North by Northwest

North By Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock's '7 defining films'. It displays all the main traits of a normal thriller, including a protagonist and antagonist, tense music, scenes containing cliffhangers and more. It was very anticipated as it was Hitchcock's first film after his controversial masterpiece 'Vertigo'. Hitchcock decided he wanted a change of pace after the dark themes of motives was the source of hoards of criticism towards him. This resulted in what he called 'fun, light-hearted, and generally free of the symbolism permeating his other movies'. Although this was the case, ironically, the film was notable for it's themes of deception, mistaken identity and moral relativism. 

Protagonist vs. Antagonist

The film stars Cary Grant as advertising executive, Roger O' Thornhill who is mistaken for George Kaplan, a decoy caused by the US Federal Agency. Roger is the stereotypical protagonist. He is heroic, respected, and most significantly astute. He is looking to clear his name as the mistaken 'George Kaplan' and ultimately restore justice.



James Mason is also prevalent in the film as main antagonist
Russian spy, 'Phillip Vandamm'. Due to very little character development, we do not know much about Phillip's personality; all we know are his motives although we do not know why. He is very sinister, unsympathetic towards anyone and overall will not stop at anything to get what he wants.

Cliffhanger

The film makes use of cliffhangers as way to thrill audiences and keep them interesting and anxious to find out what happens next. This is explicitly shown in the scene below.

In this scene, Roger is apparently shot by Eva which causes viewers to be completely thrilled in amazement as they never expected it. After this we are shown Roger being loaded into a ambulance and where he is then taken to a forest. He then gets out injured and it is revealed that the bullets were blanks.