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Editing in Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock, 1946
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Editing in Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock, 1946
In the film, a woman is asked to spy a number of Nazi men living in South America. The movie is built around the question how far she will woman will reach to ingratiate herself with her Nazi friends. Alicia Hubernman takes to men and drink after the conviction of her father who has a German background. He is convicted for the crime of treason against the United States. A government agent approaches her soon after and asks her to spy on a group of Nazi friend’s of her father’s whose main operations are based in Rio de Janiero in South America. A romance develops between her and the government agent Devlin, but soon it gets complicated because she starts to engage herself excessively in work. This paper will examine and analyze a minimum of ten shots derived from the movie to explore the editing techniques used in the movie. The shots will be derived from the last scene of the movie Notorious.
Hitchcock makes use of objects, motifs, shifting points of view shot styles and dark and light to help further the understanding of the relationships that exist among Alicia, Sebastian, Devlin and Mrs. Sebastian. A critical analysis of the film scenes from the first scene of poisoning to the final scene in the film indicate how the named techniques lead to an enhanced understanding of the motivations of the characters.
The most recognizable object in the final scenes of the movie is the poisoned cup of coffee. In the first scene of the final portion of the movie, Sebastian advices Alicia to take her cup of coffee, and Hitchcock zooms onto the coffee cup as Alicia takes a sip. In the scene before this one, Sebastian prepares the cup of coffee for Alicia and then sets it in front of her on a small table. In this scene, the producer not only zooms in to the cup of coffee but also enhances and heightens the sound it makes as it makes contact with the table. This scene is made in every possible shot and shows the audience not only the cup of coffee before Alicia sipped it, but also the empty cup of coffee after she has emptied it. Again, to make a point, Hitchcock only zooms in to the cup of coffee when the victim realizes what has happened. Because the coffee is poisoned, it is used as a metaphor for death, supported by the empty and full cup and the fact that the ‘poisoner’ pours the poisoned coffee for the victim.
Another essential shot in this scene is the one that involves the needlework of Mrs. Sebastian. She keeps on working on her needlework during the poisoning. The producer, actually, goes out of the way to ensure that Mrs. Sebastian and her needlework are included in the scene a number of times. The use of different kinds of shots in this movie is also worth noting, and it is essential in helping the audience understands the characters better. The producer seems drawn to close- up and medium shots and he rarely makes use of longer shots in the movie. This might be used to help the audience stay keen and concentrated in the facial expressions of the characters, as the producer allows the characters to show their feelings and thoughts in this way. An excellent instance, of this is when Alicia realizes that she has been poisoned. Hitchcock takes a chance to zoom in on her expression of wide- eyed surprise and shock as she first looks at the coffee cup and then at her mother- in- law and then her husband. Her mother- in- law’s cold hearted expression tells the audience exactly how much hatred she has for Alicia.
The producer also makes use of other editing devices in the final scene such as fades from one shot to another. Hitchcock illustrates the different viewpoints of the characters by doing this. The fading technique for instance is used to connect the two different worlds of Alicia- her real one with Devin and her fake one with Sebastian. For instance, when Alicia fails to find her way to communicate with her real husband when she gets ill, there are a number of shots of her sick in her bed, which constantly fade to show Devlin waiting for her impatiently at a bench.
It is obviously difficult, if not impossible, to make use of color as nuance in a film without color, the producer opts to make use of dark and light images. When Sebastian and Alicia are alone together, Hitchcock makes use of darkness to imply a different world and safety brought about by hiding. Alicia feels free and safe to do anything she feels like in the darkness, for example, when she is with her real husband. On the other hand, Sebastian feels opposite of this because he is not allowed into the dark and secret world of Alicia. For instance, when Alicia meets with the commander and asks him to close the blinds because the light in the room makes her uncomfortable. In addition, when her real husband rescues her, he finds her in her dark bedroom and makes her walk in the lighted hallway. Her fake husband, Sebastian, walks up the stairs to meet them and later walks into the darkness of the night when he is rejected when Alicia pulls away with Devlin. The final scene when Sebastian walks to his death, he walks in the lighted pathways in the house, and then the rooms become exceedingly dark as he closes the doors behind him.
