Influences of Hitchcock in recent thrillers (1 Viewer)

[David Brashear]

I need to write a paper about the thematic and formal influences of Hitchcock in two suspense thrillers released between the period of January 2002 to November 2002. The only movie I can think of off the top of my head is Insomnia. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I was thinking about Minority Report, but that's not on dvd yet and would be hard to carefully analyze.

 

[Al B. C]

"Panic Room" comes to mind.

 

[Guy_K]

N. Night Shyamalan's Signs is very hitchcock influenced. I think you should go with Signs and Panic Room.

 

[Michael Reuben]

The Ring (which includes a direct reference to Rear Window).
The French film Read My Lips (probably difficult to do, since it's not yet on DVD but has left theaters).
Unfaithful owes a great deal to Hitchcock, IMO.
Murder by Numbers, though not a good film, is in some ways a remake of Hitchcock's Rope.
And I can almost guarantee that Femme Fatale (opening this weekend) will be full of Hitchcock references.
M.

 

[David Brashear]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm leaning towards Insomnia and Murder by Numbers because they are both on dvd.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Try Femme Fatale. Brian De Palma's a big fan of Hitchcock, and you'll get to see Jesse's Girl.

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

If you're going with what's on DVD, definitely consider Panic Room. That's the first thing that popped into my head before entering this thread.

 

[TheLongshot]

An oddball choice here, but the animated film "Perfect Blue" is very Hitchcockian...

Jason

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Just saw this one. It's Vertigo in a blender.
If you're looking for "Hitchcock - influenced" look no further than Brian De Palma. Particularly Body Double and Dressed to Kill.

 

[Matt Gordon]

If you want to see more "obvious" Hitchcock influence, check out Arlington Road.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Arlington Road

He can't use those, because they weren't released in 2002.

M.

 

[JonZ]

Suprised no one mentioned "The Man Who Wasnt There". A great movie.

My other choice,like Al,would be "Panic Room".

Edit:Just thought of "Bound". A reallyawesome movie.Id put this ahead of Panic Room

 

[Michael Reuben]

"Bound".

Both released before 2002, so not available as options.

M.

 

[JonZ]

Like Scott, I didnt notice the 2002 criteria.
You may be able to get away with The Man Who Wasnt There.It was released in Oct 2001 in NY and LA,but went "wide" slowly. I didnt see it until Feb2002.

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

Watch the opening titles to "Panic Room" and then compare them to those of "North by Northwest". IMHO, the opening titles for "Panic Room" were the best I've seen in quite some time. Very cool.

 

[Richard_D_Ramirez]

It's interesting that you chose Insomnia as one of your films to compare, since I thought it was more film noir than Hitchcockian. I would recommend Panic Room and Signs (although Signs is not out on DVD yet and may be difficult to catch in theaters). Is Femme Fatale coming out tomorrow?
8^B

 

[Damin J Toell]

Watch the opening titles to "Panic Room" and then compare them to those of "North by Northwest".

Similarly, special attention should be paid the final shot of Panic Room in comparison to Vertigo.
DJ

 

[Eric Stewart]

It depends on whether you agree with me that Hitchcock is basically all about disguised sexual guilt. Take To Catch a Thief, just out on DVD. In one scene, Grace Kelly tells Cary Grant that she can't believe his doesn't want to "hold them." Does she mean by "them," the viewer wonders, her baubles (the jewels she is wearing around her neck) or her boobs. Grant's intent gaze may be interpreted as directed at either one of them or both.

A movie like Signs may be about guilt, but not sexual guilt. On the other hand, anything by De Palma probably is about sexual guilt (though I haven't seen Femme Fatale). The difference is that De Palma does not typically offer the audience "plausible deniability" about knowing what's really going on, as Hitchcock did.

Arguably, Hitchcock's traditional Catholic upbringing during the early part of the last century made all guilt sexual and all sex "guilt-full" for him. I find it interesting that he was self-reportedly celibate both within and outside his marriage to his beloved Alma Reville Hitchcock for several decades.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Well you can fit Signs and Panic Room in more closely from a formal influence than a thematic one for sure.
Going with DePalma is like shooting fish in a barrel though.
I would agree with the titles of Panic Room following in the footsteps of Hitchcock, though really that was not a Hitch thing but rather a Saul Bass thing (just see the very non-Hitch West Side Story to confirm this ). Much of the rest of Panic Room owes as much to Kubrick as anyone (most notably the direct reference to "The Killing" at the end). Even the room crossing tracking shots and floor to floor tracking fall much closer to Kubrick.
The best thing to look for IMO is the "wrong man" thriller type of film or spy oriented thrillers, rather than horror. Hitch really wasn't really the horror guy that is sometimes attributed to him. Murder/murder chase thrillers, yes. But few of his films beyond The Birds and Pyscho were horror. He did many more spy thrillers.
In that regard you have a very fine example in The Bourne Identity as it has the necessary plot lines - wrong (innocent) man on the run, romantic interest helps him escape. Look at something like 39 Steps for your comparison, or NxNW, Saboteur, etc. Minority Report falls into this realm, as does the remake of a film that was already a Hitch derivitive, The Truth about Charlie (remake of Charade, which even starred Cary Grant).
Also look for films that tell the audience about the danger before the character knows about it.
If you go with Signs I suppose I would focus on the IMPLICATION of violence/danger versus explicit depiction. This is one of the reasons many films get credited with being Hitchcockian anymore. He apparently now represents the idea of implication, though that's obviously not really a "Hitch" thing versus any other directors of his era.
Sexual overtones (and denied sexuality) are a much stronger theme (as mentioned in an earlier post). Doesn't seem like we've had many films like that this year.

 

[David Brashear]

Wow, there are a lot of great suggestions. The movies have to be from this year though. Insomnia had ambiguous characters and blackmail, which reminded me of many of the Hitchcock movies I've seen. I hadn't thought of The Bourne Identity, but that does share the wrong man/picaro structure present in many Hitch films.