Download or read book Hitchcock and Humor written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery has been described as "a kind of Rear Window for retirees." As this quote suggests, an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's methodical use of comedy in his films is past due. One of Turner Classic Movies' on-screen scholars for their summer 2017 online Hitchcock class, the author grew tired of misleading throwaway references to the director's "comic relief." This book examines what should be obvious: Hitchcock systematically incorporated assorted types of comedy--black humor, parody, farce/screwball comedy and romantic comedy--in his films to entertain his audience with "comic" thrillers.
Download or read book Hitchcock written by Susan Smith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susan Smith's treatment of the works of the most subtle of all film-makers analyses the key elements of suspense, humour and tone across the whole of the director's career. Arguing that all three are central to our viewing experience, the book demonstrates how Hitchcock's masterly integration of those elements is the key to his success as a film-maker. Examining in detail such films as Sabotage, Notorious, Rear Window, Psycho, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope and The Birds, amongst many others, the book discusses the idea of the director as saboteur and the importance of 'the avoidance of cliché' in Hitchcock's narrative.
Download or read book Hitchcock written by Francois Truffaut and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-12-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iconic, groundbreaking interviews of Alfred Hitchcock by film critic François Truffaut—providing insight into the cinematic method, the history of film, and one of the greatest directors of all time. In Hitchcock, film critic François Truffaut presents fifty hours of interviews with Alfred Hitchcock about the whole of his vast directorial career, from his silent movies in Great Britain to his color films in Hollywood. The result is a portrait of one of the greatest directors the world has ever known, an all-round specialist who masterminded everything, from the screenplay and the photography to the editing and the soundtrack. Hitchcock discusses the inspiration behind his films and the art of creating fear and suspense, as well as giving strikingly honest assessments of his achievements and failures, his doubts and hopes. This peek into the brain of one of cinema’s greats is a must-read for all film aficionados.
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 384 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 It s Only a Movie written by Charlotte Chandler and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-09 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IT'S ONLY A MOVIE is as close to an autobiography by Alfred Hitchcock that you could ever have. Drawn from years of interviews with her subject, his friends and the actors who worked with him on such classics as THE BIRDS, PSYCHO and REAR VIEW WINDOW, Charlotte Chandler has created a rich, complex, affectionate and honest picture of the man and his milieu. This is Hitchcock in his own voice and through the eyes of those who knew him better than anyone could.
Download or read book Hitchcock and Humor written by Julie Elizabeth Peterson and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hitchcock and Humor: a Study in Collaborative Authorship" presents three case studies that examine how Hitchcock's humor, a critical component of his touch, fluctuates and varies in accordance with his collaborators and his creative control. The first collaboration addressed involves Hitchcock's dealings with producer David O Selznick on both Rebecca (1940) and Spellbound (1945). By tracing each film through its initial treatments to its final screenplay, the each man's individual contribution comes to light and explains why Rebecca lacks the humor required for the full Hitchcock touch whereas Spellbound does provide comic moments. Under Selznick, Hitchcock first established a working relationship with actor Cary Grant. The two would continue to collaborate as the years went on and made four films together in all: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). In each subsequent film Hitchcock's methods of humor mesh more with Grant's screwball persona culminating in a Hitchcock classic full of funny moments. Along with Hitchcock's wit and Grant's physical comedy, North by Northwest owes a debt of gratitude to its screenwriter Ernest Lehman who created the original script simply out of sketches of characters and moments. The third case study examines the humor in Frenzy (1972). While Hitchcock's recent films had failed to reproduce the Hitchcock touch for an uncharacteristic lack of humor, Frenzy is laced with tongue-in-cheek action. The story was based on Arthur La Bern's novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square (1972) and was adapted to the screen by playwright Anthony Shaffer to create what many call Hitchcock's return to form. These case studies reveal that the inclusion of humor in Hitchcock's films comes about when Hitchcock has the freedom away from the pressures of the studio and studio heads to assert his creative control with the collaborators and films of his choosing, preferably collaborators whose aesthetics compliment his own, and preferably films whose genre allows for generous tongue-in-cheek.
Download or read book The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense written by Edward White and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Biography An Economist Best Book of 2021 A fresh, innovative biography of the twentieth century’s most iconic filmmaker. In The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon—what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world. The book’s twelve chapters illuminate different aspects of Hitchcock’s life and work: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up”; “The Murderer”; “The Auteur”; “The Womanizer”; “The Fat Man”; “The Dandy”; “The Family Man”; “The Voyeur”; “The Entertainer”; “The Pioneer”; “The Londoner”; “The Man of God.” Each of these angles reveals something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived but also the various versions of himself that he projected, and those projected on his behalf. From Hitchcock’s early work in England to his most celebrated films, White astutely analyzes Hitchcock’s oeuvre and provides new interpretations. He also delves into Hitchcock’s ideas about gender; his complicated relationships with “his women”—not only Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren but also his female audiences—as well as leading men such as Cary Grant, and writes movingly of Hitchcock’s devotion to his wife and lifelong companion, Alma, who made vital contributions to numerous classic Hitchcock films, and burnished his mythology. And White is trenchant in his assessment of the Hitchcock persona, so carefully created that Hitchcock became not only a figurehead for his own industry but nothing less than a cultural icon. Ultimately, White’s portrayal illuminates a vital truth: Hitchcock was more than a Hollywood titan; he was the definitive modern artist, and his significance reaches far beyond the confines of cinema.