Both Alicia and her mother in law are trapped in away in their own worlds. One thing of significance is that whenever they feel trapped they wear dark colors to symbolize that and vice versa. For example, when Alicia realizes that her unreal family is poisoning her, she tries to escape but fails. In this scene, she is seen wearing a black dress. Just the same, Mrs. Sebastian wears the same color when she finds out that she is trapped when she follows Alicia and Devlin down the stairs in the final scenes. On the other hand, Mrs. Sebastian wears white when Alicia is being poisoned and Alicia wears the same color when she escapes. Since the two are enemies, the producer dresses them in opposing colors to emphasize on this enmity.
The producer of the film also makes use of shadows to help his audience comprehend the motivations of the characters. One of the most notable examples of this is when Alicia realizes that Sebastian is poisoning her and begins to black out. As she looks at Mrs. Sebastian and her son, the lighting in the room begins to change to the opposite of what it was previously, lighting the window behind the two and throwing them into a shadow.
In addition, when Alicia staggers to the door of the room trying to escape, the two shadows of Mrs. Sebastian and Sebastian merge to a vision that is blurry. This makes it easier for the audience to understand that the two have similar personalities and they are one in their goal of keeping their political opinions private.
2LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL BY MARTIN LUTHER KING
LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL BY MARTIN LUTHER KING
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Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King Jr, who served as a minister and an activist of civil rights, wrote the Letter from Birmingham Jail in April 1963, while he was still in prison. He had been arrested for civil disobedience after engaging in a peaceful protest against segregation which was prevalent in Birmingham city. The letter addresses the racial segregation and all the injustices that the black community in the US was facing. The letter was in response to the criticism which had been addressed to King by eight clergymen who considered King’s and his fellow activists’ actions as unwise and untimely. King addressed the concerns of the clergymen about his action using a formal tone. The primary audience of King’s letter were the clergymen and other white moderates who were against the black community movement. This essay provides a comprehensive discussion of what was included in King’s Letter provides the author’s key arguments and personal thoughts about the letter.
There are three main issues presented in the letter. Firstly, King addressed the clergymen’s concern that it was not his place as outside to interfere with Birmingham city. Explaining why he was in Birmingham; King gave three reasons why it was appropriate for him to engage actively in Birmingham’s civil rights despite him not being a permanent resident. He first explained that he was the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which operated in all Southern states. He further stated that his organization was sharing staff, financial and educational resources with its affiliates, and a few months ago, the affiliates in Birmingham had requested them to engage in a nonviolent protest, which they agreed to. Therefore, he was in Birmingham because he had organizational ties there. Secondly, he stated that he was in Birmingham because of the injustice there. He explained that he was in Birmingham to seek freedom for all and respond to the call of aid. Lastly, King claimed that he was in Birmingham to deal with injustices since injustices in Birmingham were a threat to justice everywhere.
Secondly, King addressed why Birmingham needed to demonstrate. He claimed that the black community had no alternative but to demonstrate since the need for justice in the city was urgent. According to King, the main reason for the demonstrations were that Birmingham was the most segregated city in the US, with high records of brutality among the black community, blacks being treated unjustly in courts, and the existence of many unresolved cases of the Blacks’ homes and churches in Birmingham, which the political leaders had refused to negotiate. King explained that he and his organization had acted responsibly and adhered to the four basic steps to be followed during a nonviolent campaign. The first step entails gathering facts. King explained that he, together with his group, had reviewed and confirmed the existence of segregation in Birmingham. The step is negotiation. Birmingham and his team had negotiated with the leaders of the economic community in Birmingham, and several promises were made. However, these promises were never fulfilled. The third step is self-purification. King and his team had conducted inner reflections and workshops of non-Violence. The fourth action is direct action, the nonviolent protest that King had been arrested for taking part in.
