go into more detail on film noir and how it started.

• Post-War Film Noir (1950’s)
• Hitchcock’s use of a psychological fear in Acrophobia (vertigo)
• Differences and views between Black and white film noir compared to Colour film noir and is colour film noir destroying the whole meaning of film noir. (Debate)
• Hitchcock’s use of colour in a Film noir genre & the use of Kim Novak as a femme fatale.

Paragraph 4

On the fourth paragraph I will refer back to Psychoanalysis and its sub-elements.

• How Hitchcock has used Narcissm to create an identity in Vertigo
• How has Hitchcock used erotic gratification to derive from admiration of one’s own physical or mental attributes in Vertigo.

Paragraph 5

On the Fifth Paragraph I will be referring to media theorist, while still linking back to Hitchcock’s views and also linking them to Sigmund Freud’s views on psychoanalysis etc.

• Christian Metz and Baudry views and opinions on Psychoanalysis
• How Influential was Sigmund Freud’s view on Hitchcock in making Vertigo
• Why and how has Hitchcock purposely implemented Phallic symbols into vertigo.

Paragraph 6

On the Sixth Paragraph I will go deeper into the 50’s Film Industry talking about the slight recession in America that occurred and also talking about the 50’s Hollywood system.

• Why was Vertigo seen as a commercial failure when it first came out in the 50’s but in the 21^st century it’s seen as a masterpiece.
• Although British born Hitchcock had been influenced in the style of American cinema / what would be the difference if it was made in Britain during the 50’s.
• Was this the start of American domination in the film industry and Britain as America’s understudies.
• How did the 1950’s Recession affect Hitchcock’s preparation in creating Vertigo.

Paragraph 7

I will conclude my essay on how Hitchcock has a fetishization on the male gaze and his use of constant voyeuristic approaches, also linking this to Freud’s theories on both the male gaze and voyeurism, also adding the opinions of Laura Mulvey.

• Has Hitchcock gone to far with his voyeuristic manner

Conclusion

I will attempt to conclude my essay by retrieving the key point I made earlier in my research entries in saying that how he had a fetish view over woman how his objective nearly all the time was constantly to use a blonde female as the main character and how he use’s phallic symbols to lure woman in and in adding a femme fatale to create confusion and debates throughout the main audience.

My Weekly Study Diary Entry’s

Study Diary – Week 1:

My first day of starting my research didn’t start as brightly as I thought. At first I began looking into the “Ford Kinetic Advert” as a number one choice and began looking at the company which made the advert & also the influences it had on bond. After a while of researching I feared that during my few weeks of researching I would have a sense of writers block and really not be able to add anything to my entries. Because I tried to find paths of the research and see where it would go. Somehow it would always give me a dead end and also the other side to it was that I just wasn’t feeling comfortable in writing about the advert anymore as I was during the 1^st day of selection, so this led me to change my selection and go back to my routes of film with the vertigo Film Clip. With this choice I felt that I had so many ideas that it wasn’t a matter of finding different paths of research but too which path I would choose out of the many I had.

After my too days of intense stress, my researching began lightly as at first I wanted to look at Hitchcock himself and his career with also adding my own views on him. In which basically I added a mini biography and then with my views I would express my opinions and views on my thoughts on him as a director, looking at his work in his career and the up’s an down’s in his life. During one late night of researching I was looking at The whole concept of film noir and what makes film noir, I found several interesting quotes, comments and my own views on Noir. For example when we think of film noir we think of it as a black & White Film with the protagonist an inspector character who always win’s the ladies at the end.

When I found the definition of film noir. I found this view really interesting in which I wanted to look into further at a later stage in my researching in to why Hitchcock wanted to define the film noir conventions in film. Other points I touched on in my entries was looking at the post-modernism of film noir movies and also Hitchcock’s inclusion of phallic symbols in his films seen as a sexual object to females. His idea was to scare females as he researched that nearly 80% of woman go to the cinema, I.e. stating in my view 80% of woman were housewives and not working.

