Download or read book A Voyage with Hitchcock written by Murray Pomerance and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following from An Eye for Hitchcock and A Dream for Hitchcock, this third volume of reflections upon Alfred Hitchcock's work gives extensive meditations on six films: Psycho, The 39 Steps, The Birds, Dial M for Murder, Rich and Strange, and Suspicion. Murray Pomerance's sources come from a wide territory of interest, including production study, philosophy, cultural history, and more. The book is written as an homage to, and in many ways address to, not only the story content of these films but, more importantly, their overall filmic texture, which involves compositions, visual nuances, sounds, rhythms, and Hitchcock's unique treatments of human experience. The voyage theme plays a key—and moving—role in all the films discussed here.

Download or read book A Dream of Hitchcock written by Murray Pomerance and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2018-12-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dream of Hitchcock examines the recurring motif of the dream in Hitchcock's work—dreamscapes, dream processes, the dream effect—by focusing on close readings of six celebrated but often misinterpreted films: Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Saboteur, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and Family Plot. The Hitchcockian dream, as invoked here, is not so much a dream as it is a way of understanding, in its dramatic contexts, an "unearthly," irrational quality in the filmmaker's work. Rebecca revolves around problems of memory; To Catch a Thief around uncertainty; Saboteur around pungent aspiration; Family Plot around intuition; Rear Window around expansive imagination; and Strangers on a Train around delirious madness. All of these films enunciate the return of the past, the invocation of a boundary beyond which experience becomes unpredictable and uncertain, and the celebration of values that transcend narrative resolution. Murray Pomerance's distinctive method for thinking through Hitchcock's work allows these films to inform theorization, not the other way around. His original, provocative, and groundbreaking explorations point to the importance of fantasy, improbability, doubt disconcertion, hope, memory, intuition, and belief, through which the oneiric comes to the center of waking life.

Download or read book Alfred Hitchcock written by Jane Sloan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1995-03-08 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A concise and intelligent synthesis of what we know and think about Hitchcock and a road map to future work on the subject. . . . There is no complete index to Hitchcock's career like this one and critics and historians will mine Sloan's work with enormous profit. . . . The 'Critical Survey' section constitutes an invaluable contribution to the project of metacriticism."—Matthew Bernstein, author of Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent

Download or read book Hitchcock s Moral Gaze written by R. Barton Palmer and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his essays and interviews, Alfred Hitchcock was guarded about substantive matters of morality, preferring instead to focus on discussions of technique. That has not, however, discouraged scholars and critics from trying to work out what his films imply about such moral matters as honesty, fidelity, jealousy, courage, love, and loyalty. Through discussions and analyses of such films as Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Frenzy, the contributors to this book strive to throw light on the way Hitchcock depicts a moral—if not amoral or immoral—world. Drawing on perspectives from film studies, philosophy, literature, and other disciplines, they offer new and compelling interpretations of the filmmaker's moral gaze and the inflection point it provides for modern cinema.

Download or read book The First True Hitchcock written by Henry K. Miller and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitchcock’s previously untold origin story. Alfred Hitchcock called The Lodger "the first true Hitchcock movie," the one that anticipated all the others. And yet the story of how The Lodger came to be made is shrouded in myth, often repeated and much embellished, even by Hitchcock himself. The First True Hitchcock focuses on the twelve-month period that encompassed The Lodger's production in 1926 and release in 1927, presenting a new picture of this pivotal year in Hitchcock's life and in the wider film world. Using fresh archival discoveries, Henry K. Miller situates Hitchcock's formation as a director against the backdrop of a continent shattered by war and confronted with the looming presence of a new superpower, the United States, and its most visible export—film. The previously untold story of The Lodger's making in the London fog—and attempted remaking in the Los Angeles sun—is the story of how Hitchcock became Hitchcock.