Lastly, King expressed his intentions during the peaceful protests in the letter. The main aim of their direct action was to establish a scenario that would inevitably open doors for negotiations. King further went ahead to address the critics from each of the clergymen. He addressed the critics in the letter why the action was untimely. Addressing this critic, he explained that the city had waited for over 340 years for their God-given and constitutional rights, and it was now time to act. He also addressed the clergy’s concern that he and his team were willing to break the law. He stated that he would be on the frontline, urging people to obey the just laws. However, he would openly advocate obeying unjust laws. Laws in Birmingham were unfair, and King would not advocate for them to be obeyed. He also explained that he had been greatly disappointed by the white moderates who preferred a negative peace that involves a lack of tension to positive peace characterized by justice. He also argued that White moderates were more devoted to order than justice. King also addressed the criticism that although their actions were peaceful, they precipitated the violence. He compared such thoughts with condemning a man who has been robbed because his custody of money hastened the act of bribery, which he considered illogical. Additionally, King addressed the clergymen’s concern that the direct action in Birmingham as extreme. He expressed great disappointment that his fellow clergymen would consider his nonviolent efforts as those of extremists. In his defense, he stated that oppressed individuals would not be oppressed forever, and their desire for freedom had to be attended to. He further insisted that it was better for his actions to be considered extreme for the cause of justice than standing by and watching injustices to continue. King also refutes the clergymen’s claim that laws of segregation should be fought in courts and not in the street. Supporting his argument King explained that only through direct action could push the white majority to confront the racism issue and engage in a true dialogue. King addressed all the concerns of the clergyman in a detailed manner and explained the reasons behind the direct action.
In my opinion, King utilized his letter to address the concerns of the clergymen and make his judgment. Additionally, although King was mainly addressing the clergymen’s criticisms, he was also reaching out to the whole nation to stop racial injustice by successfully showing how injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere. Furthermore, using pathos, ethos, and logos made his speech more effective. The use of biblical allusions also allowed King to develop analogies concerning the biblical figures, justify the peaceful protests, and solidify his arguments. Finally, the fact that King closes the letter using a hopeful note indicates that the Black community will attain the equality and freedom are fighting for.
Edgar Allan Poe
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Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is an American short story writer, a critic, poet and an editor who was born on January 19th of the year 1909 in Boston, Maryland. Poe is famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre in his stories (Diggory, 2014). Poe’s tale ‘The murders in the rue morgue’ which was written in 1841, initiated the modern detective story and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivalled in the American fiction. The Raven a poem that was written in 1845 is among the best-known poems in the national literature.
Edgar Allan Poe was the son of the English actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr. an actor from Baltimore. He attained his classical education from Scotland and England from 1815-20 and for only 11 months he attended the University of Virginia in 1826 where he terminated his education as a result of his guardian’s anger for he was an addicted gambler always losing at the university. Poe returned to Richmond where he found his soul mate Sarah engaged. He went to Boston, and in 1927 he published a pamphlet of youthful Byronic poems and Tamerlane. Due to poverty, Poe was forced to join the military under the names Edgar A. Perry, but on his mother’s death, John Allan purchased his release from the army assisting Poe to get an appointment to the US military academy at the west point where he got expelled due to his absenteeism. Poe was an alcohol addict that eventually caused his death on October 7th, 1849.
Edgar’s work related much to the romanticism with the occult and the satanic (Burwick, 2015). His work also owes much to his feverish dreams to which he applied a rare faculty of shaping plausible fabrics out of impalpable materials. Poe’s productions are much dependent on his powers of imagination and an elaborate technique. Poe’s sound and keen judgment as an appraiser of the contemporary literature along with his dramatic art of storytelling secured him a prominent position among the globally known scholars. The most outstanding fact in Poe’s character is the aspect of strange duality. The wide divergence of contemporary judgments on the man seemed to point to the coexistence of two persons in one. To the people he loved, he was gentle and devoted, to others who were the butt of his criticism found himself center and irritable and even accused him of lack of principle.
Poe’s major works are concerned with terror and sadness, but in the ordinary circumstances, he was a pleasant companion (Symons, 2014). Poe talked brilliantly, chiefly of literature and read his works of poetry and those of others in a voice that was surpassing with beauty. Poe was a great admirer of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. He possessed a sense of humor, apologizing to a visitor for not keeping a pet raven. In the case to which Poe’s mind was considered, the aspect of duality would be more striking with one of his side being an idealist and a visionary. Poe’s yearning for the ideal was both of the heart and of the imagination. His sensitivity to the beauty along with the sweetness of women inspired his most touching lyrics “to Helen, Annabel Lee, Eulalie, to open one in paradise” and the full-toned prose hymns to beauty and love in “Liguria and Eleonora”. In work ‘Israfel’, Poe’s imagination carried him away from the real world to the dream world to which the python mood was a characteristic to his later life. Due to his critic nature, Poe laid much stress upon the correctness of language, meter and structure. He formulated rules for the short stories to which he sought the ancient unities that is the short story should relate a complete action and take place within one day in one place, adding the unities of mood or effect.