Continuing with my research in this week, don’t know if the weekend of week 1 can count to a week one study diary but I looked back at his work of “Birds, Psycho, and vertigo” in all of the movies stated he use’s a blonde main female actress. I began looking into the idea that if Hitchcock believed that stereotypical dumb blondes aspect of it, and just sort of use them and then kill them off after a while because Hitchcock to me had a sexist view to woman in film as I looked up some quotes of him saying that “you don’t see enough violence on woman enough” I was shocked as in my entries I state that we see woman as a sexual object that in the end is the reward of the hero. On this topic of blondes in film what I found quite interesting in which I found in a variety of resources from books to the internet and by this my results were that I found shocking was that Mr Hitchcock was a little sexist when it comes to the opposite sex as saying that films weren’t violent to woman enough. I was shocked by his words but he’s a genius in which he  makes it work perfectly as seeing it from my view in vertigo its like although Scotty has imagined Madeline in his head he kind of puppets her characteristics as it shows his control over her even though she’s unreal. Looking further at the character of Scotty, he’s voyeurism over Madeline starts to Intensify he becomes attracted to his own creation in which I find Hitchcock inserted superbly into the film.

Study Diary Week: 2

In my week 2 of research development, after looking at previously of blondes in Hitchcock’s films & film noir I looked at Hitchcock’s voyeuristic style as to have a sense of like the audience is peeping in watching the action take place. I looked at some books and sites explaining if Hitchcock was obsessed in voyeurism in which I went to my University Library and found books on the sexual subject, and the Hitchcock romance In which gave me very useful quotes and information for my research. There was one night (one long night in which I researched on voyeurism) this was probably a bad idea in a way because after a long day in UNI during Thursday I was kind of tired in which probably effected my research on this topic. In which most likely voyeurism a topic in which I will have to touch up on a little more. Looking ay my current research I’m learning that Hitchcock had a strange mind first of all and also he used woman as a symbol of danger in using a femme fatal in Madeline. As to which he had a sexist mind in using blondes and then either use them to lure the protagonist into utter misery and illusion, and pulling them into complete darkness. In which we see Scotty try and change someone into something that there not then get dragged into serious depression and guilt.

Study Diary Entry Week 3:

During my week three of my research I’ve been looking at the Mise-en-scene of the film vertigo and how Hitchcock used the Church tower “arches of San Juan Bautista” in vertigo represents an Ironic inversion of this motif in which I included a quote in which he stated that he wanted to as does the sanctuary more generally seen as a place of safety and rebirth turned into an arena of danger and death, in which Hitchcock use’s perfectly to juxtapose the idea of a church being safe into a place of fear, death, and haunting memories to Scotty. During this week of research I was in a bright mood in which I found useful quotes and references into the making and development of Vertigo. In which I found in a book called “the silent scream” in which Hitchcock wanted to make the audience concentrate on the scene of the film rather than the sound track and make the track hit them at the precise moment in causing freight into them (i.e. as it  shows in Psycho). During this research week I found many new doors and directions to go in, during a session in my “Approaches to media, Lecture” it was about psychoanalysis and as identity was a big issue and this gave me an idea to add this to my entry as it links well with Vertigo and I could also add a little of feuds theory into it.

This part of the research at first I thought that this was a good idea as it was really relevant to the research I was conducting. But then after it began to get a bit difficult as this was drifting off the likes of film and into psychology so, just when I thought that my third week was going well , everything had to go tumbling down. But I added an entry of psychoanalysis, linking it with both Freud’s and Hitchcock’s idea of identity & illusion. Looking also at the use of power of men & woman in film as in this film shows how gender roles switch and this opened doors into my researching and development process. After this I began looking at the 50’s film in America and found really useful information from websites books. During this day I spent my free day on Wednesday in the University Library looking up research, this year of the 50’s was the beginning of the great recession of the 50’s, in which the world was in crisis, I looked in to if Vertigo was affected by this and if Hitchcock’s funding was also effected when making his film. During this research of American film industry in the 50’s open a door to post war Film Noir in which I looked at more books of post war America & post-modernism. Also how this clarified my question that Hitchcock’s Target audience was mainly a woman audience as seen as sexualized female roles targeted and were influenced by working wartime woman. Female sexuality in the 50’s were also used to target a viewing audience.

