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How did Alfred Hitchcock use sound to build suspense in Blackmail?
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Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock's talent as both filmmaker and storyteller is abundantly evident in a film catalog that includes Dial M for Murder, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds.
In his 1929 thriller Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock utilized sound to represent a character's subjective thoughts rather than merely recording dialogue.1
To build suspense, Hitchcock focused on the internal state of the protagonist, a frightened girl who believes she has committed a murder. He achieved this by having the word "knife" repeated within the character's thoughts, effectively using the soundtrack to externalize her guilt and growing psychological distress. This technique allowed the audience to experience the character's mounting fear and encroaching sense of menace in a way that transcended simple visual storytelling.12