Download or read book Camera Techniques in Dramatic and Humorous Scenes in Hitchcock s The Lady Vanishes written by Marc Faber and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-11 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 1,3, University of Koblenz-Landau (Institut für fremdsprachige Philologien, Fachbereich Anglistik / Cultural Studies), course: The Cultural Study of Film - British and American Hitchcock, 11 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Alfred Hitchcock is, without doubt, one of the most famous film directors in the history of cinema. Many of his movies are still regarded as well-planned and marvellously produced classics; apart from his masterpiece, Psycho, the films made in the 1950s belong to the best-known ones of the 20th century. The appeal of Hitchcock′s films lies, amongst other features, in the narrative camera techniques he uses to integrate the audience directly into the plot action. Pans, cuts, and visual special effects are essentials of his work. The camera techniques contribute in a large degree to Hitchcock succeeding in keeping the audience on tenterhooks and manipulating their perception. The repeated award-winner describes this a structure of film making as follows: "In all my films, about two-thirds of the way through, I try to supply a definite contrast. I take a dramatic situation up and up and up to its peak of excitement and then, before it has time to start the downward curve, I introduce comedy to relieve the tension. After that, I feel safe with the climax. (Sidney Gottlieb, Hitchcock on Hitchcock, London: Faber and Faber, 1997. p. 81) The Lady Vanishes, a Hitchcock movie of 1938, is not an exception to this: Hitchcock mixes a dynamic and surprising plot with elements of comedy and satire. Inhalt der Hausarbeit Es ergibt sich folglich die Frage, ob eine bestimmte Kameraführung in humoristischen und dramatischen Szenen grundsätzlich verwendet wird und aus welchem Grund diese so gut funktioniert. Die Analyse ausgewählter Szenen aus The Lady Vanishes soll hierauf eine Antwort geben, nachdem die Grundzüge der Kameraführung
Download or read book Psycho Sexual written by David Greven and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2013-01-02 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bridging landmark territory in film studies, Psycho-Sexual is the first book to apply Alfred Hitchcock’s legacy to three key directors of 1970s Hollywood—Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, and William Friedkin—whose work suggests the pornographic male gaze that emerged in Hitchcock’s depiction of the voyeuristic, homoerotically inclined American man. Combining queer theory with a psychoanalytic perspective, David Greven begins with a reconsideration of Psycho and the 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much to introduce the filmmaker’s evolutionary development of American masculinity. Psycho-Sexual probes De Palma’s early Vietnam War draft-dodger comedies as well as his film Dressed to Kill, along with Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Friedkin’s Cruising as reactions to and inventive elaborations upon Hitchcock’s gendered themes and aesthetic approaches. Greven demonstrates how the significant political achievement of these films arises from a deeply disturbing, violent, even sorrowful psychological and social context. Engaging with contemporary theories of pornography while establishing pornography’s emergence during the classical Hollywood era, Greven argues that New Hollywood filmmakers seized upon Hitchcock’s radical decentering of heterosexual male dominance. The resulting images of heterosexual male ambivalence allowed for an investment in same-sex desire; an aura of homophobia became informed by a fascination with the homoerotic. Psycho-Sexual also explores the broader gender crisis and disorganization that permeated the Cold War and New Hollywood eras, reimagining the defining premises of Hitchcock criticism.
Download or read book Hitchcock and Poe written by Dennis R. Perry and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores the aesthetic of Poe and Hitchcock in terms of a set of common obsessions, techniques, and genres. The structure of the study revolves around Eureka, Poe's explicit and allegorical treatise on the development of the universe. Each chapter explores the similarities and differences between Poe's and Hitchcock's treatment of such issues as doubles, the perverse, voyeurism, and romantic obsession. While Hitchcock's films consistently mirror plots, imagery, and relationships within Poe's tales, Perry also shows how Hitchcock's resistance to the traditional trappings of gothic tales sets his films apart from the works of Poe and gives them a unique touch.
Download or read book Hitchcock written by Richard Allen and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Hitchcock's films have had an impact on scholars of all critical persuasions to the extent that the study of his works is synonymous with the study of 20th century cinema itself. These essays reflect the length and breadth of this scholarship.