Study Diary Entry Week 4: Final Week (Conclusion)

Week 4 of my researching, as I was near to an end of researching this few last entries had to be really interesting and relevant to my development process, I looked at Narcissm, this was also a difficult part into my researching has it was something that I never learnt and at first I though that it would be interesting if I did some research about something that I didn’t understand, but then this kind of backfired as I wrote a bit in an entry but the quotes I was finding was interesting and useful. But the whole Narcissm concept wasn’t entering my head. I managed to eventually write a bit about Narcissm but the confidence of whether it was right or not wasn’t there.

After researching Narcissm I moved on to researching about the film industry especially the amercian film industry and especially in the 50’s I looked at how the short recession that occurred could of possibly affected Hitchcock’s production work and also began looking out of the film industry and highlight certain points that occurred during the 50’s and also occasionally dropping a we vertigo leads. I also looked at how paramount pictures started out and its competition during those years in which this research took me a long night as I took out a large amount of books on 50’s film and Hollywood system. To start concluding my Blog I wanted to finish it off with some main points in which eventually led me to go the path of psychoanalysis, in which I looked at the connections between christian metz, Baudry and Hitchcock them selves and discussed there different views in different theories that they had on mainly feminism, male gaze, and voyeurism. During my day of theorists research I saw that I was being a little sexist as I was comparing a lot of male theorists but not enough woman theorist, so I came across Laura Mulvey In which she had really interesting points of view in feminism and Voyeurism. During this whole research process its been a daring and enjoyable experience and really has boosted my knowledge at times I did feel like I would of liked a bit of more time as 4 weeks does sound a lot but to do extensive research probably more would have been useful.

My Bibliography on Vertigo Research Sources

Bibliographydjavansilva

click Above Link For My Bibliography (sources).

My Research Findings To the Vertigo Film Clip (Hitchcock 1958)

Research Findings:

Looking back at my research period, I’ve found some very interesting points and some not so interesting points, to which left me at times in circles. I’ve looked into the psychological aspect of things in Hitchcock’s films, but what I found interesting was that his ideas to not concentrate on a male audience but also mainly concentrate on a female audience in which Hitchcock tries to focus in his main films on a female target audience. Its quite strange for a Director / Auteur to not only concentrate on a niche audience but also just to concentrate on a single gender of the audience, in an interview on Youtube.com in which shows Hitchcock being interviewed on BBC 1 (Monitor), as he states that he’s intentions were to look mainly at a female target audience as because during the 50’s around 80% of woman would go to the cinema. But by this research development I found some quite interesting arguments as to say that Hitchcock had a sexist approach to his movie making when shooting female actress’s as he would say that “There’s not enough violence shown on woman” in which again I find interesting.

As because Hitchcock tries in most of his films is always show a woman either being attacked or seen as a dangerous character, (femme Fatale) He use’s woman to kind of set you into a trance and inflict pain and misery into you as for example in vertigo (Madeline does to Scotty).

Looking at the Film Noir aspect of it I found interesting theories as too in film noir we see it as a black & White film, in which the protagonist playing a detective usually always gets his girl at the end of the film, but it shows it totally different in vertigo as to show your unconventional thriller in which the protagonist is inflicted with misery and pain to which he tries to recover by this in imagining that Madeline is still alive in someone else, to which he’s voyeuristic approach to things start to increase as before when he was a P.I he would have to tail Madeline for a job but he as if becomes obsessive with Madeline and follows her nearly everywhere.

Also looking at the 50’s in general I looked at the 50’s film industry where I found information that a recession took place affecting a big part of America and during the church scene as you see it’s obvious that it was a screen image of a church. I wondered that if Hitchcock didn’t use a location setting to film the scene in as probably the visual of the scene would look more realistic rather than unrealistic in which I wondered if that was purposely made or just because insufficient funds prevented this from happening.

