Strangers On A Train

Alfred Hitchcock - 1951 (the British release version)
Hitchcock is really remarkable, his own cinema, with these eyeline matches. There are establishing sometimes, but it's really all built around these looks, the effect of them. Most obviously, the look at the tennis match, the distant figure who looks. Hitchcock uses such a lot of technical devices that it is a bit silly to try and nail down too tightly. We have those tracks and moves in, some very fast cutting. Really, we have original, always thinking, always thoughtful, answers to questions of mis-en-scene; how to make it interesting, how to make it new, how to convey emotion. One quick example; the strangle in the glasses.
We have so, so much going on here. The theme of doublings; of Miriam, of the lead (s). Homosexuality, masculinity, the underground wishes. Jekyll and Hyde. Along with that Hitchcock weirdness. Hitchcock seems, at the very highest points of his cinema, to be the master of the small elements of life, where life is really lived. Small looks, small cruelties.