Sample Response to Homework Assignment 4:  Comparison of Notorious and Shadow of a Doubt

Question

The writer is responding to Homework Assignment 4, which required writers to segment the opening scenes of Notorious and Shadow of a Doubt, look for similarities and differences in the scenes' patterns of shots, and pose arguments based on the segmentations. 

Response

1.Segmentations

a. Shadow of a Doubt:

Part 1: 

A=a shot of the window from a low angle
B=Uncle Charlie
C=Money
D=Uncle Charlie and Landlady of the boarding house
E=a point of view shot of the streets through the window

A-After the establishing shot of the bridge down to the streets, the camera stopped at a house and we have a shot of the window from the outside from a low and slightly tilted angle.

B-We cut to a shot of Uncle Charlie on the bed with his cigar. We started from close by the window then the camera pans left toward the bed as we zoom up closer to him.

C-In the same shot the focus shifted and the screen is filled with money lying on the table and as we tilt down, on the floor as well.

D-In come the Landlady from the doorway on the right side of Uncle Charlie by the according to the way he was positioned on the bed.  She noticed the money on the floor and proceed to the bed and bend down to pick up the money for Uncle Charlie who is using the name of Spencer at the time.

B-As the conversation between Uncle Charlie and the Landlady went on we cut back to Uncle Charlie by himself in the frame, looking up.

D-We then shift back to the two of them.  Now the Landlady is standing next to the bed and Uncle Charlie is twirling his cigar around as they talked, sort of.  We briefly shifted to the Landlady by herself as she exited.

B-The focus is back to Uncle Charlie alone at last.  From behind him we see him sit up, get out of bed and proceed towards the window.

E-After the camera followed Uncle Charlie to the window from inside the house; we cut to a point of view shot of Uncle Charlie looking out of the window seeing two suspicious gentlemen standing at the corner across the street.

B-Back to a third person view, we see Uncle Charlie moved away from the window, gathered some of his things and out the door he went.

Part 2: 
 

A=young Charlie’s room with other characters
B=Uncle Charlie by himself
C=point of view shot of a picture of young Charlie’s Graduation?
D=point of view shot from the window down to the street

A-We started with Joe, Ann and Roger marching into young Charlie’s room with Uncle Charlie.  I noticed they seem to go in according to height.

B-The three of them helped Uncle Charlie with his things and left one after another.  We are left alone with Uncle Charlie as he sort of scan around the room and we follow him wherever he go.

C-As he stops to look at some pictures we shifted to his point of view looking at a picture of young Charlie.  I seemed like some sort of a group picture of graduation or something.

B-We came back to him as he proceeds to look out the window.

D-From his point of view, we look out the window with him.  We see Emma downstairs talking with someone looking rather merry.

B-We came back to him inside the room as he threw his hat onto the bed and walked out the door.

Part 3: 

A=at the dinner table with Uncle Charlie in the center and various other characters around or beside him
B=Emma the Mother by herself
C=the two Charlie together
D=Joseph the Dad by himself
E=the two children Ann and Roger only
F= Uncle Charlie by himself
G=Emma and Uncle Charlie?
H=young Charlie by herself

The scene progressed as follow:
A-B-C-B-A-D-E-F-G-H-B-A-C-H-E-D-C-H-F-H-F-H-F-H-C

A-First we started at the dinner table.  We see Uncle Charlie pretty much in the center of the frame and the Newton family sitting around him around the table.

B-Driven by the conversation, we moved to the opposite side of the table and have a medium close-up of Emma as she speaks.

C-We shifted back to Uncle Charlie’s end of the table and sees the two Charlie together sitting next to each other.

B-Moving along with the conversation, we moved back to Emma.

A-We moved back to a wider shot of the table with Uncle Charlie in the center again as he handed out presents.

D-We cut to see Joe’s reaction to his wristwatch.

E-We then cut to the two kids, Ann and Roger.

F-We cut back to a closer shot of Uncle Charlie pretty much alone in the frame as he walk to Emma’s end of the table to give Emma her gift.

G-We now sees the two brothers and sisters together in the frame.

H-We sees young Charlie by herself.

B&A-We saw Emma briefly and then zoom out a shot of the larger group of characters with Uncle Charlie in the middle again.  This time they’re at Emma’s end of the table while Young Charlie is at the other end.

C-We got back to a shot of the two Charlie as Uncle Charlie try to present a gift to young Charlie.

H-We jumped back to Charlie by herself as she refused the gift and dashed into the kitchen.

D&E-We are presented with quick shots of the two kids then Joseph.

C-Now we are in the kitchen as we see Uncle Charlie entered.  The two are further apart then in any of the previous shots of the two Charlie alone.

H-We witnessed young Charlie starting a conversation with Uncle Charlie about telepathy.

F&Hx3-We go back and forth between the two Charlie as they, seemingly got closer.

C-We arrived at the shot of the two together again as Uncle Charlie gave young Charlie the ring.

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b. Notorious:

Part 1: 

A=at Alicia’s party with a man with his back turned to us, a couple dancing, an old man who had enough of alcohol, another couple drifting in and out of the background and the lady of the house, Alicia walking around talking with her guests and making sure that they have some alcohol.
B=a shot of Alicia and Devlin, the man who had his back turned to us earlier.
C=a shot of Devlin only
D=a shot of Alicia only
E=two of the guests passed out on the couch

A-is independent of the rest of the party scene.  It’s the actual party.  It ended when we closed up on the back of Devlin’s head.

B-is when Alicia and Devlin start making conversation.

C&Dx4-is when they go back and forth in their conversation.