To conclude my research findings, what I have come up with is that Hitchcock in vertigo Use’s Psychoanalysis of identity and a voyeurism feel as to show how Scotty Kind of forces Madeline to love him. Hitchcock brings that stereotypical male dominance to kind of take over Madeline in which to the audience’s view we see that she commits suicide, Scotty has this kind of depressed stalker in him as he’s eagerness to get someone to love him forces his mind to psychologically collapse.

Hitchcock also use’s Freud’s theory to enter the character’s mind (Scotty) as we see his strange fantasy dreams and also the use of identity as to how someone can recreate someone else’s identity. I also saw that Hitchcock used voyeurism a lot to create that fetish ness of the character and to camouflage the voyeurism making Scotty as a P.I., to hide his real identity, and to create an lussion of an identity in madeline and Judy.

Thanks For reading , Hope You enjoyed My research on vertigo 🙂

I-Map, The Process of my Research (Vertigo)

Below is My I-Map, Showing my research Process of the analysis of Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hithcock

Click Here For My I-Map – (Djavan Silva I-map)

 

Below is an example of my I-Map incase the Above Link Does not Work.

Date Acessed 10/11/2009

 

07 Nov, Day 15: Laura Mulvey

Date Accessed 11/11/2009

 

Laura Mulvey Mini-Biography: Taken From http://mediarelations.concordia.ca/pressreleases/archives/2008/06/biography_laura_mulvey.php By Biography – Laura Mulvey

Professor, Film and Media Studies, University of London, Birkbeck College, Date Accessed 10/11/2009

“She came to prominence in the early 1970s as a film theorist, writing for periodicals such as Spare Rib and Seven Days. Much of her early critical work investigated questions of spectatorial identification and its relationship to the male gaze, and her writings, particularly the 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study.

Ms. Mulvey’s profound influence on the way in which we look at art, film, gender and national perspectives, has been inspirational to many—as have her pioneering cross-disciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. She has also had the courage and the rigour to revisit her own ideas critically”

————————————————————————————————————————————–

Mulvey distinguishes between two modes of looking for the film spectator, (voyeuristic and fetishistic), which she presents in Freudian terms as responses to male ‘castration anxiety’. Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze and Mulvey argues that this has associations with sadism ‘pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt – asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness’. Fetishistic looking, in contrast, involves ‘the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figures itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. This builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself. The erotic instinct is focused on the look alone’. Fetishistic looking, she suggests, leads to overvaluation of the female image and to the cult of the female movie star. Mulvey argues that the film spectator oscillates between these two forms of looking.

“Mulvey’s view of man as subject and woman as non-subject exerted a profound influence on critical debates, particularly feminist debates, of the following decade. At their worst, critical reading of specific texts applied Mulvey’s ideas about male and female subjectivity in a reductive and uncritical manner” (quote taken from “the sexual subject – a screen reader in sexuality – By Routledge – Published in 1999, Page 5, lines 18-22) in which links with Hitchcock’s theory of feminism as seeing woman as an object of desire rather than having a meaning , as life for example a woman is just another prop In the film which lures the Main character into total disillusions.

in another book called “Psychoanalysis and cinema” – the play of shadows – by Vicky Lebeau) Page 94-95, in which suggest that “ Why does the subject necessarily seek only pleasure and its fulfilment” – “the desire to have an unsatisfied desire, on the other hand , feminism has demonstrated the importance of extending the psychoanalytic frame of reference in film theory – imaginary, identification, disavowal, fetishism – back into psychoanalysis as well as broadening the range of psychoanalytic thinkers and texts brought to bear on film” lines – 31-34 (page 94) 1-8 (page 95)

by these quotes it helps me to justify that Hitchcock used Mulvey’s Feminist Theories on woman to create that Scotty’s forced love obsession is being forced onto Madeline and then after Judy who then replaces Madeline in vertigo.

06 Nov: Day 14 The Male Gaze.

The Male Gaze

In the film clip vertigo shows an extreme use of male gaze with Scotty as a Private investigator who follows Madeline everywhere, James Stewart tends to play a voyeur in nearly all of the films that he has stared for Hitchcock, (i.e. Rear Window etc).  Madeline is on the one
hand easily accessible, because she is passive and an object of the male gaze, on the other hand, she is completely inaccessible as a human being hence the Ghost Fatale from my past entry’s in the Blog.

