Shadow of a Doubt

The film opens with our antagonist, Charlie Oakley, menacingly staring at the ceiling from his bed and interrupted by his maid. The camera close-in that Hitchcock uses in here is one of his trademarks and sets an ominous tone to the character and the film. After narrowly escaping from the police, "Uncle Charlie" decides to leave the East Coast and travel to California to visit his family in Santa Rosa, Calif. Back in Santa Rosa, the Newton family is the epitome of the American family; Mom cleans the house, Dad works, and the kids go to school and cause a ruckus at home. When news arrives of Uncle Charlie coming to visit, it breaks the status quo; it makes Charlotte, aka "Charlie," very happy, as well as her mother.

The film is from 1943 and it depicts the small town of Santa Rosa as the core of Americana; the neighbors all know everyone, the American car industry was booming, baby boomers were arriving, and there is monotony to life that is never broken. Hitchcock introduces Uncle Charlie to the town and breaks that monotony by using his suave, charming, and mysterious persona. Even Charlie says "there's something about you Uncle Charlie that nobody knows and I'm going to find out what." The line is foreboding to Uncle Charlie and another trademark of Hitchcock's setting the protagonist and antagonist of his stories to find some surprisingly disturbing news. The camera work is well done, as is the dialogue, in this scene because it puts the two Charlies parallel to one another; Charlie refers to Uncle Charlie as her "twin." These two opposing forces of equal power are what give the credibility to the incredible by way of acting; the suspension of disbelief that every film demands is almost unnecessary throughout the entire film.

The camerawork in the film is classic Hitchcock with cameras swooping in and out to increase the space, as it is in the library scene, depicting the awesome impact of the moment. In contrast, the camera closes in during Uncle Charlie's infamous dinner table speech about women. The calm, cool, and unnerved appearance of Uncle Charlie creates a stuffed atmosphere that seems to suffocate not only the people at the table but the screen, too. The close-in from medium shot to close up gives him a tremendously scary, and quite intimidating fa