Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious

Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious is a film rich with themes of deception and suspicion, between the three main character Alicia, Devlin and Alex. Two key techniques in film are known as cross-cutting and point of view editing. Each of these techniques are used throughout the film as part of the continuity system to advance the plot of the film and establish each character's personality. Both types of editing help to enhance the themes of deception between Alicia and Alex, as well as the suspicion that Alex has about Alicia and Devlin. Cross-cutting is the technique used to cut between two or more actions, more than one time in order to imply coinciding actions or actions that are meant to be compared and contrasted. As for point of view editing

His new wife, Alicia is in love with Devlin, but is working on spy intel to uncover secrets from Alex. Alex is not suspicious of Alicia being a spy until the end of the film, but rather he is highly concerned that his wife is in love with the other man, Devlin. In order to emphasis this anxiety, Hitchcock uses specific continuity editing techniques at certain moments in time, such as the moment when Alex finds out that Alicia and Devlin have snuck off to kiss in his wine cellar. In order to emphasis this discovery Hitchcock uses cross-cutting between Alex walking down into the cellar and Alicia and Devlin kissing downstairs. Devlin gives Alicia specific instructions of what they should do in order to make Devlin look like the bad guy, to save Alicia. While this interaction is going on, the scene cross-cuts to Alex’s point of view, where the viewer can see through his eyes, when he finds Alicia and Devlin passionately kissing. In Shot 4, the camera then cuts back to a reaction shot, as we find Alex extremely embarrassed, excusing his butler to go back to the party that is occurring upstairs. Reaction shot is used to highlight emotion. By cutting back to Alex’s reaction to Alicia and Devlin kissing, we can see his shock and embarrassment, as he catches his wife cheating on

One instance is from Alex’s point of view and the other is from Alicia and Devlin’s point of view inside the wine cellar. The first is Alex realizing that Alicia and Devlin are kissing in order to show that he was right about his suspicion and had all the reason to be jealous. The second is a straight-on angle of Alex approaching Devlin and Alicia. This is from Devlin’s point of view from the wine cellar. The function of this point of view shot is for Devlin to acknowledge Alex and then be able to tell Alicia that Alex is coming. From here, Devlin gives Alicia her instructions on how to approach what is going to happen when Alex walks in. The 10th Shot is a medium close up, as Alex walks into the cellar after opening the door on the two. This shot is longer than all the others. The reasoning for the longer shot is to put emphasis on the fact that Alicia and Devlin has just been caught, not only kissing, but also in the wine-cellar, which will later lead Alex to become even more suspicious of the two and rethink Alicia’s motives. At this moment in the film, Alex realizes that Alicia has not only been cheating on him, but also that he is married to a