In an Analysis of Vertigo, sublimation has to do with death, rather than with De-Sexualization as is more commonly assumed. Something is sublimated; as a consequence, the object starts to function as “the Thing” within the economy of the spectator-subject. Considering the abundance of subjective shots in Vertigo, the subject of the gaze is obviously Scotty. The object of his gaze is Madeline (Ghost Fatale), who will take the place of the sublimated Thing in this story in vertigo.

The human drives we have determine the way in which people generate their everyday relation to the world. Desire and the object of desire determine the subject’s view of the world. However, the relation of the subject to the object of desire is by nature unfulfilled. The object of desire can never be attained as it shows in vertigo of Scotty creating this unreal person in Madeline in which nothing will ever happen as what he desires is only a dream in his head. This fantasy is in fact the place of the Thing. The Thing is in fact the object of desire, but at the same time it is nothing, because it is nothing more than an impossible fantasy. In Vertigo, Madeline will occupy the place of the Thing in John’s perception of the world. She is his object-of-desire.

“The image of woman supplants the woman herself, where by her body is fragmented, desire shattered, and life explodes into a thousand pieces over the abstract space reigns phallic solitude and the self destruction of desire” “Film Noir and Spaces Of Modernity” – By Edward Dimendberg, “2004”, Lines: 11-15, Pages 145” I chose to add this quote because it kind of tells you a man’s weakness of sexual desire and to which Madeline is seen as the sexy object while Scotty is the sexual predator seeking it’s prey. Hitchcock shows that how desire can start and finish quickly in life. The Film Proposes one ideological strand of the film noir cycle as consisting in an incessant struggle between perceptual indifference and engaged cognition, forgetfulness and remembrance, in which at times in vertigo we can see that Hitchcock tends to film behind his subjects to convey that point of view not of any character but the camera as a kind of third person narrative in which creates an effect of tension throughout the chosen sequence and also the whole film. “To Signify it’s missing owner as the sale person who can prove a man innocent of murder, the seer but here also the object of surveillance, the seem” (Page 31, Lines 22,24) – “Film Noir and Spaces of modernity” – By Edward Dimendberg, 2004).

Looking at Vertigo in a curious way Kim Novak and James Stewart start of as strangers as its Scotty who’s following Madeline but it shows the distance between their embrace during the church scene and then the other encounter between Madeline and the other person in which betrays Scotty in thinking that Madeline had really come back from the dead. Hitchcock also invokes the male gaze at an attractive Kim Novak.

ggThe Male GazeIn the film clip vertigo shows an extreme use of male gaze with Scotty as a Private investigator who follows Madeline everywhere, “James Stewart” tends to play a voyeur in nearly all of the films that he has stared for Hitchcock, (i.e. Rear Window etc).  Madeline is on the one
hand easily accessible, because she is passive and an object of the male gaze, on the other hand, she is completely inaccessible as a human being hence the Ghost Fatale from my past entry’s in the Blog.In an Analysis of Vertigo, sublimation has to do with death, rather than with De-Sexualization as is more commonly assumed. Something is sublimated; as a consequence, the object starts to function as “the Thing” within the economy of the spectator-subject. Considering the abundance of subjective shots in Vertigo, the subject of the gaze is obviously Scotty. The object of his gaze is Madeline (Ghost Fatale), who will take the place of the sublimated Thing in this story in vertigo. The human drives we have determine the way in which people generate their everyday relation to the world. Desire and the object of desire determine the subject’s view of the world. However, the relation of the subject to the object of desire is by nature unfulfilled. The object of desire can never be attained as it shows in vertigo of Scotty creating this unreal person in Madeline in which nothing will ever happen as what he desires is only a dream in his head. This fantasy is in fact the place of the Thing. The Thing is in fact the object of desire, but at the same time it is nothing, because it is nothing more than an impossible fantasy. In Vertigo, Madeline will occupy the place of the Thing in John’s perception of the world. She is his object-of-desire.

