North by North West: Textual Analysis of Crop Duster Scene

Director Alfred Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman were originally employed by MGM for a screen adaptation of “The Wreck of the Mary Deare” (Taylor, 1978). However, after some time Lehman realised he was uninspired by the novel and could not write the script. Hitchcock enjoyed Lehman’s company and, unperturbed by his inability to adapt the novel, began kicking around several unconnected ideas for sequences that he had always wanted to film. A man being pursued across Mount Rushmore, a murder that takes place in the United Nations building in New York and so on. The plot of North by Northwest was, in effect, built around these set pieces. The locations of these sequences are all quintessential American spaces from the bustling streets of New York to Mount Rushmore (Millington, 1999). This is perhaps ironic considering the hero, villain and even head of US intelligence are all portrayed as British in the film. One sequence in particular, the crop duster scene, has become iconic and been imitated and parodied countless times. Nathan remarks that it is “one of cinema’s most memorable images... outrageous, exciting and ineffably cool” (2010, pp. 151).

The crop duster scene begins with a crane shot of an empty road dwarfing the bus travelling along it North by Northwest (2009). In the scenes directly preceding this one the audience is aware that the protagonist thinks he will be meeting a man named George Kaplan but is in fact being lured into a trap by the antagonists. What exactly will befall him is not known at this point but a sense of suspense is created before the scene has even begun. Roger Thornhill played by Cary Grant alights the bus and a series of shots follow alternating from close-ups of him to his point of view. This gives the scene a perceptual subjectivity (Bordwell and Thompson, 2013). This narrative manipulation restricts the knowledge of the viewer to that of the character. It is a device used repeatedly throughout the film. Hitchcock explained his reasons for wanting to film the scene as a way of subverting the usual cliché "Now how is this usually done? A dark night... The waiting victim standing in a pool of light under a street lamp. The cobbles are 'washed with the recent rains'...The slow approach of black limousine etc" (Truffaut, 1968, pp. 321). In fact a black limousine does appear in the scene but serves only as a red herring, the audience assuming that the antagonists have finally arrived to kill Thornhill only to have expectations dashed as the car continues to drive past him. North by Northwest (2009) 

This subversion of expectation happens repeatedly as several cars pass Thornhill with no consequence. Finally a car appears from behind a cornfield and a man gets out and walks up to the side of the road. Thornhill assumes that this must be George Kaplan, the man who he has been mistaken for and the reason he has had to flee New York in fear for his life. The audience knows this is impossible however as it has been revealed to them that Kaplan is a non-existent decoy created by the United States Intelligence Agency to divert suspicion from their real operative. With the knowledge that Kaplan does not exist, it appears that this man must be working for the antagonists but this is another red herring. The man is simply waiting for a bus, before he departs however he serves another purpose, that of drawing our attention to the real danger with the line “That plane’s dustin’ crops where there ain’t no crops.” Finally after nearly five minutes and four misdirections the true antagonists are revealed. In fact the crop duster had already made its appearance at a little over a minute into the scene. Its significance reduced by the fact that it appears far off into the distance. “The size of an object in the frame, should equal its importance in the story at the moment” (Newman, 2013, pp. 94). Here Hitchcock has reduced the artificial control of the plane not because it is insignificant to the story but to foreshadow later events in a subtle almost subliminal way. When the plane begins to attack Thornhill the scene becomes rapid and thrilling. The antagonists’’ motivation for luring him into the desert to shoot him down with a plane is unimportant. According to Hitchcock the film was a fantasy but, in the Cold War climate, it was a paranoid one “that brought the individual’s desire into alignment with the nation’s security interests” (Corber, 1993).

The scene was extensively storyboarded by Hitchcock and shot mostly on location with some inserts filmed in front of a rear projection in the studio. The scene is a total of nine minutes and forty five seconds and unusually, for Hitchcock and his editor George Tomasini, involves a high number of cuts that are short in length (North by Northwest: Deconstruction of a Scene, 2015). Why would Hitchcock employ so many cuts when his usual  preference was for long takes? The simplest answer may be that it is because it was written that way. Lehman often suggested camera placements which at one point, whilst filming the mount Rushmore scene, resulted in an outburst from Hitchcock (Taylor, 1978). Reading Lehman’s screenplay there are a number of notable differences from the final film as shot, such as his suggestion of using helicopter shots where Hitchcock decided to only use cranes and his depiction of the criminals in the plane that was never shot (Gianetti, 2011). Nevertheless, much of what is onscreen is in the screenplay including its emphasis on space and silence. 

