FILM ART AND FILMMAKING

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1.7 . . . and is very close when he turns and replies to Little
Charlie’s protests that these women are human; he asks, “Are
they?”
1.9 Hitchcock then gives us an optical point-of-view shot of
what makes her hesitate: Uncle Charlie holding her mother
spellbound.
and we learn some key information when she does. In the dinner table scene, the
developing story line and Hitchcock’s style combine to tie us even more tightly to
Little Charlie. The moment when Uncle Charlie turns challengingly to the camera
becomes a high point of this pattern.
The rest of this book will examine the ideas of form and style more closely.
Here we just want to suggest that our Shadow of a Doubt scene is typical of how
cinema works as art. Films have subject matter and themes that contribute to the
artistic effect, but in themselves those amount to raw material. We have plenty of
films about serial killers, but how many are as vivid as Shadow of a Doubt? It’s
through form and style that a film draws us into a moment-by-moment engagement,
just as a song or a play or a novel does. As a film unfolds in time, it offers a developing
pattern that encourages us to ask why things are happening and to wonder
what will happen next. We feel curiosity and suspense and surprise. The film engages
our vision and hxearing, our knowledge of the world, our ideas, and our feelings.
The filmmaker can create a structured experience that will involve us
keenly—and sometimes change the way we think and feel about our lives. After
Film Artistry in Shadow of a Doubt 7
1.8 Earlier in the film, when Little Charlie has begun to suspect
her uncle, she pauses on the front doorstep.
“He [Hitchcock] was fairly universal, he
made people shiver everywhere. And
he made thrillers that are also
equivalent to works of literature.”
— Jean-Luc Godard, director, Breathless