05 Nov: Day: 13, Todorovs Theory on Vertigo (Vladimir Propp)

Todorov and Vertigo: (Narrative structure)

Tzvetan Todorov Suggested that there are five stages to a narrative.

• Equilibrium
• A disruption of this equilibrium by an event
• A realisation that a disruption has happened
• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
• A restoration of equilibrium – which may be a new equilibrium

Todorov states that a story belongs to the genre of the fantastic if the story manages to raise doubt in both the characters and the reader, or in the mind of the reader alone. In any case, the reader has to be challenged to doubt the true nature of the events he is reading about. Is what is happening real or just an illusion. Todorov goes even further when he analyses the doubt evoked by a fantastic story. What happens to a reader and character who find out that he or she was dealing with an event that was merely uncanny. According to Todorov the transition from the fantastic to the uncanny is always accompanied by the realisation that one was suffering from distorted sight. Either one experienced a mirage, an illusion, a fit of madness or an illness, or one was simply tricked by others. This last solution seems also to be the answer to John’s problem in Vertigo

His blindness can be illustrated by many of the things concerning Madeline’s presentation as a work of art and, more importantly, by the fact that from the very beginning, the audience’s perspective has mostly been limited to John’s perspective. John’s gaze proves to be so tyrannical that he brings out the Madeline in Judy, which will lead to her death.

While he thought he was the agent in this story, he now comprehends that he was only a passive pawn in someone else’s game. This is an insult to his identity as a male. An identity he associates with freedom and power, a small chess piece of the game being controlled as a puppet.

It was John’s gaze that made him believe in an ideal Woman in the first place, but now that same gaze confronts him with the hollowness of this illusion. He is confronted with the shortcoming of his own gaze. This disillusionment leaves no room for Judy who in the guise of Madeline jumps off the bell tower as unmasked Nothingness. In John’s blindness and in the possible tyranny of someone’s gaze over another person we encounter the truly uncanny moment of Vertigo.

Vladimir Propp and Vertigo

When Looking at Vladimir Prop’s Theory we see a total contrast to Hitchcock’s Films as Vladimir Propp’s theory is based on the study of 32 basic categories of action (i.e. Hero ,Villain, donor, false Hero etc. Hitchcock in my opinion decided to do the total contrast as to make Scotty seem as the false hero in which someone who tempts the hero away from the quest. But as that was Propp’s theory Hitchcock didn’t include that because, again in my opinion he wanted Scotty to carry all the workload as to which make the audience think and cast doubts on whether he was the protagonist/antagonist or humorously the damsel in distress.

04 Nov: Day 12, Recession in the 50’s

Recession in the 50’s:

The Early 50s recession, also known as the Recession of 1953, was mainly brought about because of the post Korean War financial bungles that often accompany the end of any war. False highs, this time in the form of a large inflationary period, came crashing down as the war came to a close and more funds were put into national security than were ever before.

Another factor in the Early 50s recession was that in 1952, the Federal Reserve changed its policy. They reformed the monetary policy to be more restrictive, and in doing so, hoped that it would control inflation.

With further straining of the post-war economic environment, a small collapse was in order. The modern economic cycle will need to relieve pressure once in a while, and the system relieves the pressure with these “recessions” as we call them. They happen every so often, and part of the Federal responsibility is to try to make it as smooth as possible.

As I stated in my previous entry of recession effecting the American film industry in the 1950’s, I wanted to look at the recession as a whole and the cause for this so could small recession of the 50’s. The recession in the 50’s as we all know caused High unemployment rates and failing businesses. It was mostly due to the tightened monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.

