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Downhill (1927)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock · Cut by Ivor Montagu · Ratio 4:3 · 80 min
How it was made
- Hitchcock used descending imagery, including a Maida Vale tube station escalator and a descending lift, as a recurring visual metaphor for the protagonist's decline, though he later called the escalator shot a naive touch he would not repeat.
- Rather than use the era's standard blurred imagery for dream sequences, Hitchcock shot them in sharp, unblurred superimpositions, embedding the dream directly into realistic images.
- Hitchcock, who had worked as an assistant director for F. W. Murnau, echoed German expressionist lighting throughout the film, including a hallucination sequence referencing the vampire's approach in Murnau's Nosferatu.
- The film uses minimal title cards, relying instead on visual storytelling, such as a shot that pulls back from a close-up of the lead in a tuxedo to reveal he is a waiter, before revealing that scene itself is part of a stage play.
Elsewhere
More by Alfred Hitchcock
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