Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [172]
“Pure cinema,” someone said.
“Thank you.” He paused the montage on a black-and-white image: a taxi, filmed from behind, that had been swerving down a London street, and through two rear porthole windows the heads of the driver and passenger were visible.
“Take this shot here, from the The Lodger. Hitch’s English period, released 1927. A suspicious man moves into a rooming house. Pretty girl lives there with her family. Boyfriend’s a detective. Lodger might or might not be the serial killer who’s been murdering women all over London. He’s just killed again, so the city’s on high alert. And to show that everyone’s on the lookout, Hitch has this cab driving down a London street … ”
Otto hit play. The car swerved back and forth, the passengers leaning accordingly.
“Note that the two heads in the windows look like a pair of eyes looking back and forth, back and forth.”
They did, though Otto rewound and let the class consider the image again. “Of course my favorite example of pure cinema comes from a silent where the hero’s on a sea voyage. He gets drunk one night during a terrible storm, the boat pitching and rocking, and Hitch cuts to the deck, to passengers getting slammed left to right, right to left. And when his drunken hero appears, what happens? He walks the deck in a completely straight line.”
The class laughed.
“Let’s see. This is introduction day. What else do you need to know? I’ve taught this class so many times I don’t prepare anymore. Isn’t that sad?” Otto stuck a finger in the air. “Ah. Hitch was also a big-time practical joker. Loved to play jokes on his actors and his crew, could be a sadistic bahstahd. My favorite: he makes a bet with one of his cameramen that the man can’t spend the night alone on the soundstage, that he’d be too scared to make it till morning. Cameraman takes the bait. Hitch says, ‘All right, but to make sure you don’t leave, I’m going to handcuff you to this scaffolding here.’ The cameraman plays along. ‘But because I’m a good chap,’ Hitch says, ‘I’ll give you a flask of whiskey so you can calm your nerves when the spirits of darkness appear.’ The cameraman says he won’t need any because he doesn’t believe in ghosts. ‘You will,’ Hitch says, then locks him up, and the crew leaves for the evening. When they come back the next morning, the man’s shivering and sobbing and covered in his own feces—Hitch having added a laxative to the bourbon. ‘The spirits scared him shitless!’ he proclaims.”
A ripple ran through the class as students looked at one another. Alice again turned toward David. He could feel his mouth hanging open like an idiot’s.
“Of course, if Hitch had been making a movie of his little practical joke,” Otto said, “he’d have injected it with suspense. That was his favorite weapon. The Master of Suspense, people called him. No director until Hitch and even afterward, except maybe De Palma, played with the audience so sadistically. Can someone define suspense for me?”
Students looked around once more, and a girl to David’s right raised her hand. “It’s when you’re waiting for something to happen,” she said. “Waiting anxiously.”
“You the character or you the viewer?”
“The viewer.”
“And why are you anxious?” Otto asked.
“Because,” she said, “the thing that’s going to happen is … bad.”
“Okay, but to whom?”
“The character.”
“Agreed. But why are you anxious?”
“Because … ” she said. “Because you can’t do anything about it.”
“Why can’t the actors?”
“Well … ” She thought for a moment. “Because they don’t know.”
“Exactly,” Otto said. “They don’t know, but you do. And that’s how Hitch created suspense. It