1. This is a movie with a carefully designed "look" or style. From its opening onward, you should be aware of Hitchcock's repeated use of horizontal and vertical lines and shapes in the credits, the sets and even the positioning of the figures within the frame. Watch for this motif in the movie and see if you can develop your own theory about how it fits into the movie's plot and themes.
2. As usual with well-crafted films, the opening frames of North by Northwest (designed by graphic artist Saul Bass) do more than just catch our attention. From the geometric title images to our first glimpse of Thornhill to his arrival at the hotel, a great deal of background information in conveyed. What do we learn in the first few minutes of the film? Is any of the coming action foreshadowed by what we watch?
3. This film seems pretty cynical about human interaction, beginning with Roger Thornhill's comment to his secretary that in advertising there's "no such thing as a lie, only an expedient exaggeration." How is this cynicism deepened as the movie progresses?
4. Critic Donald Spoto critiques this movie in The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, pointing out a number of echoes of other Hitchcock films within it. One such continuing image he finds in Hitchcock is that of a man hanging suspended over an abyss, as Thornhill and Eve are at the end of this movie. "This . . . would appear to signify Hitchcock's dark vision of the human condition: for all his attempts at flight, man is clinging, suspended over an abyss, and his fall appears inescapable," Spoto suggests . How might this observation shed light on North by Northwest?
5. Spoto goes on to say that "the major theme of North by Northwest, however, is a man's search for identity--not a new theme for Hitchcock. Throughout his journey, the man is trapped inside places--cars, elevators, train berths, hospital rooms--just as he is trapped inside himself." If you agree with Spoto, you should be ready to explain why.
6. In class, we'll be looking at the storyboard Hitchcock used to plan and shoot the sequence in which Thornhill is pursued by the crop duster. In watching the scene, you should try to note how it demonstrates Hitchcock's mastery of mise-en-scene and editing.
7. In discussing this film with Hitchcock in one of a series of published interviews, the French film director Francois Truffaut brings up the same scene, pointing out that while the normal way of building up suspense in such scenes is "to accelerate the montage by using shorter and shorter cuts, in North by Northwest all the shots are of equal duration." Hitchcock responds, "Here you're not dealing with time but with space. The length of the shots was to indicate the various distances that a man had to run for cover and, more than that, to show that there was no cover to run to. This kind of scene can't be wholly subjective because it would go by in a flash. It's necessary to show the approaching plane, even before Cary Grant spots it, because if the shot is too fast, the plane is in and out of the frame too quickly for the viewer to recognize what's happening." (Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock)
8. This lengthening out of time also occurs in the final scenes on Mount Rushmore; what technique does Hitchcock use to lengthen time and increase suspense in that scene?
9. Truffaut also points out that North by Northwest is full of camera tricks typical of Hitchcock's films: "It seems to me that there were many trick shots in the picture, lots of them almost invisible, and also many special effects, like miniatures and fake sets." That's an area where you might find a lot more to say.
10. This movie was released in 1959, while the cold war was very much a reality in the American consciousness. In one interesting scene, Thornhill tells the Professor, "If you fellows can't lick the Van Damms without asking girls like her to bed down with them and fly away with them and probably never come back alive, maybe you better start learning to lose a few cold wars." The idea of the essential corruptness of both sides in an ideological struggle is stated explicitly here; can you find evidence in the rest of the movie that it's a continuing concern in North by Northwest?
11. In The Women Who Knew Too Much, Tania Modlewski observes that Thornhill accuses Eve of using sex "like some people use a flyswatter"--and that later we see Thornhill climbing like a fly over walls and precipices to get her back from the villainous Van Damm. Is Eve simply a woman at the mercy of the men around her, as Thornhill comes to believe, or does she have a more active role than that?
12. The central characters all have highly significant names: Eve, Roger O. Thornhill [ROT], Van Damm. Are the names allegorical or is Hitchcock simply having some fun with his script?
13. Speaking of fun, some critics see the ending of the movie as a grim joke on Hitchcock's part. Since there really appears no way for Eve and Thornhill to be rescued, they are actually imagining themselves back on the train. But the compartment whose lid they pull closed is a metaphor for the real coffins in which they will be enclosed when they reach the bottom of the precipice. What do you think?
14. There is, of course, the possibility of a more positive spin on the ending. If you prefer an alternative reading of the movie's outcome, you should try to suggest what your reading of the ending implies for the movie's themes and characters.

A final word from Alfred Hitchcock: