After viewing Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious for the first time, the film did not strike me as particularly complex. Nothing specific about the film lodged itself in my brain screaming for an answer--or, at least, an attempted answer. Yet, upon subsequent viewings, subtle things became more noticeable. (Perhaps Hitchcock's subtlety is what makes him so enormously popular!) Hitchcock uses motifs and objects, shot styles and shifting points of view, and light and dark to help explain …showed first 75 words of 1267 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1267 total…Hitchcock is able to help the audience better understand Alicia, Sebastian, Mrs. Sebastian and Devlin's personalities and motivations                                                                                  towards one another. What I found extremely compelling is the fact that, unlike Scorsese's After Hours, the motifs throughout this film weren't immediately apparent, at least to me, unless Hitchcock wanted them to be. Although Hitchcock is probably known better for weird and wonderful films like Vertigo and Psycho, his subtlty is what makes him a master.