Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) contains several scenes in the style of his previous film, Vertigo (1958). Several scenes in Vertigo show monumental buildings, most memorably the rooming house, an old gingerbread gothic mansion that anticipates the house in Psycho. Hitchcock's photography of the UN building in North follows in this tradition. The scene in Kaplan's hotel room is shot in a similar style to the introductory scene in Madge's studio in Vertigo. Both are scenes that …

…towards its tragic conclusion, the plot of North is a shaggy dog story, merely a gigantic meaningless accident that has unfortunately happened to the hero. He spends much of the film trying to track down the "real" Kaplan, a character whom the audience knows to be fictitious and nonexistent. So the plot of North is deliberately absurd and meaningless. It is not just absurd, but Absurd, one reflecting all meaningless fates that can engulf anybody.