North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959)
Discussion Questions
North Seattle Community College, HUM 110: Introduction to American Film, JC Clapp
Come to class prepared to answer the below questions. Have notes ready, with specific examples, for each question. You will not be asked to turn in your notes, but you may be called on or asked to give your response. You may want to use these questions as a viewing guide, so that as you watch the film you have a sense of what you might look for.
1. Hitchcock is known for making thrillers. What elements in this film would categorize it as a thriller? Does it break any of the thriller genre conventions? How does he create suspense?
2. What kind of man is Roger Thornhill? Look at what he says, what he does (and doesn’t do), how he acts, how he dresses, etc. and come to an analysis of his personality. What kind of character is he? Does he change as the film progresses? Are we meant to like him?
3. What about Eve? What kind of character is she? Does she change as the film progresses? Are we meant to like her?
4. Roger and Eve have a brief love affair on the train that develops into a lasting relationship. Is this relationship convincing? Does it seem fully developed and believable? Do Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint seem to have good on-screen chemistry that helps to make the affair convincing?
5. Bernard Herrmann did the music for this film (he also did Hitchcock’s famous Psycho as well as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver). Discuss how the music is used in this film and to what effect. Choose one scene, if that’s helpful, and describe how the music functions.
6. What’s with all of the travel and transportation? We get planes, trains, and automobiles in this film, as well as references to other forms of transportation. How does this theme of transportation function within the film as a whole?
7. What version of America (and American politics) does this film give us? How does this version of America and Americans align with 1950’s Cold War-era political tensions?
8. This film has some fabulous dialogue! Choose one scene (or piece of a scene) where the dialogue is particularly witty or memorable and discuss how it works within the film.
9. We can’t discuss this film without discussing Roger Thornhill being run down by a crop-duster airplane! Analyze this scene to arrive at some ideas about how it’s constructed and what it communicates.
10. Outline the narrative structure of this film and how it unfolds. How does the order of events slowly reveal and give tension?