Download or read book An Eye for Hitchcock written by Murray Pomerance and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film scholar Murray Pomerance presents a series of meditations on six films directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, a master of the cinema. Two of the films are extraordinarily famous and have been seen - and misunderstood - countless times: North by Northwest and Vertigo. Two others, Marnie and Torn Curtain, have been mostly disregarded by viewers and critics, or considered to be colossal mistakes, while two others, Spellbound and I Confess have received almost no critical attention at all. Hitchcock's vision and his screen architecture, revealing key elements and showing how Hitchcock was profoundly interested not only in social class, but also in humanity's philosophical predicament, as we traverse a world fraught with shifting appearances, multiple deceptions, vulnerability and peril. Pomerance also reveals the link between Hitchcock's work and a wide range of thinkers and artists in other fields.

Download or read book Hitchcock s Motifs written by Michael Walker and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the abundant Alfred Hitchcock literature, Hitchcock's Motifs has found a fresh angle. Starting from recurring objects, settings, character-types and events, Michael Walker tracks some forty motifs, themes and clusters across the whole of Hitchcock's oeuvre, including not only all his 52 extant feature films but also representative episodes from his TV series. Connections and deeper inflections that Hitchcock fans may have long sensed or suspected can now be seen for what they are: an intricately spun web of cross-references which gives this unique artist's work the depth, consistency and resonance that justifies Hitchcock's place as probably the best know film director ever. The title, the first book-length study of the subject, can be used as a mini-encyclopaedia of Hitchcock's motifs, but the individual entries also give full attention to the wider social contexts, hidden sources and the sometimes unconscious meanings present in the work and solidly linking it to its time and place.

Download or read book Alfred Hitchcock written by Michael Wood and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely regarded as the greatest filmmaker of the twentieth century, Alfred Hitchcock had a gift for creating suspense and a shrewd knowledge of human psychology. His film career, spanning more than half a century, is studded with classics from The 39 Steps to Psycho, North by Northwest to Vertigo (which in 2012 unseated Citizen Kane as the best movie of all time according to Sight and Sound). A master of intricate storytelling, Hitchcock was one of the first directors whose films belonged to both popular culture and high art. By the end of his life, he had gone from being the overweight son of a greengrocer in a London suburb to Hollywood's reigning director, whose cameo roles in his own films were one of their most anticipated features, and whose profile was recognized by millions (thanks to the television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents). Michael Wood describes this journey with the wit and erudition that are the trademarks of his work, showcasing his singular ability to detect hidden patterns within apparently disparate forms. Whether he is writing about Henry James or Hollywood in the 1920s, he is alert to the fundamental truth lurking behind the stated meaning. In Hitchcock, Wood has found his ideal subject--an artist for whom explicit statement was anathema, who made conventional plot a hiding place rather than a source of revelation.

Download or read book Hitchcock and the Censors written by John Billheimer and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock had to contend with a wide variety of censors attuned to the slightest suggestion of sexual innuendo, undue violence, toilet humor, religious disrespect, and all forms of indecency, real or imagined. From 1934 to 1968, the Motion Picture Production Code Office controlled the content and final cut on all films made and distributed in the United States. During their review of Hitchcock's films, the censors demanded an average of 22.5 changes, ranging from the mundane to the mind-boggling, on each of his American films. In his award-winning Hitchcock and the Censors, author John Billheimer traces the forces that led to the Production Code and describes Hitchcock's interactions with code officials on a film-by-film basis as he fought to protect his creations, bargaining with code reviewers and sidestepping censorship to produce a lifetime of memorable films. Despite the often-arbitrary decisions of the code board, Hitchcock still managed to push the boundaries of sex and violence permitted in films by charming—and occasionally tricking—the censors, and by swapping off bits of dialogue, plot points, and individual shots (some of which had been deliberately inserted as trading chips) to protect cherished scenes and images. By examining Hitchcock's priorities in dealing with the censors, this work highlights the director's theories of suspense as well as his magician-like touch when negotiating with code officials.

