One of the key components to understanding suspense is that no one should get hurt. In Alfred Hitchcock’s film Sabotage he learned the crucial rule the hard way. In this film he sets up the perfect recipe for suspense. A young boy is asked to deliver a movie reel to a theater across town. The reel of course if filled with explosives with a timer set to go off at noon.The boy meanders through town being distracted by everything a young boy in the big city would be distracted by. The candy store, a parade, and other adventures hold him up as the camera cuts from time to time to the clock showing how much closer we are to the explosion. The audience is in a supreme panic by the time the boy gets on a bus and heads to his destination and then BOOM! He and the bus blow up!
But that is what the audience expected to happen! Hitchcock says, that they were very angry with him about that particular scene. When you work the audience up into that kind of panic you can’t have happen what they expect to happen, it’s not right. The key to great suspense is to have no one at that moment get hurt. Give the audience the entire thrill and let the character off the hook.
But that is only one key thing. Hitchcock always talks about suspense with a story of a bomb about to go off. It is key that the audience see’s the bomb and knows that it will go off in a certain amount of time. This information is only known by the audience and not by the characters in the scene.
Once the audience if fully aware of danger the characters in the scene need to talk about anything, they can talk about baseball, they can discus car insurance or any boring or mundane subject you wish. It doesn’t even have to be integral to the plot. The audience sits in their seat and squirm and squirm and think or even yell out, “who cares about the policy on your car, there is a bomb in the room and it’s going to go off any second, get out!”
Using this method of suspense can also be a great tool help get the audience through lengthy exposition. They key is to milk the moment for as long as you possibly can to get the most emotional experience out of the audience.
The opening scene to Brian De Palma’s Untouchables it the perfect example of what not to do! His ignorance of the fundamentals is displayed in all of its glory with the scene in the corner store. The bad guy leaves a suitcase bomb and the little girl picks it up and brings it outside saying “You forgot this mister!” BOOM! She explodes. No suspense, no emotions, only a few seconds of shock.
Don’t be a De Palma!
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I don't think De Palma was using it for suspense. It was the macguffin to get the story rolling.
ReplyDeleteSuspense has to build up in a film. It needs to be executed with the proper thrill.
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