Surprise or suspense: Hitchcock’s bomb
Watch the first version of the scene, then the second, in which you know more than the characters. Which one kept you more on edge?
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Try the experiment: your result will appear here, next to what most people do.
What just happened (read it after the experiment)
What most people do: Most viewers find the version in which they know more the more gripping one.
Hitchcock explained it to François Truffaut in 1962: if a bomb goes off without warning, the audience gets fifteen seconds of surprise. If they know it is under the table and will go off at one o’clock, they live through fifteen minutes of suspense.
Suspense comes from a gap in information: you know what the characters don’t, and you can’t warn them.
It’s the mainspring of most thrillers: making you guess what comes next, without giving it to you.
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Sources
- François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966.