There are many different scenes used in the film Rebecca that build suspense. At the beginning of the film, Maxim is standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down into the pool of water. A woman whose name is never mentioned in the film yells for him not to jump. This is one of the early scenes that builds suspense and evokes curiosity out of the viewer. This leaves the audience wondering who is this man, does he want to die, why does he want to die, why is staring so deeply into the water. Another important scene is the film is the opening of the house. The house has an eerie feeling and it looks almost creepy. The dark, mysterious house provides suspense to the audience.
This image is taken from the film. It is Maxim's house. As one can see, the house is dark and framed to look eerie and mysterious.
Some of the other suspenseful scenes in this film are the following: Mrs. Winter walks the dog down the steps onto the beach towards a house with a strange man into it; Mrs. Winter first goes into Maxim's dead wife Rebecca's bedroom; the scenes where Mrs. Danvers appears and disappears; the scene where Rebecca's body is found; and one of the last scenes where the mansion catches on fire. Hitchcock uses these different scenes to evoke a response out of his audience.
Sabotage is another one of Hitchcock's great movies. Likewise to Rebecca, it also has great scenes that build suspense. The opening of this film is worth talking about. The audience first encounters a the loss of electricity in London where there is a blackout and then it flashes to the scene where the audience is demanding their money back. The audience then sees a man who seems to be suspicious and nobody knows why the blackout occurred or its importance to the rest of the movie. Towards the end of the movie is where the suspense really builds up in the scenes. There are different scenes that occur with a boy carrying a bomb. During each scene on the street, he gets caught up in sideshows. Hitchcock uses the scenes of the sideshows and the camera to build suspense. The camera switches between showing of the clock and boy out on the street with the bomb. He builds the suspense by having the boy having his teeth brushed, being caught up in the middle of a band and stopped by a police officer, and when he finally gets onto a bus he pets a puppy. Eventually the bomb blows up in route of travel.
The image above is from Sabotage. The boy is viewed stopped at the sideshow while he is carrying the package which is actually the bomb.
Secret Agent was another great film of Hitchcock's that can be analyzed as to how scenery builds suspense. Showing the agent Edgar read the newspaper with his fake obituary in the newspaper in secrecy for his job is one way to build suspense. An obituary signals that someone is dead and by having a false dead man, the audience then wonders why is the man dead, what is his purpose and what direction is this film heading towards. Another suspense heightening scene is when the Edgar finds the organist dead and he falls to the floor. In his hand, he has a button. Later on in the film, there is a scene out on the mountains. Mountains signal danger, private encounters and death. Between these scenes, Hitchcock switches the camera back and forth to a puppy laying by the door, crying to get into the room and the men out on the mountain. Between the camera switching, the audience then sees the mountaineer being pushed of the mountain, falling to his death.
Hitchcock uses scenes to help set the mood and tone of his film. By using a eerie house, a citywide blackout, and a mountain, he is able to build suspense and draw in the audience. Each background scene he uses has a specific purpose. He sets his scenes accordingly to the characters, the plots and the events.
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