North By Northwest Film Techniques

Falon Ortega
Robert Reynolds
Cinema 101
22 November 2015
North by Northwest Essay

In North by Northwest, the main character Roger Thornhill is mistaken to be a spy named George Kaplan by the villainous Phillip Vandamm and his henchmen. When no one believes him about his own kidnapping, not even his mother, Thornhill flees persecution from his pursuers as he seeks the real Kaplan. Along the way, he unknowingly meets the spy the false Kaplan identity was a cover for, the secondary protagonist and his love interest, Eve Kendall. North by Northwest is a visually stunning and thrilling action film of the classic Hollywood film narrative, with romance and injustice. It uses cinematography and film techniques such as misé en-scene, shot duration,

The largeness of the environment and the onscreen space is carefully scaled in order to demonstrate not only the size of his surroundings but the depth of the situation he is in, and how out of reach of help he is. We see nothing but a shoddily built fence, a dirt road, and half dead corn fields, while Roger is in his fancy grey suit. The cars are old and specific to the time period the film is set in, the 1950’s. This mise-en-scéne gives accuracy to the time period and the “middle of nowhere” setting this scene is meant to

This is done through the use of natural, high-key lighting, which provides a stark contrast between Roger and his surroundings, as well as the plane and the vehicles and the surroundings, the plane being only opposition to him and the vehicles being his only saviors. The whole scene is lit this way, making it appear as natural around about 2pm in the afternoon, but also contributing to the flatness and emptiness and forces the audience to focus on Roger and the action. Because the environment is so barren, almost nothing casts a shadow, and though Roger does, because the camera is at waist-level, it isn’t visible; the nakedness of this settings shows how he has no cover or anywhere to run to for safety. In short, North by Northwest, is an iconic American film due to the incredible attention to detail of each shot of the movie thanks to the director Alfred Hitchcock. The crop duster scene, one of many notable sequences from this movie, uses: lighting, color, camera angles and distances, shot duration, continuity editing, and mise-en-scéne to provide suspense, desperation, and isolation to the character onscreen, and make the viewers feel the same offscreen. Works