Download or read book A Year of Hitchcock written by Jim McDevitt and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Hitchcock's career spanned more than five decades, during which he directed more than 50 films, many of them indisputable classics: Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho, among others. In A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense, authors Jim McDevitt and Eric San Juan provide a comprehensive examination of Hitchcock's film-to-film development, spanning from the beginning of his career in silents to his final film in 1976, including his work on two French propaganda shorts he directed during World War II and segments he directed for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Organized into 52 chapters and arranged in chronological order, the book invites readers to spend a year with the director's most notable works, all of which are available on DVD. Each film is examined in the context of Hitchcock's career, as the authors consider the themes central to his work; discuss each film's production; comment on the cast, script, and other aspects of the film; and assess the film's value to the Hitchcock viewer. From The Lodger to Family Plot, 68 works directed by Hitchcock are analyzed. Each analysis is supplemented by key film facts, trivia, awards, a guide to his cameos, a filmography, and a listing of available DVD releases. Whether readers decide to undertake the journey through his films one week at a time or pick and choose at their discretion, A Year of Hitchcock will open the eyes of any viewer who wants to better understand this director's evolution as an artist.

Download or read book Hitchcock Second Edition written by William Rothman and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2012-08-17 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1982, William Rothman’s Hitchcock is a classic work of film criticism. Written in an engaging style that is philosophically sophisticated yet free of jargon, and using over nine hundred images from the films to illustrate and back up its critical claims, the book follows six different Hitchcock films as they unfold, moment by moment, from first shot to last.

Download or read book The Wrong House written by Steven Jacobs and published by 010 Publishers. This book was released on 2007 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Architecture plays an important role In the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Steven Jacobs devotes lengthy discussion to a series of domestic buildings with the help of a number of reconstructed floor plans made specially for this book.

Download or read book Hitchcock Lost and Found written by Alain Kerzoncuf and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known as the celebrated director of critical and commercial successes such as Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963), Alfred Hitchcock is famous for his distinctive visual style and signature motifs. While recent books and articles discussing his life and work focus on the production and philosophy of his iconic Hollywood-era films like Notorious (1946) and Vertigo (1958), Hitchcock Lost and Found moves beyond these seminal works to explore forgotten, incomplete, lost, and recovered productions from all stages of his career, including his early years in Britain. Authors Alain Kerzoncuf and Charles Barr highlight Hitchcock's neglected works, including various films and television productions that supplement the critical attention already conferred on his feature films. They also explore the director's career during World War II, when he continued making high-profile features while also committing himself to a number of short war-effort projects on both sides of the Atlantic. Focusing on a range of forgotten but fascinating projects spanning five decades, Hitchcock Lost and Found offers a new, fuller perspective on the filmmaker's career and achievements.

Download or read book A Dream of Hitchcock written by Murray Pomerance and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2018-12-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores Hitchcock’s repeated voyages into the dreamlike. A Dream of Hitchcock examines the recurring motif of the dream in Hitchcock’s work—dreamscapes, dream processes, the dream effect—by focusing on close readings of six celebrated but often misinterpreted films: Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, Saboteur, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and Family Plot. The Hitchcockian dream, as invoked here, is not so much a dream as it is a way of understanding, in its dramatic contexts, an “unearthly,” irrational quality in the filmmaker’s work. Rebecca revolves around problems of memory; To Catch a Thief around uncertainty; Saboteur around pungent aspiration; Family Plot around intuition; Rear Windowaround expansive imagination; and Strangers on a Train around delirious madness. All of these films enunciate the return of the past, the invocation of a boundary beyond which experience becomes unpredictable and uncertain, and the celebration of values that transcend narrative resolution. Murray Pomerance’s distinctive method for thinking through Hitchcock’s work allows these films to inform theorization, not the other way around. His original, provocative, and groundbreaking explorations point to the importance of fantasy, improbability, doubt disconcertion, hope, memory, intuition, and belief, through which the oneiric comes to the center of waking life. “This lively, informed, insightful book is a like a jazz riff on the six films under consideration, mixing cultural, historical, filmic, and literary allusions to interpret each film. I think it would be as interesting and helpful to a person just beginning to study Hitchcock’s films seriously as to an academic who has been studying and writing about Hitchcock for years.” — Richard A. Gilmore, author of Doing Philosophy at the Movies

