4. The resumption of Alfred Hitchcock’s career could only mean original and modern thrillers on a level rarely seen by today’s audiences
Widely considered among the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an English director and producer active across a six-decade career spanning from 1919 to 1980. Known as the “Master of Suspense“, Hitchcock was personally responsible for directing more than fifty feature films, becoming in the process as famous as his actors and arguably the first modern celebrity filmmaker. Entering the industry in 1919 as a title card designer, Hitchcock made his directorial debut just six years later with The Pleasure Garden before starting to make impactful contributions to the thriller genre in 1927 with The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.
Garnering a total of forty-six Oscar nominations for his movies, winning six, Hitchcock lent his name to his unique style of film-making, employing the use of camera movements to mimic a person’s gaze as to transform viewers in voyeurs and maximize anxiety. Directing four films regarded as among the greatest of all time – Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho – eight of his films have been selected for preservation by the Library of Congress. With the advances of modern cinema at this disposal, and with a noticeable dearth of high-quality theatrical content, Hitchcock’s renewal would be a welcome addition to today’s over-saturated blockbuster-dominated medium.