Download or read book Playing with the Gaze in Hitchcock The Experience of Visual Pleasure in Rear Window Vertigo and Psycho written by Anett Koch and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-06-18 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bachelor Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1,0, University of Heidelberg, language: English, abstract: Woman [...] stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer, not maker, of meaning (Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure” 15). Ever since Laura Mulvey published her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” in 1975, feminist film theorists have challenged her assertion that films are directed at an exclusively male spectatorship. Despite the fact that Mulvey herself has revised some of her ideas in “Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ inspired by King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946)” (1981), theorists are still struggling to understand if and how visual pleasure manifests itself for female viewers. In classical Hollywood cinema, this visual pleasure is the result of successful audience manipulation. Cinema is often regarded as a ‘narrative machine’ because “the narrative is delivered so effortlessly and efficiently to the audience that it appears to have no source” (Belton, American Cinema 22). As a rule, the film’s artifice is hidden so well that it remains unnoticed by the audience, conveying the impression that the narrative is “spontaneously creating itself in the presence of the spectators [...] for their immediate consumption and pleasure” (ibid.). Thus, cinema’s visual manipulation techniques enable viewers to experience visual pleasure as they enter the world on screen and become involved in the lives of their screen surrogates. Among the many talented directors in the history of film making, Alfred Hitchcock is known for being one of cinema’s most productive auteurs and a pioneer in the field of visual manipulation. Through his way of directing the camera – and with the camera also the gaze of the spectator – his audience not only appreciates the narrative itself but also, and especially, Hitchcock’s technique of storytelling. By means of simultaneously zooming in and tracking out, combined with point-of-view shots and extreme close-ups, the audience assumes the protagonist’s perspective along with a sense of vertigo, guilt and pleasure. Thus, as a director, Hitchcock is like a criminal who makes the audience his accomplice in a crime that is about to unfold in front of their eyes. [...]
Download or read book Laura Mulvey Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema 1975 written by Laura Mulvey and published by Koenig Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since it first appeared in Screen in 1975, Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" has been an enduring point of reference for artists, filmmakers, writers and theorists. Mulvey's compelling polemical analysis of visual pleasure has provoked and encouraged others to take positions, challenge preconceived ideas and produce new works that owe their possibility to the generative qualities of this key essay. In this book, the celebrated New York-based video artist Rachel Rose (born 1986) has produced an innovative work that extends and adds to the essay's frame of reference. Drawing on 18th- and 19th-century fairy tales, and observing how their flat narratives matched the flatness of their depictions, Rose created collages that connect these pre-cinematic illustrations to what Mulvey describes in her essay--cinema flattening sexuality into visuality.
Download or read book Hitchcock and the Cinema of Sensations written by Paul Elliott and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we talk of 'seeing' a film, we do not refer to a purely visual experience. Rather, to understand what we see on screen, we rely as much on non-visual senses as we do on sight. This new book rethinks the body in the cinema seat, charting the emergence of embodied film theory and drawing on developments in philosophy, neuroscience, body politics and film theory. Through the prism of Alfred Hitchcock's films, we explore how our bodies and sensual memory enable us to quite literally 'flesh out' what we see on screen: the trope of nausea in "Frenzy", pollution and smell in "Shadow of a Doubt", physical sound reception in the "Psycho" shower scene and the importance of corporeality and closeness in "Rear Window". We see how the body's sensations have a vital place in cinematic reception and the study of film.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Alfred Hitchcock written by Jonathan Freedman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Companion, leading film scholars and critics of American culture and imagination trace Hitchcock's interplay with the Hollywood studio system, the Cold War, and new forms of sexuality, gender, and desire over his thirty-year American career.
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 The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho Analysis written by Jacques Lacan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author's writings, and especially the seminars for which he has become famous, have provoked intense controversies in French analytic circles, requiring as they do a radical reappraisal of the legacy bequeathed by Freud. This volume is based on a year's seminar, which is of particular importance because he was addressing a larger, less specialist audience than ever before, amongst whom he could not assume familiarity with his work. For his listeners then, and for his readers now, he wanted "to introduce a certain coherence into the major concepts on which psycho-analysis is based", namely the unconscious, repetition, the transference and the drive. In re-defining these four concepts he explores the question that, as he puts it, moves from "Is psycho-analysis a science?" to "What is a science that includes psycho-analysis?"
