Omniscient and Restricted Narrative in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" 1959

According to David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's "Film Art", Narration in the Classical Hollywood cinema exploits a variety of options, but there is a strong tendency for it to be objective. It presents a basic objective story reality, against which various degrees of perpetual or mental subjectivity can be measured. Hitchcock's one of the famous Classical Cinemas- North by Northwest, tends toward fairly unrestricted narration. Even if we follow a single character, there are portions of the film giving us access to things the character does not to see, hear or know.

Poster of North by Northwest

North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock; the screenplay was by Ernest Lehman. It is the fourth film in a series of film collaborations, between director Alfred Hitchcock and actor Cary Grant. North by Northwest deals with espionage, controlling mothers and duplicitous lovers, all strong narrative motifs of the Hitchcock oeuvre as a whole is specially replicated in the film. The narration of the film is mixed and fluctuating, to tell what is a relatively complex plot. North by Northwest is built around a journey and involves a deadline. The pattern of development in the plot creates a surprise and gives in the cheating of an expectation. Patterns of development encourage the spectator to form long term expectations that can be delayed, cheated or gratified. 'North by Northwest' is not a real compass direction but a symbolism of the film's improbable and unpredictable plot.

The opening scene of North by Northwest portrays a picture of Manhattan at the rush hour and introduces Roger Thornhill as an advertising executive, who leads a busy life and is also seen walking out of the elevator and striding through the lobby with his secretary Maggie, meanwhile dictating her; it also suggests that he has been busily dictating her even before we see him. The spectator's interest can be aroused and manipulated by carefully divulging story information at various points. It can be said that we can infer causes, a temporal sequence and another locale even though none of these information have been directly presented. We are not aware of making these inferences but are no less firm for going unnoticed.

The opening scene showing Manhattan at rush hour

Roger Thornhill walking out with his secretary Maggie

The sequence of the elaborated narrative

The range and the depth of the narrative of North by Northwest is extremely intriguing. From restricted to unrestricted then back to restricted narration, Alfred Hitchcock not only creates numerous senses of suspense and surprises, as the depth of the narrative fluctuates as the plot develops, we see the world from different perspective on contrast. In any narrative film, either fictional or documentary characters create causes and register effects.
The plot of North by Northwest present four crowded days and nights in the life of Roger Thornhill. But the story stretches back far before that, since information about the past is revealed in the course of the plot.  The story events include Roger's past marriages, the U.S. Intelligence Agency's plot to create a false agent named George Kaplan and the villain Vandamm's series of smuggling activities. Roger Thornhill, in the Plaza Hotel Bar, gets up to send a message to his mother meanwhile the narrative improbability seizes him in the name of George Kaplan. Thornhill looks for George Kaplan; a variation in the goal oriented plot pattern is the investigation, so typical of detective films in which the protagonist's goal is not an object but information, usually about mysterious causes. Hitchcock's journey plot constantly postpones Roger Thornhill's discovery of the Kaplan hoax as this too creates a suspense.

Thornhill goes to the United Nations building to meet Mr. Townsend

Thornhill goes to the United Nations building in search for the truth and meets a completely different Mr. Townsend who happens to reside in the exact location as explained by Thornhill from his previous day's experience as he was abducted mistakenly.

Thornhill shows a picture of Vandamm while Mr. Townsend is stabbed at the back with a knife

 At the precise moment when Thornhill is about to explain himself by showing Townsend a photo of Vandamm, Townsend suddenly chokes lets out a strangled cry and collapses in Thornhill's arm as Vandamm's man Valerin throws a knife and flees. The spectators frame Thornhill  to be fixed as the "United Nations killer".

In North by Northwest , the early scenes confine us pretty much to what Roger Thornhill sees and knows after he flees from the United Nations building after having a confrontation with the real Mr. Townsend.

The plot moves to Washington where the members of the United States Intelligence Agency discuss the situation.

The viewer learns that George Kaplan doesn't exist which Roger Thornhill will not learn in the prior part of the film for sometime. The viewer knows where exactly the mix up took place but we do not know if the narration could have divulged in the scene in Washington.

For the first 40 minutes of the film, in all intents and purposes the viewers and Roger Thornhill has no idea as to who George Kaplan is and what Vandamm wants from him. This is the first example of intrigue, something which is maintained right up until it is revealed that Kaplan is in fact a non- existent decoy, invented by the government to ensnare Vandamm.

The viewers know more than that of Thornhill as of now. The United States Intelligence Agency spies, created a fake agent as a decoy. Perhaps their hero could be mistaken for this fictitious agent and ends up on the run.

The Intelligence Agency's staff do not want their agent to be identified who is working right under Vandamm's nose majorly acting as his mistress. In this way, the film may oscillate between restricted and unrestricted presentation of story information.

The scene dissolves and ends with goodbye wishes by one of the staffs of the Intelligence Agency for Mr. Thornhill who happens to be a fake agent created as a decoy mistakenly.

The film doesn't stop; it ends. The narrative typically resolve its causal issues by bringing the development at the climax. The climax has actions that are presented as having a narrow range of possible outcomes. It shows that Roger and Eve are dangling off Mount Rushmore keeping in hand the two major possibilities- either they will fall or they will be saved. Hitchcock's romantic ending is discussed not in terms of the persistence of groundless interpretation by both characters and film critics. The plot of this film is Thornhill's journey from selfish apathy to committing to help another person is still a good model for other writers and film makers to follow. North by Northwest is essentially another variation on Hitchcock's typical "wrong man" narrative, but with the addition of a lavish dose of comedy, it can be read as a forerunner to the James Bond films and others of that ilk. The film is a chase to nowhere, a hunt for nobody that ensnares "wrong man" again and again until he eventually fulfills the role of spy.

Academic Reading: Raymond Bellour: The Analysis of Film (2001)

Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson