Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest | Screenwriting Analysis and Tips

Фильм және анимация

In this video, discover screenwriting tips in the screenplay for NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) by screenwriter Ernest Lehman (directed by Alfred Hitchcock).
Screenwriting tips in NORTH BY NORTHWEST:
0:00 Introduction
0:25 Set Pieces
1:54 Irony
3:44 Subtext
5:21 Dramatic Irony
7:20 Rising Action
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NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
Screenplay by Ernest Lehman
#21 on WGA's 101 Greatest Screenplays
Download the screenplay:
bit.ly/2INeu2U
#screenwriting #alfredhitchcock #northbynorthwest

Пікірлер: 51

  • @bluemooncinco
    @bluemooncinco4 жыл бұрын

    My all time favorite movie and I with there was more analysis about it. This was fantastic!

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    4 жыл бұрын

    Awesome! Glad you liked it.

  • @calvinnigh5489

    @calvinnigh5489

    3 жыл бұрын

    Alright Mike Tyson

  • @Ruylopez778
    @Ruylopez7784 жыл бұрын

    I think both Casablanca and North by Northwest were being rewritten during production, which to me makes the results even more impressive.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    4 жыл бұрын

    100% agreed.

  • @lnl3237

    @lnl3237

    2 ай бұрын

    Same with GWTW.

  • @qqwertyuiop13
    @qqwertyuiop133 ай бұрын

    Great video. I just rewatched the movie after several years and I am reminded of how good it is.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 ай бұрын

    Thanks for the comment! I seem to watch this movie once a year 😅

  • @ScriptSleuth
    @ScriptSleuth2 жыл бұрын

    Hey guys, please do me a huge favor and hit the LIKE button. That's all I ask - it helps out the channel a lot!

  • @fredrikcarlstedt393
    @fredrikcarlstedt3933 жыл бұрын

    Fiirst real Bond movie, the Hunt For George R. Kaplan, is .

  • @AnnoyingMoose
    @AnnoyingMoose2 жыл бұрын

    5:25 Nice touch showing Hitchcock's cameo without mentioning (as we all know) that he loved doing them. Now THAT is irony!

  • @Larkinchance
    @Larkinchance Жыл бұрын

    Hitchcock use the macguffin as a dramatic device. The audience is held in suspense because they know that it is a bomb ready to go off but the characters are blissfully unaware of the danger tucked under the seat. Tarantino misuses the macguffin by informing everyone except the audience making them only curious. It is a mcguffin in reverse..

  • @MyLateralThawts
    @MyLateralThawts3 жыл бұрын

    Just rewatched the movie earlier today. I was reminded from someone else’s post on another video that the original henchman, who held a gun on Roger when he was abducted, was certainly the submachine gun toting killer who died in the crop duster, along with the pilot. Besides never seeing the pilot, I realized that there was another henchman of Vandamm we never got to actually see, but who was definitely present. I’m talking about the driver of the abduction car. He was fully involved in the abduction, but disappeared after fulfilling that task. This could be a possible hint as to how large Vandamm’s organization was, but not vital to the plot.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 жыл бұрын

    Interesting! Great comment.

  • @jaywalker1233
    @jaywalker12333 ай бұрын

    Excellent analysis - next time I watch the movie I’ll enjoy it even more!

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 ай бұрын

    Thanks for watching!

  • @GrumpyYank26
    @GrumpyYank262 жыл бұрын

    This movie and Notorious are my favs. Vertigo is ranked the best movie office all time but i like the humorous AH films more!!

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    2 жыл бұрын

    I agree, I like this one a lot more.

  • @CineStructure
    @CineStructure4 жыл бұрын

    Brilliant film! And very nicely examined screenwriting aspects! We are planning to cover the production design of this one down the road.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    4 жыл бұрын

    Very cool. I'm sure that's going to be tons of fun to cover!

  • @senorrsoup
    @senorrsoup4 жыл бұрын

    this is fantastic, thank you!

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    4 жыл бұрын

    Thank you for watching!

  • @creatives_y_kthefilmmaker5425
    @creatives_y_kthefilmmaker54253 жыл бұрын

    Good fellas

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 жыл бұрын

    Great choice!

  • @bluecollarlit
    @bluecollarlit2 жыл бұрын

    Thank you for this terrific video.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    2 жыл бұрын

    You're welcome, Carson! Thanks for watching.

  • @joycejnn
    @joycejnn Жыл бұрын

    His suit is immaculate through out

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    Жыл бұрын

    Well, it IS Cary Grant!

  • @oobrocks
    @oobrocks3 жыл бұрын

    That's funny. This is My favorite Hitch movie too!

  • @ScriptSleuth
    @ScriptSleuth3 жыл бұрын

    Support the channel on Patreon and get access to more videos: patreon.com/scriptsleuth CITY OF GOD CRIES AND WHISPERS DO THE RIGHT THING IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

  • @luskvideoproductions869
    @luskvideoproductions8693 жыл бұрын

    Wait...the highest ranked Hitchcock film on WGAW's list of top 101 screenplays is: North By Northwest, at only #21? WTactualF is up with that?! Sorry, you're evaluation is really good, this is not a criticism of that...but more a criticism of that dopey WGAW list. I mean, really...This film should be ranked way higher than this, along with a few other films he did.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 жыл бұрын

    That brings up a good idea. How would I re-order the list myself?

