Oisin Queally

From Pure Cinema to Pure Suspense: What Hitchcock Taught Himself

My dissertation looks at Hitchcock’s two versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much and how they show him growing as a filmmaker. For this flash talk I am focusing on one key idea. Hitchcock often said that cinema was a purely visual medium, yet the 1956 Royal Albert Hall sequence proves that sound is every bit as important as the image. The 1934 version builds tension through fast cutting and sharp montage, while the remake stretches time and leans on Bernard Herrmann’s score, silence, and that famous cymbal crash to put the audience through the wringer. Far from contradicting his own philosophy, Hitchcock was really showing us that “pure cinema” is not just what we see, but what we feel. In five minutes I will show how one scene across two films captures Hitchcock’s evolution and why it still shapes the way suspense works on screen today.

About
My name is Oisin Queally and I'm an Irish filmmaker from Dublin and a recent graduate of the BA in Film and Broadcasting at TU Dublin. My dissertation, The Evolution of Craft: Alfred Hitchcock's Dual Versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much, explores how Hitchcock reworked style, structure and character across the 1934 and 1956 films. Alongside academic work, I direct short films and music videos, with projects screening at festivals in Ireland and abroad.