Auteur theory

What is the Auteur theory?

Auteur Theory suggests that a director can use the commercial apparatus of film-making in the same way that a writer uses a pen or a painter uses paint and a paintbrush. Auteur Theory suggests that the best films will include the directors ‘signature’.  Which may show itself as the stamp of his or her individual personality or perhaps even focus on recurring themes within the body of work. 

Alfred Hitchcock plays this idea up in most of his movies where he makes sure that he appears on screen in a brief cameo spot. This became a game that viewers would engage in, waiting to find out when he would appear.

When auteur theory was being developed, Alfred Hitchcock was frequentlyacknowledged as a main example, and his name comes to mind as soon as the theory is mentioned in terms of themes and techniques. Known as the master of mystery and suspense, Hitchcock plays with the audience's nerves, sexually or tabooed areas assume central or implicit places in his work (the latent homosexuality of strangers on a train, the parody of an Oedipus complex in psycho and the traumatic remembrance of repressed memories of Marnie)

There is a persistent element of black comedy, and frequent eccentric characterisations. Hitchcock was influenced by the German Expressionists, and admired their ability "to express ideas in purely visual terms". It is this visual expression of thought and psychology that Hitchcock achieves throughout his films. Hitchcock's films are marked by his mastery of cinematic technique which is exemplified in his use of camera viewpoints, elaborate editing and soundtrack to build suspense. 

Hitchcock appeared to be in love with Grace Kelly, 
the American beauty of her era which explains why
she was used in many of his films