B-is when we see the two on screen together again as she gets up.

E-is a glance at the passed out guests.

B-is when she insisted to drive and they we see them went out the door from the out side which means that we see the door open and out they came.

Part 2: 

A=third person establishing shot of them in the car as the car wiggle on the road.
B=a shot of the two of them sitting in the car next to each other
C=a point of view shot of the road ahead
D=a solo shot of Devlin
E=a close-up of Devlin’s hands and a corner of the steering wheel and the shifter
F=a solo shot of Alicia
G=a close-up of the rearview mirror and the policeman’s motorcycle in the reflection
H=a shot from Devlin’s side of the car with Devlin, Alicia and the policeman in view
I=a solo shot of the policeman

The scene progressed as follow:
A-B-C-B-D-E-F-C-F-D-B-D-C-E-B-G-B-H-D-F-H-I-H-D-F-I-F-I-F-B

We only see the establishing shot A once but the rest of the shots seem to reoccur quite often.  In the later part of the scene, the policeman came into the scene and at the very end shot B, Alicia and Devlin have a big fight and Devlin finally started the care and drove the two of them home.

Part 3: 

A=Alicia
B=Devlin
C=close-up of a record in a record player
D=a shot with Alicia and Devlin
E=the Commodore

What we see in this scene is basically a long conversation between Alicia with a hangover and Devlin with a job to offer.  Despite the brief interrupting by the Commodore, Alicia agreed to go to Brazil with Devlin.

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2.Examination

After examining the scenes, I can find some similarity between the first two designated scenes in Shadow of a Doubt.  The most noticeable similarity is the way he walked toward the window and looked down to the street.  The technique is almost identical.  It starts with a medium shot of Uncle Charlie as we see him move toward the window.  Just as he looked out the window, we were cut to a point of view shot of the streets down below.  There is even more similarity in a scene not designated where young Charlie is lying on the bed much like Uncle Charlie did in the first designated scene.  In the third scene of Shadow of a Doubt, I noticed that the table is scene in two different views.  One angle is from Emma’s side looking over at the other end seeing almost every character but Uncle Charlie is always in the middle.  Another angle is from Uncle Charlie’s side looking over to the other end.  We move between close-ups of the characters engaged in the conversation and we follow where the conversations go.  This scene reminds me of the table scene in Rebecca with Maxim’s sister and sister in-law.  In Shadow of a Doubt, I also see a shadow or reflection in nearly everything.  I see pair here and there and images appears very much like a reflection the second time compared to the first time.  Very similar but reversed. 

As for Notorious, our focus doesn’t shift nearly as much.  All three scenes basically key in on Alicia and Devlin.  The camera follow the conversation much like in Shadow of a Doubt but in Notorious, the character off screen sometimes start their line before their faces are shown in the screen.  Actually only Devlin does that.  Especially in the last of the three scenes when he tells her about the job offer.  All three scenes in Notorious all suggested that Alicia is definitely an alcoholic because she’s either drunk or having a hangover in all three scenes.  In the scene of the drive Alicia and Devlin went on, we see a point of view shot three times.  Once is from the middle of the car and more of a third person shot but looks like a point of view shot.  The second is from Alicia’s perspective where she had hair covering her view.  The third and final point of view shot of the car scene was from Devlin’s view as he starts to get a little worried.  I don’t know how, but the scenes from the two movies gave me a similar feeling toward them, I can’t tell what it is but something in those scenes just made me feel like they are structured in almost the same way as their shape the following plot.  I’m sure there are more possible connection we can find in the scenes but the ones I mentioned are some that are obvious to me.

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3. Arguments 

In Shadow of a Doubt and Notorious, one main character from each film posses a dual personality of sort.  In Shadow of a Doubt, Uncle Charlie is a man running away from something as apparent in the first segmentations where he seemed bored and a little worried.  He seems to be tired of running away.  Then he suddenly figured out a good place to hide, his sister’s place where he alternate self as the lovable dear Uncle Charlie whom young Charlie adore as evidenced in the third segmentations.  As in Notorious, Alicia is a daughter of a spy.  Although she did not turn her own father in, she does love her country.  We found out about her love for the country in a record of her saying so in the third segmentation where Devlin present her with a job opportunity in Brazil.  In Shadow of a Doubt, it’s obvious to the audience that what Uncle Charlie is trying to hide with his sister’s family is possibly something bad.  However, in Notorious, what Alicia is trying desperately to hide is her patriotism and love for the country.  Her image is shaped to be an alcoholic, which hides her true self.  Besides the internal conflicts that Uncle Charlie and Alicia is experiencing in front of our eyes, there’s a lot that’s hidden among the scenes.  I can see a possible connection between the two female leads, Alicia and young Charlie.  Knowing the rest of the story, I know that they both did not turn their own relatives in when they had the chance and in the end, they both were nearly killed by their so-called family.  (Uncle Charlie is family and Alex is a friend of the family)  In all the scenes I have segmented in both films, the main focus of attention is mostly on the ones that are in their pretentious self instead of their real self.  Uncle Charlie is pretending that he is not a killer, young Charlie is pretending that the family is going bad mostly as an excuse to invite Uncle Charlie over, Alicia is pretending to be a drunkard, not a patriot, Devlin is pretending to be a party crasher of sort to befriend Alicia.  There are plenty that can be drawn form these segmentations and used as support for arguments about a certain aspect of the two films or even Hitchcock’s style.  I can also sense a possible auteur argument based on the film’s that I’ve seen so far but I am unable to clearly explain or support that argument yet.  I’m sure I can find more support if I look more closely at the films.