In a world where film remakes and reboots have become the norm; where Hollywood has chucked all originality out the window just to milk every last cent from existing franchises; one Odyssey writer will call you back to when film-making was at its best and one man dominated the cinema as the master of suspense. That man was — Alfred Hitchcock.

I wish I knew why movies have become the way they are today. It's very rare to see a filmmaker bring something fresh and original to the table anymore. This year alone we've seen new versions of "Batman," "Ghostbusters," "Star Trek," "The Jungle Book," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Ben-Hur"! Why does it seem like no one is stepping up their game to give us something completely new? (At least we can count on Christopher Nolan most of the time.) The world of cinema has gone downhill. The worst part about it is that there are people born into this generation who have never experienced real film-making. That's why I'm here. I want to draw attention to one of Hollywood's most revered and talented artists and show that he is as relevant today as he was 60 years ago.

Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899 in England, and actively made films from 1922 right up to his death in 1980. During his illustrious career, he directed 65 films and created the television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," which lasted ten years. By the 1950s, Alfred Hitchcock became a household name with the popularity of such pictures as "Rear Window," "To Catch a Thief" and "North by Northwest." His style was so unique that any film using Hitchcock's regular themes would be dubbed “Hitchcockian.” His films were so incredibly suspenseful that he became known as "The Master of Suspense," a title that would follow him for the rest of his career. Hitchcock was even knighted in 1980 by Queen Elizabeth II. All of these little facts are pretty neat, but what makes Hitchcock so great even by today's standards?

Hitchcock grew up in what we would consider to be a normal family. He wasn't born into fame but worked very hard to achieve his successes. His father was a greengrocer and made a very modest income. Hitchcock dealt with obesity, even in childhood, and so he learned from a young age about the true nature of people. He worked for a brief time with the Royal Engineers during World War I. After the war, he worked for a few years at a cable company (electric) where he wrote many articles for their regular newsletter. In 1920, he started work as a title card designer in the London branch of what would become Paramount Pictures. During all this time, one can see how he had a very good idea of how blue collar society operated. It wasn't long after this that his film career took off.

Hitchcock knew that when making movies they had to be about people that an audience could relate to. He always aimed to use actors that depicted the “every-man,” so that you could easily put yourself in their shoes. His two most frequent collaborators were James Stewart and Cary Grant, each having starred in four Hitchcock films. These two men were his idea of normal, average guys you would see just about anywhere. And it works — in each of their films you can easily identify with the character these men portray, and it adds more suspense for the viewer because you can easily put yourself in their shoes and imagine what they are going through in any scene.

Another way to make the characters more relatable was to show someone eating. I know, it sounds kind of silly, but it works. In almost every single film, Hitchcock makes reference to food, usually having someone taking part in a meal. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. There isn't a single person alive who doesn't eat. It is part of being human. To show people eating on screen humanizes them even more. When you see the inspector and his wife sitting down for dinner in "Frenzy" you can relate with them more because you sit down to dinner as well.

Hitchcock also paid special attention to the main character's eyesight. In many of his films, he would show us the main character in a particular situation reacting to something they see. He then shows us from their point-of-view what it is they are seeing. The camera will then cut back to the character's reaction. In "Rear Window," James Stewart's character, L. B. Jefferies, is confined to a wheelchair in his apartment with nothing to do for entertainment except to look out the window at his neighbors. In one scene it starts raining outside. We see Jefferies look out the window. We then cut to a view of the neighbors across the way who have been sleeping on a mattress laid out on the fire escape. They quickly try to get all of their things out of the rain, ending with the husband comically falling inside his apartment. The camera then brings us back to Jefferies who has a very amused look on his face. It's details and interactions like this in a film that really make an audience member feel involved.

Characters aren't all there is to the story, though. One thing I will always love about Hitchcock is his use of practical special effects. It's not like he had much of a choice seeing as CGI wasn't even close to being around when he died, but his work shows what a master can pull off without any CGI. Let's face it, modern movies rely on it like oxygen. Let me give a you a specific example of a great Hitchcock effect. In the 1941 film "Suspicion," Joan Fontaine's character is convinced that her husband, played by Cary Grant, is trying to kill her in order to obtain life insurance money. Since we are seeing the events in the film from her perspective, all of her husband's doings are seen with a sinister tint. In a scene where Fontaine's character is sick in bed, we see her husband ascending the staircase bearing a glass of milk. She suspects the milk to have poison in it. So, in order to pull our attention to the glass of milk, Hitchcock darkened the staircase and actually put a light bulb in the glass of milk so that it had a slight glow as Grant climbed the stairs. With each step, we can't help but look more and more intently at the glass. We start to worry for the wife. All of this because of a light bulb in a milk glass. I salute you, Mr. Hitchcock.

Probably the most advanced special effect used by the Master of Suspense was with a process called “yellowscreen” in 1963's "The Birds." It was used to superimpose images of attacking birds into the shot with the actors. This was the technology that eventually evolved into blue-screen and green-screen, and was the same technology used in Disney's "Mary Poppins" to put cartoons in the same shot as live actors.

Hitchcock wasn't called the Master of Suspense for nothing. His films engross the viewer so much that they forget that they are watching a movie and become a part of the movie's environment. The practice of suspense is not one that we see very much in modern cinema, at least not the way Hitchcock did it. He had a very precise way of implementing suspense that I will let him tell you about himself:

"There is a distinct difference between 'suspense' and 'surprise,' and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean. We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, 'Boom!' There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: 'You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!' In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story."

There is so much more I could tell you about Alfred Hitchcock, but I just want to give you a general idea of who he is and why he is still relevant. When you look at the artistry, the detail and the originality in his films you can see why he was (and is) considered to be one of the very best. Many of today's prominent filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro and Brian de Palma (just to name a few) were very much influenced by the work of Hitchcock. Hollywood today needs more filmmakers like him. Filmmakers who will put forward more original work, and less remakes.

If you've been unfamiliar with Hitchcock until now, I highly recommend watching his movies. Here are my top ten recommendations: