Alfred Hitchcock movies have a definite feel. They are never so scary that you're horrified at the end, and they're rarely so in your face that you're jumping around in your seat. BUT, they are very definitely eerie and "off”. In North by Northwest, dark comedy contributes greatly to this “off” feel. In the movie, Thornhill is constantly being pursued. He is running for his life at every turn. This could easily make for a one-note suspense movie, where the satisfaction in viewing comes from consistent special effects – fight scenes, chase scenes, cliffhangers – and from the constant question and doubt of whether the hero is going to escape at the end. But in North by Northwest, the suspense and thrill are never the star; they're the flavor of the film, but not the final word. Hitchcock puts his stamp on the movie and gives it his signature dark, dark humor. When things are most tense, you can expect a joke. Like when Thornhill is trapped in an elevator with the villains and it's gotten to the the point where it seems like no one believes Thornhill and that he's all on his own, and THEN Thornhill's mother, also in the elevator, cracks “ you gentlemen aren't really trying to kill my son are you?” It's the presence of Thornhill's mother throughout several scenes that transforms their feel. Instead of being on the edge of your seat, you just feel uncomfortable.
The shot composition / cinematography in North by Northwest is all over the place. There are shots where we're looking down at the characters from above and shots where we're looking up at the characters from the floor. There are beautiful repetitions of shots where we see a similar shot replayed, but with different characters. Example: at the beginning of the famous crop-dusting scene, we see Thornhill and a man on a dusty road near a cornfield – they're on either edge of the frame with the wide road between them; later in the movie, this same shot is repeated with Thornhill and Kendall on either edge of the frame and with a forest of trees between them. And there are some great crane / dolly shots where the camera smoothly scans the action and takes in a wide spectrum of characters and space (like when we enter the auction hall scene). There's also a lot of playing around with the camera: we see an iris shot when Thornhill looks in a telescope viewfinder and a fist-eye's view when Thornhill's getting punched. And there's an elegant editing of the opening titles, where they appear lined up with the glass panes of a skyscraper. So to make a long, long nerdy story short = this movie's a lot of fun to look at.
While watching North by Northwest, I noticed scenes where the music and the action on screen are just so well in tune that they seem more like complete music videos than parts of a greater film. One of these scenes happens when Thornhill is driving drunk in a car, swerving dangerously close to the side of the road and to the edge of a cliff. The enemy agents had previously captured him, got him very very drunk and were attempting to kill him. Thornhill managed to wrest control of the car and is making a sloppy getaway attempt. Throughout this scene, the music is dramatic and intense and really elevates the action. This scene is allowed to play out for a decent amount of time, unrushed, which kind of lulls you into appreciating how the music and video relate to each other. The music and action cue up to dramatic effect again, in the final scene where Thornhill and Kendall attempt to flee the enemy agents down the face of Mt. Rushmore. Here, the music is turned up to the max and is allowed to play out over a lengthy scene where we watch the characters stumble slowly down a cliff. We can guess at the outcome (they'll get away), so the rather long length of the scene isn't for exposition, it's to let us take in the iconic setting and the raucous musical score.
The flipside of this music/action synchrony is seen in the famous crop-duster scene, where Thornhill runs for his life from a dive bombing crop duster. For the length of this scene, there is no music. It's probably the most dramatic few moments in the film. After it's clear that the plane is going for Thornhill, the action becomes heart-pounding because we can clearly hear Thornhill struggling for breath as he runs and hits the dirt for cover. The music doesn't need to tag team with the action here - the greater dramatic effect comes from silence. (***don't believe me? check out this clip with music added onto the scene - it feels so wrong!)
Music interacts with the video in a different way in the scene where Thornhill has been mistaken as a murderer inside of a United Nations building. Thornhill is trying to talk to someone at the General Assembly building in order to get to the bottom of the mistaken identity mess. When he approaches the man he thinks can help him, someone off-screen throws a knife in the man's back. Thornhill is shocked and tries to take the knife out. Bystanders see this and start shouting, pointing and taking pictures, thinking that Thornhill's the killer. Realizing that there's no time to explain, Thornhill tries to make a run for it. Here, There's a beautiful / very artificial looking shot taken from the top of the UN building, looking down at Thornhill running out onto the street (it's some kind of model set used for this shot). And the music that plays during this quick shot feels like a dramatic interlude in the action – like the kind of music you might hear between brief set changes in a play.
And now some odds and ends. Martin Landau is intense in his role as the enemy henchman, Leonard. Landau's piercing eyes really drive home the hostile atmosphere that envelopes Thornhill. Some of the dated elements in the film: when the characters are driving around, it's an obvious green screen behind them and not the actual “street”. When Thornhill and Kendall get romantic in their train car and start to kiss it gets pretty awkward for the modern day viewer as the characters don't actually lock lips at any point - they kind of rub against each other and kiss around each other's mouths. This feels very stunted and controlled and I'm guessing that's because it was very definitely controlled – there was most likely no full-on french kissing allowed on screen in the US at this point. Hitchcock makes an appearance in the movie, as he does in many (all?) of his movies. At the beginning, you can see Hitchcock just barely miss a bus and stand there on the sidewalk for a second. And the ending to this movie is so wildly absurd, it's hilarious and kind of distracting – it makes you say “what?”. I don't want to give it away for anyone but I'll just say that there's a huge dramatic buildup in the Mt. Rushmore scene – it plays out slowly and you're really locked into that scene for quite a while. And then...Bam! The movie's over. One cut, a few seconds of action, a throw away line, and roll credits. Now, to me at least, this ending plays very awkward and funny. Maybe that was intended?
North by Northwest = a great watch for anyone who enjoys movies. An even greater watch for Hitchcock fans / film buffs. Go check it out.
