Thank you for tuning in on this short
presentation on Hitchcock's Spellbound,
this video is going to contain spoilers
for the film so it is best to watch the
movie first before accessing this video
teaming up with David O Selznick
Hitchcock directed yet again an eerie
romantic thriller about forbidden love
between a psychiatrist and her client
the screenplay was by the great Ben
Hecht who subsequently penned
Hitchcock's next film Notorious. In
today's mini lecture we will explore
some of the editorial curiosities of
Hitchcock's films and how there is
considerable evidence in his movies of a
man who was clearly thinking about the
film's editing while he was on set
shooting. What makes this film so great
is that at this point in Hitchcock's
career he was attaining more control
over his visuals this mid-career
masterpiece of his not only features a
pretty well-rounded female character
with an interesting career but also
features interesting camerawork and
staging that demonstrates an awareness
of how the editor would eventually put
it together of course hitch controlled
these aspects of his narrative as a
response to what he considered undesired
external control by the studio over his
movies.  
Hitchcock creates suspense through
associations in film editing we can
create associations by cutting
sequential related shots that achieve a
new meaning when seen all together as a
whole. In Spellbound the two leads Dr.
Peterson and John Ballantyne played by
Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, are not
just brought together through film
editing but it is through editing that
these two characters are associated with
each other they are tied together so to
speak and this sequence twenty minutes
into the film we get the impression that
the two characters are thinking similar
thoughts not just because we see the
shots in the sequence but there is a
compositional likeness that these shots
possess both constants and John get
closer and closer to the camera here at
approximately the same rate — and by the
way these frames that you're looking at
are basically a series of Hitchcockian
point of view shots — when the editor is
Hal Kern and Bill Ziegler cut back and
forth between these two characters you
could say that the carefully thought-out
composition is nearly the same this is
most noticeable when we cut
were close-up of their eyes this is
a mise-en-scène and editorial idea that
author Bruce Block coined "affinity of
motion." Affinity of motion is a special
type of juxtaposition where two or more
elements that a director wants to
combine in sequential shots are placed
in the same area of the two-dimensional
film surface
here's an excellent example of affinity
emotion
notice how the opening of the doors is
juxtaposed right over the kissing couple
and creates an association between those
two images here is another example this
example happens at the end of the film
in this clip from Rebecca released just
five years prior an association is
created between Mrs. de Winter and Mrs.
Danvers as we cut between the two women
we can clearly see that their heads are
in the same part of the frame as in the
previous and subsequent shot moments
later a really cool dissolve happens and
we can see Mrs. Danvers and the
grandfather clock are carefully placed
in the same area of the frame creating a
creepy looking set of images as well as
an indelible and loaded association
between this woman who is of the past
and this antique clock. Affinity of
motion is a really cool visual technique
it holds the viewers eye in the part of
the frame that it is already looking at
it thereby reinforces the association
and by extension the message while at
the same time cutting down on visual
fatigue when you watch this film and
other Hitchcock films see if you can
find different examples of this
associative aspect of editing and also
see if you can find any cool examples of
affinity of motion these elements add
yet another interesting layer for
analysis in almost any film
