Having never seen North by
Northwest before I was skeptical on how suspenseful a movie from 1959 could
actually be when compared to today’s suspense movies. I was quite blown back by how well Alfred Hitchcock
was able to make this a suspenseful movie.
The movie kept me in suspense throughout the entire film. Hitchcock used several establishing shots in
this movie. For me, two of these really
stuck out. The first was the establishing
shot of the United Nations Headquarters.
The second was the establishing shot of Mt. Rushmore in South
Dakota. The house on the top of Mt.
Rushmore reminded me very much of a place I have visited in Pennsylvania. This place was Falling waters, which was the
home to the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. After doing research the house was a set that
Hitchcock wanted to look like buildings designed by Wright.
Arguably the most famous scene in the whole movie is the
crop duster scene. I knew Thornhill was
being set-up and that he wasn’t actually meeting up with Kaplan in the middle
of nowhere. It gave me a great sense of
suspense as to what was going to happen to Thornhill. When the car had pulled up and let the guy
out who was waiting for the bus out, I thought for sure he was sent there to
kill Thornhill, or Kaplan. I saw the
crop duster in the background, but never paid it any attention until then man
noticed something funny. He turned to
Thornhill and states that it was weird that the crop duster wasn’t actually
dusting any crops. At that moment I had
a gut feeling it would be coming after Thornhill. To me
that was the best scene of the movie, and most action packed.
I have only ever seen bits and pieces of American
Beauty. After watching the whole movie I
thought it was pretty good. We learn
right away that Lester will die by the end of the movie, and it had me guessing
the entire time how he was going to die.
It created a sense of suspension right from the get go. My first suspect was Ricky because after Jane
had been complaining about her father, Ricky had asked if he wanted him dead
and she said yes. That lead me to
believe Ricky was going to kill him. I
think we are giving hints to his true murderer early on. After the gay neighbors welcome Ricky and his
father to town, Ricky and his father have a discussion about how homosexuals
make them want to barf. We learn right
away Ricky’s father is uncomfortable with the idea. It wasn’t until after Lester is dead that I realized
it wasn’t his wife who shot him, but rather it was Ricky’s father.
The red roses are used
as a motif throughout the movie. They
symbolize true love. I think it’s
interesting how whenever roses are involved in Lester’s dreams about Angela,
they are rose pedals, and everywhere else in the movie they are full
roses. To me this symbolizes a false
love. A full rose represents love, but
when you take it to just rose pedals, it’s not really a rose anymore. So in Lester’s dreams the love is real to
him, but when he finally gets to the moment to have her, he realizes that it
was never real love, but just lust.
