Danie Stewart Blue Group

Cinematic Analysis Quarter Two: Notorious

Part A: Alfred Hitchcocks 1946 Notorious deals with multiple motifs such as drinking and patriotism, but the overarching theme of the film is trust: the problems with being too trusting and withholding trust. Notorious depicts Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, who is known for her drinking and slight promiscuity, as she is recruited by the government to infiltrate a group of Nazis living in Brazil post World War II. Agent T.R. Devlin brings her to Brazil and while waiting to hear of Alicias assignment, the two fall in love. Devlin soon learns that the government wants Alicia to seduce her fathers love-struck associate, Alex Sebastian, and gain access to his home in search of Nazi secrets. Conflicted between his love for Alicia and his patriotic duties, Devlin begrudgingly sends a disgruntled Alicia off to discover Sebastians plans. A love triangle ensues. The two issues with trust are portrayed through Alicias suitors: Sebastian, who trusts too easily and let Alicia into his home, and Devlin, who feels he cant trust anyone and refuses to admit his feelings of love to Alicia. While Alicia and Devlins relationship wears, Alicia meets Sebastians Nazi associates, including a well-known Nazi scientist. While at Sebastians house for dinner, Alicia notices one of his friends makes a scene about a bottle of wine. He is later killed by his own comrades. Sebastian, who is fully in love with Alicia, proposes. Alicia marries Sebastian after Devlin makes no efforts to prevent her from doing so, showing their lack of trust. A party is thrown in honor of the marriage, and Alicia meets up with Devlin to sneak away from a jealous Sebastian long enough to examine the suspicious wine bottles. They discover the bottles store uranium, but before they can leave the wine cellar, Sebastian appears. Devlin kisses Alicia to cover up their true purpose and although angry, Sebastian believes it. Later, however, Sebastian discovers Alicias true goals and

Danie Stewart Blue Group distraught, he and his mother plot to kill her. They know that Sebastians Nazi friends will kill him if they ever find out. Alicia grows ill and Devlin, who was planning to transfer to work in Spain, becomes suspicious. Alicia realizes where they are experimenting with the uranium and that Sebastian is poisoning her, but collapses before she can escape. Finally, Devlin comes to rescue her and announces his love for her. Sebastian tries to pretend that they are going to the hospital to avoid death by the Nazis hands. But Devlin and Alicia leave him behind, his fate in the hands of his Nazi comrades. Part B: The time period during which the film was created plays a significant role in the details and specifics of the storyline. Notorious was produced right at the end of World War II, meaning that the main villains in Americans mind were the Nazis. The timing was perfect since Americans could easily believe in Nazi spies and American missions to derail their plans. There was no, however, no truth behind the behavior the Nazi villains. Nazi spies simply played the role of the villain since that was who the villain was in 1946. If the film had been produced a few months later, Hitchcock would have made the villains Communists, but as he and Ben Hecht worked on the script, Nazis were still uppermost in their minds (RobertEbert.com). While Nazi involvement was loose and generalized, Hitchcock took time to research American sciences during World War II. As Notorious was in production, the Atomic Bomb was being tested out in New Mexico. Hitchcock looked into the secret scientific project and even consulted Dr. Robert Millikan, a Nobel Prize winner credited with the discovery of cosmic rays, on how to make an atomic bomb (Turner Classic Movies). He discovered that uranium, which could be fit into wine bottles, was a key ingredient for an atomic bomb. Hitchcock then added the transportation of uranium in wine bottles to the film. The timing couldnt have been better for a film like Notorious.

Danie Stewart Blue Group Part C; Cinematographic Techniques: Alfred Hitchcock has been praised time and time again for use cinematographic techniques used in Notorious. The film is famous for two shots in particular. The first being the famous tracking shot in the Sebastian Mansion. The camera starts out above the entrance hall of the mansion and then slowly zooms in on Alicia hand, where she holds the stolen key to the wine cellar. The shot increases the suspense of the scene, making the audience feel like everyone in the mansion in staring at the key in her hand and she could be caught at any second. The second shot is from Alicias point of view. She wakes up one morning after a long night of drinking and the camera switches upside down to look at Devlin from her viewpoint. Then it slowly turns 180 degrees and Devlins face once again is up right. This shot also increases the audiences understanding of Alicias emotions: she is dizzying and confused. Hitchcock achieved this shot by using mirrors to reflect the image. Another technique to balance out the characters was used while Sebastian and Alicia are having dialogue. Sebastian, who was actually much shorter than Alicia, would stand on a box to not look as small. When they would walk together, graduated planks were used to lengthen Sebastians height. Numerous other scenes have gone down in history from the film, including the famous longest kiss in history between Alicia and Devlin.

Danie Stewart Blue Group Works Cited "Notorious." RogerEbert.com. N.p., 17 Aug. 1997. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-notorious-1946>. "Notorious: Notes." Turner Classic Movies. Turner Sports and Entertainment Networks, 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/85282/Notorious/notes.html>.