Date of Award
1988
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Graduate School
First Advisor
Louis H. Leiter
First Committee Member
Diane M. Borden
Second Committee Member
Robert T. Knighton
Abstract
The implication of space in film is worth exploring in detail particularly with regard to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, since he is, perhaps more than any other filmmaker, concerned with the dynamics of proximity. Possibly because of his experience as a set designer on Graham Cutt’s silent films Woman to Woman (1922), The White Shadow (1923), The Passionate Adventure (1924), The Blackguard, and The Prude’s Fall (both 1925), Hitchcock very early in his career was faced with the task of expressing himself - without words - through setting, set shape, and room size. In Francois Truffaut's book, Hitchcock, the Master relates an important (since he remembers his) childhood episode in which his father arranged for the chief of police to lock him in a jail cell for five or ten minutes, admonishing that, “This is what we do to naughty boys.” Consequently, we see in Hitchcock’s films (which were all visually designed by him in the storyboard process) a persuasive aura of claustrophobia which involves a certain amount of connotes guilt and fear. As I intend to explain, this claustrophobia has far-reaching implications in five hermeneutic contexts, proving to be an important key to his moral-aesthetic universe.
Pages
40
Recommended Citation
Peeler, Scott Edward. (1988). The dynamics of proximity : Hitchcock's cinema of claustrophobia. University of the Pacific, Thesis. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/2151
Included in
Film Production Commons, History Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Visual Studies Commons
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