It is worth noting that music only appears in the scene near the end when the crop duster crashes into the oil truck. 

Also up until this point in the film Thornhill has only been shown in crowded areas or confined spaces. Now for the first time he is utterly alone in an open field. “The challenge and the grandeur of the wide open spaces of the Western become a paranoid nightmare by the late 1950s...Thornhill’s suit and tie are peculiarly but aptly out of place in the heart of the country” (Monaco and Lindroth, 1994, pp. 314). It is not only his suit that is out of place, Thornhill himself is a fish out of water. Up until this point he has survived by using his quick wit, money and fast talking charm but here in the middle of nowhere on the run from a malevolent plane all these assets are of no use. He cannot talk or buy his way out of this and there is nowhere to run. When he tries to take cover in a field of corn the antagonists let loose a poisonous dust which forces him back out into the open.

The scene has become iconic and highly influential. Similar scenes have appeared in such diverse works as Bombay Ka Chor (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Looper (2012) and Midsomer Murders (2014). 

In an interview with Scott Thill Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird stated:

what was on my mind during the sandstorm chase in Dubai was how to make a suspense scene in the middle of the day, and North By Northwest’s crop duster sequence is the greatest example of that. Usually with suspense, you aim for darkness and claustrophobic spaces. But Hitchcock set that scene in the middle of the day, in a cornfield with an infinite field of view, which broke all the rules and delivered an amazing sequence. So yeah, I was inspired by that (2011).

Interestingly the sandstorm chase may be closer to Hitchcock’s original vision than the scene in North by Northwest. The director originally wanted Thornhill to be attacked by a tornado. Unsure of how the villains would be able to use a tornado as a weapon Lehman suggested a crop duster (Akroyd, 2015). In the sequence from Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt contends with a sandstorm whilst in pursuit. Like Thornhill he decides to steal a vehicle whilst its owner is distracted. He even wears a suit in what is perhaps an homage to Thornhill. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2012) The crop duster scene has also been parodied a number of times for comedic effect. Spoof versions have appeared in Follow that Bird (1985), The Simpsons (1991), (1994) and (1998), Stuart Little 2 (2002), Scrubs (2004), Family Guy (2005) amongst others. 

Even from this partial list it is obvious that the scene has inspired filmmakers since it first appeared and continues to be a source of inspiration to this day. The scene exerts a power of its own, independent or perhaps even greater than the rest of the film, as the characters and plots were built around such very scenes.

References

Ackroyd, P. (2015) Alfred Hitchcock. United Kingdom: Chatto & Windus.

Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2013) Film art: An introduction. 10th edn. New York: McGraw Hill Higher Education.

Corber, R.J. (1993) In the name of national security: Hitchcock, homophobia, and the political construction of gender in postwar America. United States: Duke University Press.

Giannetti, L.D. (2011) Understanding movies. 12th edn. United States: Allyn & Bacon.

Millington, R.H. (1999). Hitchcock and American Character The Comedy of Self-Construction in North by Northwest. In: Freedman, J and Millington, R Hitchcock's America. New York: Oxford University Press. p135-154.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2012) Directed by B. Bird [DVD] Los Angeles: Paramount Home Entertainment.

Monaco, J. and Lindroth, D. (2000) How to read a film: The world of movies, media, and multimedia: Language, history, theory. 3rd edn. New York: Oxford University Press.

Nathan, I. (2010) ‘The Complete Hitchcock’, Empire (July) pp.151.

Newman, R. (2013) Cinematic Game Secrets for Creative Directors and Producers: Inspired Techniques from Industry Legends. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.

North by Northwest (2009) Directed by A. Hitchcock [Blu-ray] Los Angeles: Warner Brothers Inc.

North by Northwest: Deconstruction of a Scene. (2015) Available: https://alfredhitchblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/north-by-northwest-deconstruction-of-a-scene-the-crop-duster-sequence/ (Accessed 12th May 2016).

Taylor, J.R. (1978) Hitch: The life and work of Alfred Hitchcock. United Kingdom: Faber and Faber.

Thill, S. (2011). Brad Bird Talks Ghost Protocol and Making Great Movies. Available: http://www.wired.com/2011/12/brad-bird-interview/. Last accessed 12th May 2016

Truffaut, F. (1978) Hitchcock. London: Granada Pub. in Paladin Books.