Early Life
Alfred Hitchcock was born on the 13 of August 1899 in leytonstone (A part of Essex but now a part of London) the second son of three to a greengrocer, his father died when he was 15 at the time Hitchcock was studying engineering and navigation, in which he went on to become and advertising draftsman and designer at a company called Henley's , during the first world war Hitchcock was rejected from military service because of his obesity, so he signed up to the cadet regiment of the Royal engineers in 1917.
While working at Henley's he dabbled in creatively with the companies in house publication the Henley telegraph in 1919 he submitted short articles and become one of it's most prolific contributors , his first piece was titles 'Gas' published in the first issue, in which a young woman imagines that she is being assaulted one night in Paris – only for the twist to reveal that it was all just a hallucination in the dentist's chair induced by the anesthetic.
In 1920 Hitchcock went on to do silent films with an interest in photography he become an title card with the now known London branch of paramount pictures he worked closely with a producer named Micheal Balcon, as a combination of screenwriter, art director,assistant director on series of five films along with director Grahman Cutts.
in 1922 Hitchcock directed his first project titled number 13 filmed in London, however the production was canceled due to finance problems. Micheal Balcon gave Hitchcock another shot at direction 'The pleasure garden' in 1925 however the film was a commercial flop he then directed a drama called The Mountain Eagle in 1926 however the film is lost.
Hitchcock's luck changed with his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), a suspense film about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper type of serial killer in London. Released in January 1927, it was a major commercial and critical success in the United Kingdom. As with many of his earlier works, this film was influenced by Expressionist techniques Hitchcock had witnessed first-hand in Germany. Some commentators regard this piece as the first truly "Hitchcockian" film, incorporating such themes as the "wrong man".
Following the success of The Lodger, Hitchcock hired a publicist to help strengthen his growing reputation. On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director,Alma Reville, at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington, London. Their only child, daughter Patricia, was born on 7 July 1928. Alma was to become Hitchcock's closest collaborator, but her contributions to his films (some of which were credited on screen) Hitchcock would discuss only in private, as she was keen to avoid public attention.
HOLLYWOOD!
Selznick contractDavid O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood., The suspense and the gallows humour that had become Hitchcock's trademark in his films continued to appear in his American productions. The working arrangements with Selznick were less than ideal. Selznick suffered from constant financial problems, and Hitchcock was often displeased with Selznick's creative control over his films. In a later interview, Hitchcock commented:
[Selznick] was the Big Producer. ... Producer was king, The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the "only director" he'd "trust with a film"
Selznick lent Hitchcock to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock's films himself. Selznick made only a few films each year, as did fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. Hitchcock was quickly impressed with the superior resources of the American studios compared with the financial limits that he had often faced in England.
The Selznick picture Rebecca (1940) was Hitchcock's first American movie, set in a Hollywood version of England's Cornwall and based on a novel by English novelist Daphne du Maurier. The film stars Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. The story concerns a naïve (and unnamed) young woman who marries a widowed aristocrat. She goes to live in his huge English country house, and struggles with the lingering reputation of the elegant and worldly first wife, whose name was Rebecca and who died under mysterious circumstances. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940. The statuette was given to Selznick, as the film's producer. Hitchcock was nominated for the Best Director award, his first of five such nominations, but did not win.
There were additional problems between Selznick and Hitchcock, with Selznick known to impose restrictive rules on Hitchcock. At the same time, Selznick complained about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting", which meant that the producer did not have nearly the leeway to create his own film as he liked, but had to follow Hitchcock's vision of the finished product.
Hitchcock's second American film was the European-set thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), based on Vincent Sheean's Personal History and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock and other British subjects felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while their country was at war; his concern resulted in a film that overtly supported the British war effort. The movie was filmed in the first year of the Second World War and was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as fictionally covered by an American newspaper reporter portrayed by Joel McCrea. The film mixed footage of European scenes with scenes filmed on a Hollywood back lot. It avoided direct references to Nazism, Germany, and Germans to comply with Hollywood's Production Code censorship.
EARLY WAR YEARS
Hitchcock during this time became not only producer but a director he did several films in the 1940's from a romantic comedy , to a courtroom drama and disturbing film noir Shadow of a doubt (1943)
During this time Hitchcock work with many different actors such as Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favorite of all his films and the second of the early Universal films. It is about young Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial murderer. Hitchcock again filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa during the summer of 1942. The director showcased his personal fascination with crime and criminals when he had two of his characters discuss various ways of killing people, to the obvious annoyance of Charlotte.
