An analytical essay on

Auteurism in Strangers on a Train ' by Alfred Hitchcock

2005

Auteurism in Strangers on a Train ' by Alfred Hitchcock

Strangers on a Train ' can be regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of 20th century . Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock engages the audience 's attention from the first minutes of the movie Strangers on a Train ' attracts the audience like a magnet , and in the most engaging style shows the events which happened in the lives of 2 people who accidentally met on the train . The movie has astonishing scenes to

offer for everybody in the audience . Strangers on a Train is a brilliant example of Alfred Hitchcock 's auteurism which is depicted in all of the major scenes of the movie- starting with the first scene of meeting on the train and until the very end when the puzzle of the movie finally gets resolved . Throughout the whole movie , it is possible to see the signature of the director- features of suspense and duality which are present in most of the scenes

The concept of auteurism has been widely analyzed by movie critics for many years . Auteur theory is an attempt by film critics to identify the author of a film . Anytime an author is identified , it is virtually always the director . In addition to identifying the auteur of a film the theory also seeks to study the body of work by a particular auteur such as all the films directed by Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford (Wollen , 1999 ,

.519 . However , some flaws in this theory have been found . Many critics argue that a movie cannot be compared to a painting or a novel because a movie is a work of more than one person . It requires a signature not only of a director but of many other people who participate in the production of the film . Movies are collaborative efforts that require the coordinated artistic input of many individuals there is no one person who is so influential and important that he deserves sole authorship recognition (Wollen , 1999 ,

.520 . Some authors even mentioned that auteurism killed the genius of some directors , including Hitchcock : Hitchcock . spent the last twenty years of his life making five awful , awful films ' But the auteur critics continued to praise them , because once the auteurist surrenders himself to an idol ' he cannot admit that the idol could make a bad film . Hitchcock 's belief in the auteur theory ruined him and that belief is dangerous to any director (Goldman , 1983 br

.103-105

However , there are critics who argue that the role of director is the most important in the production of the movie , therefore all of the movies made by him bear some specific features which distinguish the director 's movies : a number of directors , including Ford , Hawks Capra , and Hitchcock , did have an unusual degree of authority and a certain style (Wollen , 1999 ,

.525 'For example , Sarris states that the second premise of the auteur theory is the distinguishable personality...