Download or read book Hitchcock s Music written by Jack Sullivan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A wonderfully coherent, comprehensive, groundbreaking, and thoroughly engaging study” of how the director of Psycho and The Birds used music in his films (Sidney Gottlieb, editor of Hitchcock on Hitchcock). Alfred Hitchcock employed more musical styles and techniques than any film director in history, from Marlene Dietrich singing Cole Porter in Stage Fright to the revolutionary electronic soundtrack of The Birds. Many of his films—including Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho—are landmarks in the history of film music. Now author and musicologist Jack Sullivan presents the first in-depth study of the role music plays in Hitchcock’s films. Based on extensive interviews with composers, writers, and actors, as well as archival research, Sullivan discusses how Hitchcock used music to influence his cinematic atmospheres, characterizations, and even storylines. Sullivan examines the director’s relationships with various composers, especially Bernard Herrmann, and tells the stories behind some of their now-iconic musical choices. Covering the entire director’s career, from the early British works up to Family Plot, this engaging work will change the way we watch—and listen—to Hitchcock’s movies.

Download or read book A Long Hard Look at Psycho written by Raymond Durgnat and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Upon its release in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho divided critical opinion, with several leading film critics condemning Hitchcock's apparent encouragement of the audience's identification with the gruesome murder that lies at the heart of the film. Such antipathy did little to harm Psycho's box-office returns, and it would go on to be acknowledged as one of the greatest film thrillers, with scenes and characters that are among the most iconic in all cinema. In his illuminating study of Psycho, Raymond Durgnat provides a minute analysis of its unfolding narrative, enabling us to consider what happens to the viewer as he or she watches the film, and to think afresh about questions of spectatorship, Hollywood narrative codes, psycho-analysis, editing and shot composition. In his introduction to the new edition, Henry K. Miller presents A Long Hard Look at 'Psycho' as the culmination of Durgnat's decades-long campaign to correct what he called film studies' 'Grand Error'. In the course of expounding Durgnat's root-and-branch challenge to our inherited shibboleths about Hollywood cinema in general and Hitchcock in particular, Miller also describes the eclectic intellectual tradition to which Durgnat claimed allegiance. This band of amis inconnus, among them William Empson, Edgar Morin and Manny Farber, had at its head Durgnat's mentor Thorold Dickinson. The book's story begins in the early 1960s, when Dickinson made the long hard look the basis of his pioneering film course at the Slade School of Fine Art, and Psycho became one of its first objects.

Download or read book Spellbound by Beauty written by Donald Spoto and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2008-10-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The trouble today is that we don’t torture women enough.” —Alfred Hitchcock It is remarkable how infrequently, over a period of more than fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about the beautiful, legendary and talented actresses he directed. And when he did, his remarks were mostly indifferent and often hostile. But his leading ladies greatly enriched his films, even as many of them achieved international stardom precisely because of their work for Hitchcock—among the dozens of women were Madeleine Carroll, Joan Fontaine, Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren. Yet he maintained a stony, insistent silence about the quality of their performances and their contributions to his art. Spellbound by Beauty—the final volume in master biographer Donald Spoto’s Hitchcock trilogy that began with The Art of Alfred Hitchcock and continued with The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock—is the fascinating, complex and finally tragic story of the great moviemaker and his female stars, the unusual ideas of sex and romance that inform his films and the Hollywood dreams that often became nightmares. Rich with fresh revelations based on previously undisclosed tapes, new interviews, private correspondence and personal papers made available only to the author, this thoughtful, compassionate yet explosive portrait details Hitchcock’s outbursts of cruelty, the shocking humor and the odd amalgam of adoration and contempt that time and again characterized Hitchcock’s obsessive relationships with women—and that also, paradoxically, fed his genius. He insisted, for example, that Madeleine Carroll submit herself to painful physical demands during the making of The 39 Steps. He harbored a poignantly unrequited love for Ingrid Bergman. He meticulously and deliberately constructed Grace Kelly’s image. Finally, he stalked, harassed and abused Tippi Hedren. His treatment of his daughter, Pat, was certainly unusual, while his strange marriage to his sometime collaborator Alma Reville was a union that (according to Hitchcock himself) was forever chaste after one incident. Spellbound by Beauty offers important insights into the life of a brilliant, powerful, eccentric and tortured artist, and it corrects a major gap in movie history by paying tribute at last to those extraordinarily talented actresses who gave so much to his films.