User:Emily/proposal 0.02

The desire from MacGuffin & The effect from online comments

The link between MacGuffin effects and the commentary effects

• The Sublime Object of Ideology -- Slavoj Žižek
• Commentary effect -- "Users no longer contribute merely to correct the author, or contribute to the general intellect - they want to have an effect"
• Hitchcock interview Martin Scorsese about MacGuffin
• examples in reality(W.M.D) and in films(North by Northwest)

Refferences

Hitchcock's 1962 interview with Francois Truffaut

The main thing I’ve learned over the years is that the MacGuffin is nothing. I’m convinced of this, but I find it very difficult to prove it to others. My best MacGuffin, and by that I mean the emptiest, the most nonexistent, and the most absurd, is the one we used in North by Northwest. The picture is about espionage, and the only question that’s raised in the story is to find out what the spies are after. Well, during the scene at the Chicago airport, the Central Intelligence man explains the whole situation to Cary Grant, and Grant, referring to the James Mason character, asks, “What does he do?” The counterintelligence man replies, “Let’s just say that he’s an importer and exporter.” “But what does he sell?” “Oh, just government secrets!” is the answer. Here, you see, the MacGuffin has been boiled down to its purest expression: nothing at all!

Hitchcock's June 8, 1972 apprearence on the Dick Cavett Show -> http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/alfred_hitchcock_with_dick_cavett.html

"It is the thing that spies are always after"+"the thing that the characters on the screen worry about but the audiences don't care" ?? +"a scene in a English train - what's the pakage above your head there"

MacGuffin is that it contains the word "guff", which means a load of nonsense.

"but watch out for the MacGuffin. It will lead you nowhere"-- Donald Spoto.

The suspenseful scenes

Johan Grimonprez on Hitchcock and Television http://desistfilm.com/q-a-johan-grimomprez/

9/11 as live version of The Birds(1963)-- For Žižek, 9/11 represents the ultimate Hitchcockian threat, which suddenly shows up from nowhere. He refers to the sequence where Melanie (Tippi Hedren) comes closer to the Bodega Bay in a small boat and a seagull, at first perceived as an impreceptible black spot, suddenly dives on her and hurts her to the forehead ; an image which stunningly looks like the one of the plane crashing into the second tower of the World Trade Center.

Dial H_I_S_T_O_R_Y(1997)-- Our way to access the world through its double, its representation, have changed out connection to reality.

Looking for Alfred (2005)

Double Take(2007-2009)

For Hitchcock, what feeds into the wheel of suspense is the MacGuffin that sets the plot in motion. It's an element gives impetus to the process of narration, or that attracts the viewer's attention, but is not important by itself.