The 1950’s recession hit economically disadvantaged countries hardest, because it involved a decline in the purchases of raw materials, both agricultural and mineral, by developed nations. The terms of trade of the underdeveloped countries was adversely affected. In Europe no less than in the United States there was a fairly sharp decline in investment in fixed capital. In the United States, unemployment rose. Unemployment in Detroit stood at a high. the recession in Europe reduced European purchases of American raw materials. And so the balance-of-payments deficit in the United States sharply increased. In Europe, however, a surplus in their balance of payments developed. In the 1950’s Recession in America it was seen that one industry that was forgotten was the housing industry In which the cost’s to live were to much that it was a major issue, Americans endured steeply rising home and apartment prices. Fortune magazine dubbed the housing industry “the industry that capitalism forgot.” – http://nreionline.com/mag/real_estate_postwar_america_hitches/ Quote found on Lines 58 -60 by  Sep 30, 1999 12:00 PM, Tyson Freeman, in which explains that during the recession in the 50’s the government was concentrating so much on dealing with the post-war and other issues that they completely forgot about housing issues in the USA.

Another view that happened in the 50’s was that woman became more important in a way and that’s exactly what we see in Hitchcock’s Vertigo as a woman even though just an illusion to Scotty can control and manipulate someone’s mind for example another quote, on http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20030124ar04p1.htm , by Richard E. Schumann
Bureau of Labor Statistics, This article was originally printed in the Fall 2001 issue of Compensation and Working Conditions. Originally Posted: January 30, 2003, states that “women became a more important factor in the workforce than during the postwar years. Women represented about 29 percent of individuals in the labor force in 1950 but had grown to more than 36 percent by 1969” By this shows that woman began to be a powerful iconic figure in the work industry in which most definitely was in mind of Alfred Hitchcock’s view against woman but with that sexist view still in his mind.

03 Nov, Day 11: American Film Industry in the 50’s (The Hollywood System)

American Film Industry In the 50’s

Date Accessed 11/11/2009 (http://logos.ctufilms.com/cpg/albums/hires/paramount-vertigo.JPG)

Vertigo was funded by Paramount Pictures and Hitchcock’s company “Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions which was a US Film company. America has since the 50’s onwards dominated cinema in all possible ways we tend to ask the question will British Cinema Domination ever happen. Film Distribution in the 50’s Various wide-screen processes attracted audiences and monopolized the big-screen market for most of the 1950s. There were numerous optical techniques that widened the theatrical screen with effects that couldn’t be duplicated on the TV screen.

The rise of television as the major source of home entertainment must have been a significant factor but it is too easy to lay the total blame at the door of television. The very nature of the films on offer had changed from the wholesome family entertainment to a greater emphasis on sex and violence. By the 50’s the vast majority of cinemas were parts of the two major circuits. As a result, the smaller and independent cinemas found it increasingly more difficult to compete and get the latest film releases and so many of them began to close. The large number of circuit cinemas meant that the circuits themselves began to consider rationalisation and reduction of their assets i.e. the cinemas. There were just too many. Cinema in the 50’s was largely dominated by America at the time and still the present day America are a wealthy country and Britain was still recovering from World War 2.

The film vertigo was a commercial failure, but it has come to be viewed by many as one of Hitchcock’s masterpieces. Hitchcock followed Vertigo with three very different films, which were all massive commercial successes. All are also recognised as among his very best films: North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963). To understand why Vertigo wasn’t a commercial success is fascinating as during the 50’s American cinema it was during the Post-war Recession, cinemas were being affected and hit hard as they would see less consumers coming to there cinemas, Supposedly the financial crisis affected the distribution of the film vertigo resulting in cinemas not being able to screen the movie itself. Film studios in the 50’s were spending big extremely big nearly the same budget that peter Jackson had for creating “Lord of the rings trilogy” for example In a website http://books.google.com/books?id=cBAzwjy1gLYC&pg=PA105&dq=post+war+american+cinema#v=onepage&q=&f=false, sub heading, “the post war recession” lines 1-5” Showing a book called “American Independent Cinema: an introduction” “states that profits soared to a record $122 million going up 85% from $66million in 1945” this quote shows that it was the last time that profits climbed for a very long time.

