Music enhances Hitchcock’s movies

By Milena Insam

Usually known for his intense films, director Alfred Hitchcock is also renowned for his musical styles, according to Dr. Jack Sullivan, professor of English and the ninth winner of the annual Iorio Award.

Sullivan, who is the author of five books, spoke at the Bart Luedeke Center Art Gallery at the Iorio Lecture Dinner on Thursday, Feb. 23. He shared some highlights from his forthcoming book, Hitchcock’s Music, with the aid of a number of clips demonstrating the “remarkable range of Hitchcock music.”

“Hitchcock’s music is unsurpassed in its power to hypnotize and bring to life ideas that cannot be captured by dialogue and images,” Sullivan said.

Hitchcock’s movies comprise a wide variety of different musical genres, ranging from jazz and cabaret to complex symphonic structures. Music is a crucial part to the narrative, often functioning as “the key to the mystery,” according to Sullivan.

“Hitchcock presented music as a mysterious, preternatural force that hovers over action, influencing it for good or ill, sometimes dominating it completely,” he said.

Known as “the master of suspense,” Hitchcock primarily uses music to build up tension. The musical tunes considerably influence the thrilling tone of the movies, capturing the characters’ “excitement and underlying anxieties.”

Hitchcock uses music for all kinds of purposes, Sullivan said. Jazz, for instance, serves as a coverup for danger.

“For Hitchcock, jazz was an emblem of modern life,” he said.

One of the clips Sullivan showed in order to demonstrate the impact of music in Hitchcock’s movies was from the film Psycho, which incorporates his “most radical score.”

“Psycho is the sound of primordial dread,” Sullivan said. “Without music, Psycho would probably not exist.”

In The Birds, another clip that Sullivan showed, Hitchcock achieved his most revolutionary soundtrack.

“The sound of The Birds was new,” Sullivan said. “It delivers one of the most daring scores of the Hitchcock canon.”

Although he was not a musician himself, Sullivan said Hitchcock had an “extraordinarily detailed knowledge of music,” something that is rarely to be encountered with Hollywood directors.

“The way tunes and street sounds drift through the soundtrack is unique,” Sullivan said. “Everywhere, the soundtrack upsets conventions.”

Psycho and The Birds are just two of the famous movies Sullivan examines in his book Hitchcock’s Music. Through his in-depth analysis, Sullivan illustrates how Hitchcock’s music changes our view of reality.

“Hitchcock demonstrated that his musical instincts were keen right up to the end,” Sullivan said. “He left behind a unique musical legacy, attested to by endless influences, homages and pastiches.”