  • @flitriver
    @flitriver6 ай бұрын

    I don't know for sure if this is off topic or not, I always hear about 'in act one', or 'in the last act', I'm just wondering, how does one know, for instance, when act one ends and act two begins? By the way, I'm loving this channel! Thanks!

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    6 ай бұрын

    Great question! I'm actually working on a story structure video next, so stay tuned for a detailed answer!

  • @flitriver

    @flitriver

    6 ай бұрын

    @@ScriptSleuth THANKS! I have wondered about this for years.

  • @mahmood9941
    @mahmood99413 жыл бұрын

    when you play the video at 1.5 speed ... the commentary voice will sound like George Costanza Yankee's boss

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 жыл бұрын

    Where's my calzone? I can smell the calzones!

  • @ScriptSleuth
    @ScriptSleuth4 жыл бұрын

    What other films would you like to see me cover? Let me know in a comment below!

  • @oot007

    @oot007

    3 жыл бұрын

    Rear Window - best film ever made. Leon aka The Professional

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@oot007 Wow, two excellent films!

  • @vonjuergen

    @vonjuergen

    Жыл бұрын

    Forrest Gump Leaving Las Vegas kzread.info/dash/bejne/q4eArcd-dMmcadI.html kzread.info/dash/bejne/d5940s59pcuXf5s.html

  • @markuswx1322
    @markuswx13224 жыл бұрын

    One place where Hitchcock and Lehmann seem to have failed is the totally transparent 'U.S. Intelligence Agency' scene in which the mysterious Kaplan character is explained. Totally unnecessary! The Professor explains that later when he and Thornhill are walking to the plane. The plot would have succeeded beautifully without the inclusion of that scene.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    4 жыл бұрын

    Good point, they could have trimmed that down a bit. But it still works well as dramatic irony because Roger Thornhill doesn't know that information yet.

  • @luskvideoproductions869

    @luskvideoproductions869

    3 жыл бұрын

    Well, hold on: by showing the audience the behind the scenes activities of the intelligence group, isnt Hitchcock just doing another version of the bomb-under-the-table juxtaposition with the audience, by revealing what's REALLY going on in this film, while Thornhill continues to be hounded and pursued? Because without that, the audience doesn't learn until practically the 2nd to last act that this is a very big espionage caper, and Thornhill has been entirely absorbed into this (unwillingly of course). I mean...you've got to have that scene in the movie, which is all but 2-3 minutes max, it doesn't realy affect the film at all...and the scene is almost required to make the film have the proper pace for the viewer. BTW, ive seen this film on the big screen in an actual movie theater...and I have to tell you that the PACING of the film (thanks to the superb setpieces) is just about as perfect as a film gets. This is really one of the things that I think viewers don't appreciate unless they see it like that. Plus, how can one not appreciate that bit of dark humor, with the line of "So horribly sad, but how is it I feel like laughing?"

  • @markuswx1322

    @markuswx1322

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@luskvideoproductions869 Since this is one of my favorite films of all time, I'm not going to claim the film was ruined by the inclusion of that scene. There are a few dubious plot elements but not enough to worry about. I just feel that the scene was not a 'gotta have.' It was witty, as you note--one of Lehmann's best. I think Hitchcock included it to help the audience out a bit. In my case it tipped me to Eve Kendall's being the good Girl Scout. Concerning the very BIG espionage operation: I always heard Townsend's organization as UNIPOL, whereas the captioning had it as UNIPO. Neither is, of course, an actual UN entity, but it does suggest an INTERPOL-like connection, which could indicate that Townsend was part of the espionage plot and was allowing the bad guys to use his estate as a safe house. In that case the knife thrower was just cleaning up a possible leak by killing one of his own. I dismissed this in the end, but it's one of the intriguing bits that helps the film. I saw the movie in 1959 in a drive-in and instantly noted it as one of the greats.

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    3 жыл бұрын

    Excellent insight. I'm also envious you got to see this film on the big screen. It's exactly the kind of movie that's made for it!

  • @jademermaidmusic
    @jademermaidmusic2 жыл бұрын

    I don’t really understand the hype about this film. Yes, I understand that at the time of its release it must have been groundbreaking, but if it is known for its set pieces those will probably not age very well. I find the romance story to be soppy and most of the set pieces not believable at all. The train scenes are the best in my opinion, and the shots of the train at dusk still hold up very beautifully in 2021

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    2 жыл бұрын

    That's the unique beauty of film: it speaks differently to everyone. Thanks for the comment!

  • @NelsonMontana1234
    @NelsonMontana12342 жыл бұрын

    In retrospect, that screenplay is filled with holes. Scenes such as the one with the airplane make absolutely no sense. They couldn't pull up in a car and shoot him? There's no reason to be on Mt Rushmore other than it's a good prop. The direction is stiff and unrealistic. He depends on the charisma of the stars. I know -- that's sacrilege. You want a good Hitchcock film watch, "LIFEBOAT."

  • @ScriptSleuth

    @ScriptSleuth

    2 жыл бұрын

    Very true. It shows the power of dramatic irony and constantly making the audience want to know what's going to happen next. They're focused on the future of the narrative instead of how silly it is to try to kill someone with a crop duster 😅

  • @andrewbaroch2141
    @andrewbaroch21412 жыл бұрын

    Ah, you ruin it.

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