Download or read book Hitchcock written by Richard Allen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new collection of writings on Alfred Hitchcock considers Hitchcock both in his time and as a continuing influence on filmmakers, films and film theory. The contributions, who include leading scholars such as Slavoj Zizek, Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, and James Naremore, discuss canonical films such as Notorious and The Birds alongside lesser-known works including Juno and the Paycock and Frenzy. Articles are grouped into four thematic sections: 'Authorship and Aesthetics' examines Hitchcock as auteur and investigates central topics in Hitchcockian aesthetics. 'French Hitchcock' looks at Hitchcock's influence on filmmakers such as Chabrol, Truffaut and Rohmer, and how film critics such as Bazin and Deleuze have engaged with Hitchcock's work. 'Poetics and Politics of Identity' explores the representation of personal and political in Hitchcock's work. The final section, 'Death and Transfiguration' addresses the manner in which the spectacle and figuration of death haunts the narrative universe of Hitchcock's films, in particular his subversive masterpiece Psycho.
Download or read book Alfred Hitchcock written by Patrick McGilligan and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light is the definitive biography of the Master of Suspense and the most widely recognized film director of all time. In a career that spanned six decades and produced more than 60 films – including The 39 Steps, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds – Alfred Hitchcock set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling. Acclaimed biographer Patrick McGilligan re-examines his life and extraordinary work, challenging perceptions of Hitchcock as the “macabre Englishman” and sexual obsessive, and reveals instead the ingenious craftsman, trickster, provocateur, and romantic. With insights into his relationships with Hollywood legends – such as Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly – as well as his 54-year marriage to Alma Reville and his inspirations in the thriller genre, the book is full of the same dark humor, cliffhanger suspense, and revelations that are synonymous with one of the most famous and misunderstood figures in cinema.
Download or read book The Camera Lies written by Dan Callahan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book on Hitchcock that focuses exclusively on his work with actors Alfred Hitchcock is said to have once remarked, "Actors are cattle," a line that has stuck in the public consciousness ever since. For Hitchcock, acting was a matter of contrast and counterpoint, valuing subtlety and understatement over flashiness. He felt that the camera was duplicitous, and directed actors to look and act conversely. In The Camera Lies, author Dan Callahan spotlights the many nuances of Hitchcock's direction throughout his career, from Cary Grant in Notorious (1946) to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960). Delving further, he examines the ways that sex and sexuality are presented through Hitchcock's characters, reflecting the director's own complex relationship with sexuality. Detailing the fluidity of acting -- both what it means to act on film and how the process varies in each actor's career -- Callahan examines the spectrum of treatment and direction Hitchcock provided well- and lesser-known actors alike, including Ingrid Bergman, Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Robert Walker, Jessica Tandy, Kim Novak, and Tippi Hedren. As Hitchcock believed, the best actor was one who could "do nothing well" - but behind an outward indifference to his players was a sophisticated acting theorist who often drew out great performances. The Camera Lies unpacks Hitchcock's legacy both as a director who continuously taught audiences to distrust appearance, and as a man with an uncanny insight into the human capacity for deceit and misinterpretation.
Download or read book The Art of Alfred Hitchcock written by Donald Spoto and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1991-12-01 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This definitive illustrated survey of all of Alfred Hitchcock's films is a book no movie buff or Hitchcock fan can afford to be without. The monumental scope of Alfred Hitchcock's work remains unsurpassed by any other movie director, past or present. So many of his movies have achieved classic status that even a partial list—Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window, Vertigo, Spellbound—brings a flood of memories. In this essential text, reissued on the occasion of Hitchcock's centennial, internationally renowned Hitchcock authority Donald Spoto describes and analyzes every movie made by this master filmmaker. Illustrated throughout with shots from each film, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock also includes a storyboard section, a complete filmography, and “A Hitchcock Album” (sixteen pages of photos) as an added celebration of his life.
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.
Download or read book The Intertextual Knot written by Dario Martinelli and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a thorough analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and of its multiple connections with the Leopold and Loeb murder case and the adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s eponymous play. As an all-encompassing portrait of the movie, the book discusses its aesthetics, style, role within cinema history, challenges in production, innovations introduced and of course Hitchcock’s signature features. However, as the analysis unfolds, the film reveals itself as an actual journey through the nightmares and the hopes that characterized the 20th century. Nazism and anti-Nazism, antisemitism, homophobia, democracy and totalitarianism, capital punishment and second chances, human rights, World War II, misogyny, tolerance and discrimination, Supermanism and humanism, artistic freedom and censorship. Subtly, often between the lines, and with Hitchcock's usual dark humor, Rope is nevertheless a much stronger social and political statement than it was ever given credit for. The Intertextual Knot is aimed at a varied readership, including film scholars, historians, philosophers and film enthusiasts.
