Hitchcock: Saul Bass and Lines Essay

Erik Strasser
M. Johnson
English 1C
April 3, 2014

Overcoming Boundaries: Lines in Hitchcock’s Films

In the latter part of Alfred Hitchcock’s career, specifically during the creation of Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho, he used different line movements during the opening titles of each film. In Vertigo, the audience sees multiple swirling patters that then circle towards us, changing colors and rotating. North by Northwest presents its audience with a grid, where the lines constrict the area into smaller spaces. The credits in Psycho are a pattern of straight lines that move across the screen, cutting into the words as well as the space. With each film, there is a continuation of this theme; the presence of the lines weave themselves through the film, allowing the audience to better understand what Hitchcock means to do with the film as well as observe any interruptions in the theme he presents. Vertigo, the first of his films that truly establishes lines into the film’s context, perfectly mirrors the opening sequence; the color rotation and direction of the lines create an uneasy feeling that stays true until the end of the film. North by Northwest also contains this same idea; the grid resembles the path each character follows. But rather than maintain this set of lines as in Vertigo, North by Northwest works to stray away from the restrictive lines of the grid. Psycho throws it’s audience off balance by ridding of tis’ straight lines presented to us in the

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