This was the downfall in cinema as this came with a setback and created a period of recession. As we state now in the 21^st century recessions things are bad looking back then things were worse and cinema was so important during the 50’s as it was seen as making easy money for a low price. In 1947 profits fell 27% and onwards to 1949 it dropped $37million. Which shows that the gross revenues from all cinemas back then were in difficulty during the small recession in the 50’s. this was caused by significant increase in production cost’s in which you can see in the film clip in vertigo of the church scene where it was actually filmed indoors with like a sort of photographic image of a church in the back ground, was this the case of insufficient funds that Hitchcock had at his disposal during the filming of vertigo.

The drop in theatre attendance was the likely cause in Vertigo not being successful in commercial sense of it and ensuing that recession caught the film industry by a complete surprise as in a link it quotes that http://books.google.com/books?id=cBAzwjy1gLYC&pg=PA105&dq=post+war+american+cinema#v=onepage&q=&f=false from a book called “American independent cinema: an introduction” Line 6,7 & 8” that “as it invalidated all positive projections by industry analysts who were arguing that the immediate future of the film industry was secure because returning soldiers could only boost attendances further; increases in salaries and disposable income and decreases in working hours would drive more people to  the theatres” Looking at this quote they thought that this would happen and that profits would be rising drastically but in other world NO, the reality proved very different ex-soldiers chose to go into adult education which minimized any leisure time marriages and birth rates increased in huge numbers. Also an issue of a decrease in attendance was that people were moving to the suburbs rather than the inner-city and this did not make Americans visit theatres more often. Having lost there theatres due to costs, and therefore no longer being guaranteed exhibition for their films. in order for studios to maintain an operational release schedule as shows in vertigo of how the quality of the trailer showed a complete contrast compared to the actual film.

Date Accessed 11/11/2009

Universal, Columbia, Paramount, Warner Bros, M-G-M, 20th Century-Fox and RKO Radio,agreed with the Justice Department on the details of selling the theater holdings. The theater chains were sold, freeing a market that for decades had been run as separate monopolies, each studio distributing its own films to its own theaters. The sales had the effect of reducing the number of films produced by the studios.

This has opened up new Doors in asking my questions on how Hitchcock coped in shooting and creating Vertigo during the short recession of the late 40’s going onto the 50’s and also Was Hitchcock given a lower budget to work with, and did this affect the pre & Post production in making the film vertigo, in the next entry i’ll be looking further into the 50’s Recession that affected America.

“American films have become increasingly divided into two categories: blockbusters and independent films. Studios rely on a handful of extremely expensive releases every year in order to remain profitable. Such blockbusters emphasize spectacle, star power, and high production value, all of which entail an enormous budget. Blockbusters typically rely upon star power and massive advertising to attract a huge audience. A successful blockbuster will attract an audience large enough to offset production costs and reap considerable profits. Such productions carry a substantial risk of failure, and most studios release blockbusters that both over- and under-perform in a year”.  Quote taken from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hollywood , By newworldencyclopedia, under sub-heading “Blockbusters – Lines 2-4. Gives an example on how films have change since the 50’s. This also has a sense that during the making Hitchcock Used the star status of Kim Novak and James Stewart to boost there profits. Vertigo was seen as Unapare film to Hitchcock’s previous films of Psycho and Birds etc. that’s why during his interviews you don’t really see him talking about vertigo very much as if he was kind of ashamed in making it although back then in the 50’s vertigo was seen as a waist to the present day vertigo is seen as a complete masterpiece by Hitchcock. This thought reminds me about Ridley Scott’s Film of “Blade runner” as not a lot of people at first enjoyed it but when Ridley Scott Released the directors cut it was seen as a masterpiece. So there’s a lot of question’s there on how harsh critics can be especially if made but the most known directors of our time.

Continuing with Institutions and differences between “commercial success and critic success”, an example of this in which managed to achieve higher than blade runner and vertigo ever did is British Movie “Slum dog Millionaire” – Dir Danny Boyle, in which although it wasn’t exactly his debut but he managed to win 8 Oscars, these days the matter of social realism as people now want to be able to watch social realist films in which as if the audience really enjoy watching a bleak and Distopian future (blade runner) but also include real life issues of poverty etc, in which Danny Boyle managed to portray brilliantly in Slum-dog millionaire.