1950'S HITCHCOCK AT HIS PEAK
His film Strangers on a Train (1951) was based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In it, Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue, but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder; he suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain.
Hitchcock then moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character is a photographer (based onRobert Capa) who must temporarily use a wheelchair. Out of boredom, he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, and then becomes convinced that one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart tries to convince both his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his glamorous model-girlfriend (Kelly, whom screenwriter John Michael Hayes based on his own wife), and eventually he succeeds.As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters are confined, in this case to Stewart's small studio apartment overlooking a large courtyard. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions to all that he sees, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment".
Vertigo (1958) again starred James Stewart, this time with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Stewart plays "Scottie", a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman that he is shadowing (Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Some critics, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo represents the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman that he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death than any other film in his filmography.
The film contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts that has been copied many times by filmmakers, wherein the image appears to "stretch". It was premiered in the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where Hitchcock won a Silver Seashell.
Vertigo is considered a classic today, but it met with some negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and was the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. It had previously been ranked just behind Citizen Kane (1941) in earlier Sight and Sound decade polls, but it was voted best ever film in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics poll.
By this time, Hitchcock had filmed in many areas of the United States. He followed Vertigo with three more successful films. Two are also recognised as among his best movies: North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). The third film was The Birds (1963).
AFTER THE 60'S
The Birds (1963), inspired by a short story by English author Daphne du Maurier and by a news story about a mysterious infestation of birds in Capitola, California, was Hitchcock's 49th film, and the location scenes were filmed in Bodega Bay, California Newcomer Tippi Hedren co-starred with Rod Taylor and Suzanne Pleshette. The scenes of the birds attacking included hundreds of shots mixing live and animated sequences. The cause of the birds' attack is left unanswered, "perhaps highlighting the mystery of forces unknown". Hitchcock cast Hedren again opposite Sean Connery in Marnie (1964), a romantic drama and psychological thriller. Decades later, Hedren called Hitchcock a misogynist and said that Hitchcock effectively ended her career by keeping her to an exclusive contract for two years when she rebuffed his sexual advances. However, Hedren appeared in two TV shows during the two years after Marnie. In 2012, Hedren described Hitchcock as a "sad character"; a man of "unusual genius", yet "evil, and deviant, almost to the point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that were totally unsuspecting." In response, a Daily Telegraph article quoted several actresses who had worked with Hitchcock, including Eva Marie Saint, Doris Day and Kim Novak, none of whom shared Hedren's opinion about him. Novak, who worked on Hitchcock's Vertigo, told the Telegraph "I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody."
Psycho and The Birds had unconventional soundtracks: the screeching strings played in the murder scene in Psycho were unusually dissonant, and The Birds dispensed with any conventional score, instead using a new technique of electronically produced sound effects. Bernard Herrmann composed the former and was a consultant on the latter.
Failing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his life. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal "forced" two movies on him, Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969).Both were spy thrillers set with Cold War-related themes. The first, Torn Curtain (1966), with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the twelve-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann was fired when Hitchcock was unsatisfied with his score. Topaz (1969), based on a Leon Uris novel, is partly set in Cuba. Both received mixed reviews from critics.
Hitchcock returned to England to film his penultimate film Frenzy (1972). After two espionage films, the plot marks a return to the murder thriller genre, and is based upon the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square. The plot centres on a serial killer in contemporary London. The basic story recycles his early film The Lodger. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barkeeper with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect for the "Necktie Murders," which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster).] This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites, as in Strangers on a Train. Only one of them, however, has crossed the line to murder. For the first time, Hitchcock allowed nudity and profane language, which had previously been taboo, in one of his films. He also shows rare sympathy for the chief inspector and his comic domestic life.
Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship
LAST PROJECT AND DEATH
Near the end of his life, Hitchcock had worked on the script for a projected spy thriller, The Short Night, however it was never brought to production because of Hitchcock's declining heath and fear for his wife Alma, who had suffered a stroke .The screenplay was eventually published in Freeman's 1999 book The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchcock died at age 80 in his Bel Air home of renal failure on 29 April 1980, Hitchcock made cameo appearances in his own films such as Strangers on a train, the Birds and North by Northwest.
Hitchcock was a remarkable film maker with such a clever and intriguing mind he not had ideas but also raw talent he took conventions and broke them changing the way film makers make films today with Hitchcock's experimentation with camera techniques we wouldn't have the films we have today or the way in which they are created.