Deconstruction Of North by Northwest

North by Northwest is a 1959 film produced by Alfred Hitchcock is a very famous movie which has won lots of awards and is still known as one of Hitchcock’s all time great production just like its previous relive Vertigo.

The film tells the story of an innocent man who has been mistaken to be a federal agent and is chased by a gang who have been smuggling macro films of government secrets.
Even though north-by-north west is a thriller movie it still has bits of humour, which is a rare thing, but it is pulled of well my Hitchcock as he makes the blend of the humour fit in well with the storyline

Alfred Hitchcock has used narrative theories and structures in his movie for example he has used Todorov theory of Equilibrium where he starts the movie as a normal day at work for Mr Thornhill who is the innocent man who has been mistaken to be a federal agent. The theory if equilibrium has five parts and the first part is the equilibrium, which is Mr Thornhill at a normal day of work like any other day of the week. The second part is the disruption of the equilibrium where the gang of spies kidnaps Roger Thornhill who is the protagonist of the film. This is mistaken identity as the gang think that Roger Thornhill is Mr Kaplin. This all occurred as Mr Thornhill was late for his meeting and he had told his PA to phone his mother when he realised that his mother was at her friend’s house playing bridge so he put his hand up to call a waiter. This was a coincidence to the fact that there was an announcement for Mr Kaplin when Mr Thornhill put his hand up so the gang of spies who were looking for Mr Kaplin saw Mr Thornhill raise his hand and thought that he was Mr Kaplin. Once these two men have seen Mr Thornhill raise their hand they wait for him to walk outside and they hold him at gunpoint, kidnapped him and take him to Townsend.

Once inside the house Mr Vandamme (the antagonist) kept of referring to Mr Thornhill as Mr Kaplin, which confused Mr Thornhill as he was not Mr Kaplin but no-one was listening to him. This creates an Enigma code as throughout the whole film the audience wants to know who George Kaplin really is. Once Mr Thornhill refuses to help Mr Vandamme, Mr Vandamme’s men force Mr Thornhill to drink alcohol and then sit him in a car and set him to drive into the river and drown. Under all of this intoxication Mr Thornhill manages to drive the car away from the river dodging traffic and eventually driving into a police car where he is arrested for drink driving. When he tells the police inspectors that he has been kidnapped they do not believe him and then after a while his own mother doesn’t believe his story about being kidnapped.

Mr Thornhill takes his mother and a group of police detectives to the place where he has been kidnapped and taken to trying to prove his innocence but the antagonist had already sussed that this would happen so he removed all the incriminating evidence at the scene. Mr Thornhill tries to prove his innocence once again by going around to the United Nations official and tries to follow Vendamme where the antagonist frames him for murder. This makes the police want to arrest him even more, which gives Roger Thornhill more of a reason, to start running. This links into the theory of Innocent on the Run. While Mr Thornhill is on the run he gets onto a train trying to run away where he realises that the police have spotted him and he hides. To his luck a women see’s him hiding and points the police in another direction saving his life.

While Roger Thornhill is on the train the FBI mention a secret agent who is helping track down Vandamme and his movements. This creates an Enigma for the audience as it makes the audience think who is the other agent?

The train comes to a stop where police come onto the train once more and do a check incase Thornhill is on the train and they speak to Eve asking her about Thornhill as she was seen having lunch with him that day on the train.

Eve is the Agent and she pretends to help Thornhill find Mr Kaplin. She gives him directions to where Mr Kaplin is going to meet him. This part of the movie is where the very famous crop plane chase happens where the plane targets Mr Thornhill in an endless chase through crop fields. This creates an enigma, which makes the audience ask why does the plane want to kill Mr Thornhill if Mr Kaplin does not exist. Eventually the plane crashes into a tanker and Mr Thornhill escapes by stealing the vehicle of a person who has got out of their truck to see what has happened.