The Pit and the Pendulum- Analysis
Edgar Allan Poe was among the dark romantic writers who wanted to leave back what was rational and tangible in the world to discover the unsettling truth that lies in the dark and the irrational depths of the human mind. In his short story, ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ there is the emphasis of punishment, horror, darkness as well as psychological effects of uncontrollable irrationality and fear, the inscrutable and the evil as a destructive force. The narrator of the story has been condemned by the Spanish Inquisition, and he finds himself in variable states of consciousness declaring that he is sick- ‘sick unto death with long agony.’ The narrator seems to be hallucinating as he describes the inquisitional voices as a ‘dreamy indeterminate hum’. He first imagines angel forms to which later becomes meaningless specters with heads of flames as he has a transcendent experience. He further slips in and out of the consciousness, and as he somewhat recovers, he senses that he is enclosed in walls. He then decides to cross the area, he is tripped and falls to the ground where he finds a big pit just in front of him. He realizes that if he had fallen, he could only have broken his born but not die.
After the narrator awakens from his exhaustion, he finds himself strapped to a wooden frame, and he can only be able to move his head and his left arm with which he can feed himself. Despite the food being heavily spiced, the prisoner is not provided with water, and this makes him thirstier. As he looks up, he sees a pendulum fitted with a sharp blade swinging down over him. At the same time, the narrator notices rats scurrying about the floor, attracted by the scent of the meat he has been provided. He notices that the pendulum is moving closer to him and the movement has increased. The moving blade causes the narrator to sense the grotesquerie of the dungeon. The prisoner spends hours in horror of the death that awaits him, and at the same time he is hungry and reaches for the remnants of his meal left behind by the rats. After a proper internalization, the narrator realizes that the pendulum would strike across his heart and he waits horrified. But then an idea comes to him that he could convince the rats to chew the bindings that hold him by putting the remnants of the meat they have eaten on the ties. Soon, the rats run to him eating the strappings and finally they are broken.
After being released from the bindings and he becomes free, the walls of the dungeon seems to be on fire, and they are so much closer to him. The narrator is left with no option but to jump close to the pit. With agony, he let out a scream and cry of desperation when he suddenly hears the sounds of the trumpets. The fiery walls rush back, and he is pulled by the arm back to the abyss. The French army had entered Toledo, and the inquisition was done by the enemies.
The short story, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is gothic literature that is aimed at imposing fear and terror to the reader and the victim by instituting horror and macabre in the story (Mulvey-Roberts, 2016). The story is set up in a dungeon that is an element of gothic. Furthermore, the place is full of darkness, and the narrator cannot be able to walk well leading to his tripling and felling. To add more terror, the narrator trips to the edge of a pit making him shake in fear. Similarly, the incidence creates a gloomy mood in the reader and always keep to inquire and anxious about what happens next.
The next moment we are introduced to the narrator bound with ropes and a sharp blade hanging on a pendulum swinging up and down. Here the narrator is helpless. The great pendulum acts as the villain instituting fear and pain to the narrator (Burduck, 2017). To extend the matter further and worse, macabre is introduced with the presence of rats in the area. Rats are an indication of death and rotting things to add to this the narrator claims that the walls contained some demonic figures. All this time, the narrator was helpless, in fear and great pain due to torture. After he was able to free himself from the ropes, the entire building which seemed to be made of steel started to heat up leaving the narrator with no choice rather than jump into the pit where he says he could sense the number of dead individuals who were once prisoners like him. The whole story is about horror as an illustration of the gothic literature to which Edgar Allan Poe incorporated in most of his works of literature including the raven (Poe, 2015). Despite the writer of the story being an addict to alcohol and betting, his works are ranked among the best in the world as Poe was the greatest contributor to the British literature in the gothic category.
Work cited
Burduck, Michael L. Grim Phantasms: Fear in Poe’s Short Fiction. Vol. 3. Routledge, 2017.
Burwick. Romanticism: Keywords. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
Diggory, Terence. Yeats and American poetry: the tradition of the self. Princeton University Press, 2014.
Mulvey-Roberts, Marie, ed. The handbook of the gothic. Springer, 2016.
Poe, Edgar Allan, and William Giraldi. The Annotated Poe. Harvard University Press, 2015.
Symons, Julian. The Life And Works Of Edgar Allen Poe. House of Stratus, 2014.