Sabotage

Plot summary

The Alfred Hitchcock film ‘Sabotage’ is about an undercover police detective who figures out a plot to blow up Piccadilly Circus, London. However when the saboteur finds out he is being watched he uses his wife’s brother to help. On the journey to Piccadilly everything that could possibly go wrong, goes wrong and the bomb ends up blowing up on a London Bus with the brother. Fuming with rage of her brother’s death, Sylvia discovers her husband was involved and stabs him with a kitchen knife. Absorbed by grief, she goes to the detective for help, who suggests running away together. Fuelled with guilt she tries to confess to the Chief Inspector who brushes her off. However, before the body was found another bomber explodes in the facility of the body destroying all evidence. With nothing to worry about Sylvia and the police detective then run off together.

The Knife Scene

•The knife scene is a famous scene from the film which builds tension without the use of sound. Through camera movement and actors choices the tension and anticipation of the wife murdering her husband is slowly built up.

•The first scene of the movie is of the definition of sabotage. This immediately makes the audience aware of what sabotage is and questioning who the saboteur is.

The famous 'bomb on the trolley'

•The extended sequence that leads up to the fateful moment is up there with Hitchcock’s best; the boy carrying a package he believes to contain rolls of film across London, generating suspense from the audience’s knowledge that it’s in fact a bomb, scheduled to detonate at 1.45pm. Cutting between the package and a series of clock faces as he dawdles through town, alternately held up by a parade and a market demonstration, the tension builds to breaking point as he finally boards a bus in the final moments. Hitchcock takes no prisoners, throwing in a scene with a tiny puppy right at the end, just before the cuts accelerate and the bomb explodes. Even when you know what’s coming it’s a shocker, ruthless in its willingness to exploit the audience’s trust to the last beat.

•Hitchcock himself was dismissive of the film, and particularly of one sequence, featuring the explosion of a bomb on a London bus - which, he told François Truffaut, broke all of his own rules on suspense. The scene, though, is an undeniably powerful one.

How Hitchcock built suspense in this scene

This scene is famed for the way Hitchcock built tension and suspense:

•The audience was actively involved in the narrative of the film, knowing information the character did not. This built tension because the audience was aware of the urgency of the task, however the distractions that faced the character was putting off the production of the bomb at right time.

•This type of method to build tension proved to be effective and had the audience at the edge of their seat, however because of the sympathy the boy got from the audience, they were left resentful afterwards when the bomb exploded and the boy died.