Friday 23 April 2010

Subordinate Character Image Board

This actress named Janet Leigh is from the movie psycho. She is the first woman to be killed in the movie. At that time 1960 when the movie came out she was a very big star, a desirable actress to have in your movie. Alfred Hitchcock produced some amazing cinematography here by killing her off first. The movie would of been promoted using the face of Janet Leigh. However for film watchers to watch the movie and see their start actress whom they thought to be the lead killed off first is very, very unsettling. By doing this it made viewers feel confused and left with no sense of security or direction.


Note how influential the movie Psycho actually was to the horror genre and how its codes and convention were used in this movie. This is Drew Barrymore from the movie scream. At that time she was what you could say at the prime of her acting career. So she would’ve been the face of this movie. However the movie starts off with her receiving a call from a freaky person. She is then brutally murdered slashed and stabbed. Watching your favourite actress, idol to some, being brutally murdered in the opening scenes of a movie would unsettle you. Make you feel like you have nothing to lean back to no support. It is to make you feel mentally deteriorated.


Here in the blockbuster hit movie Jaws no specifically special actor or actress is being killed off. However, notice how the convention created and mastered by Alfred Hitchcock of unsettling viewers through specific killing is used in this scene. A boy comes out of the water asking his mother if he can be in the water for longer, his mum is being very over protective and saying no your fingers will prune but then gives in and lets him go. There we feel like yes everything is so nice and safe. We are shown that the child is protected by the mother and she will keep him away from any harm. However minutes after the boy is playing about on his lido he get bitten in half by the shark. This unsettles us completely, it makes us think how can the boy get killed even after being so protected, and we then think how safe are we? Making us lose a sense of security.

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