Alfred Hitchcock - Let 'em play God

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock born on the 13th August 1899 and died on the 29th April 1980. Alfred Hitchcock was a British film maker and producer, also one of the best know and most popular film makers of all time.

Alfred Hitchcock wrote an article to show how to get the audience on the edge of their seat, he said that the ingredient to this was called suspense. Alfred Hitchcock stated that to allow the audience to play God, that suspense was needed. Alfred Hitchcock uses many example and situations in films such as when a young man is standing by a shadowy room and is slugged by an unknown person who isn’t visible to the audience. He says that the audience does not know if the young man is a killer or a hero and the audience is lost as to whether to cheer or weep. If the audience does know the truth, then they have been told all the secrets that character within the film do not know about. He said that if the audience knows what the fate of the character is going to be, then this is know as “playing God”.

Alfred Hitchcock has been making thrillers, dark mysteries and chillier films for 17 years during his time. During that time he never did a whodunit film or a puzzler. He believed that puzzling the audience was not the way forward to the essence of suspense.

Alfred Hitchcock’s time in film making came to an end while making a spy thriller called The Short Night, collaboration with screenwriters James Costigan and Ernest Lehman. Due to Hitchcock’s failing health, and following his death the film was never finished.