A potential area to research into could be the one of the Mise-en-scène. I particularly found it very fascinating in all its aspects and possible research application, from the specific use that one director could make of the different elements and what could help them convey. That is why I have decided I could focus on Alfred Hitchcock pieces, by analysing the suspense techniques he employed in his works, which could be seen as an application of the different elements of the Mise-en-scène collaborating together to lead to the desired effect the director wants the audience to see. My choice was partially influenced also by the high amount of academic and scholarly recognised sources on the subject so that I can consult them to support my overall proposition and topic. So, I will analyse different films where he employed his most acclaimed suspense technique.

Actually, after I decided to concentrate on the audience and the characters suspense rather than on the mise-en-scène components, since I thought that relying only on the mise-en-scène elements would have ended up to be too much descriptive and would not have helped me in the analysis process.

While searching and reading the sources for the topic of suspense in Hitchcock films and in general I tried to narrow down the topic; during this process, I found out how the suspense in Hitchcock’s films is not just one but multiple: therefore, the question I will try to analyse and answer in this critical report and its purpose will be “Is the suspense felt by the audience the same felt by the character in Hitchcock’s films?”

The topic of suspense motivated me to research and discover about its inner mechanism and the various techniques to obtain it.

How might the research impact present or future theoretical and practical study. Are there potentials to apply new learning?

I found the information I have collected while reading about the different kinds of suspense and the techniques used by Hitchcock to evoke them in his audience very interesting; that is why they have made me to ask myself how one day I could try to apply such techniques and mechanism in my own work. Animation films are often considered to aim at a young audience but since it is not always true I think it can be very interesting to apply “suspense evocation techniques” also in these productions. Anyway, I have clear in my mind some examples of animation addressed to children where suspense is a fundamental element: one of these examples is “Sleeping beauty” when Malefica makes Aurora to sting herself with a spinning wheel. I remember well the sensation of suspense these scenes had on me when I was a child, and I must say that I still consider it a quite thrilling situation.

Audience: who and what is the report for?

I will address my critical report to my professor and my fellow classmates. With it I intended to suggest a reflection about the techniques that are behind the feelings we have while watching a film are not as abstract as we may think but are the result of thorough studies on the human mind, so that such feelings are shared by different audiences in different times.