Download or read book The Women Who Knew Too Much written by Tania Modleski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1988, The Women Who Knew Too Much remains a classic work in film theory and feminist criticism. The book consists of a theoretical introduction and analyses of seven important films by Alfred Hitchcock, each of which provides a basis for an analysis of the female spectator as well as of the male spectator. Modleski considers the emotional and psychic investments of men and women in female characters whose stories often undermine the mastery of the cinematic "master of suspense." The third edition features an interview with the author by David Greven, in which he and Modleski reflect on how feminist and queer approaches to Hitchcock studies may be brought into dialogue. A teaching guide and discussion questions by Ned Schantz help instructors and students to delve into this seminal work of feminist film theory.
Download or read book A Companion to the English Novel written by Stephen Arata and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of authoritative essays represents the latest scholarship on topics relating to the themes, movements, and forms of English fiction, while chronicling its development in Britain from the early 18th century to the present day. Comprises cutting-edge research currently being undertaken in the field, incorporating the most salient critical trends and approaches Explores the history, evolution, genres, and narrative elements of the English novel Considers the advancement of various literary forms – including such genres as realism, romance, Gothic, experimental fiction, and adaptation into film Includes coverage of narration, structure, character, and affect; shifts in critical reception to the English novel; and geographies of contemporary English fiction Features contributions from a variety of distinguished and high-profile literary scholars, along with emerging younger critics Includes a comprehensive scholarly bibliography of critical works on and about the novel to aid further reading and research
Download or read book Alfred Hitchcock written by Paula Marantz Cohen and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative study traces Alfred Hitchcock's long directorial career from Victorianism to postmodernism. Paula Marantz Cohen considers a sampling of Hitchcock's best films—Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho—as well as some of his more uneven ones—Rope, The Wrong Man, Topaz—and makes connections between his evolution as a filmmaker and trends in the larger society. Drawing on a number of methodologies including feminism, psychoanalysis, and family systems, the author provides an insightful look at the paradox of a Victorian-style gentleman who evolved into one of the leading masters of the modern medium of film. Cohen posits that Hitchcock's films are, in part, a masculine response to the domestic, psychological novels that had appealed primarily to women during the Victorian era. His career, she argues, can be seen as an attempt to balance "the two faces of Victorianism": the masculine legacy of law and hierarchy and the feminine legacy of feeling and imagination. Cohen asserts that Hitchcock's films reflect his Victorian legacy and serve as a map for ideological trends. She charts his development from his British period through his classic Hollywood years into his later phase, tracing a conceptual evolution that corresponds to an evolution in cultural identity—one that builds on a Victorian inheritance and ultimately discards it.
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 Capitalism and Desire written by Todd McGowan and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.
Download or read book Death 24x a Second written by Laura Mulvey and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2006-03 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of the role new media technologies play in our experience of film.
Download or read book The Acoustic Mirror written by Kaja Silverman and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1988-04-22 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "... a vitally new understanding that takes us from the terms of the representation of sexual difference to an anatomy of female subjectivity which will be widely influential." -- Stephen Heath "An original work likely to have significant impact on all those with an interest in the vibrant intersection of feminism, film theory, and psychoanalysis... " -- Naomi Schor "... powerfully argued study... impressive... " -- Choice "... important because of its innovative work on Hollywood's ideologically-charged construction of subjectivity.... what is exciting about The Acoustic Mirror is that it inspires one to reevaluate a number of now classical theoretical texts, and to see films with an eye to how authorship is constructed and subjectivity is generated." -- Literature and Psychology "As evocative as it is shrewdly systematic, the pioneering theory of female subjectivity formulated in the final three chapters will have wide impact as a major contribution to feminist theory." -- SubStance The Acoustic Mirror attempts to do for the sound-track what feminist film theory of the past decade has done for the image-track -- to locate the points at which it is productive of sexual difference. The specific focus is the female voice understood not merely as spoken dialogue, narration, and commentary, but as a fantasmatic projection, and as a metaphor for authorship.
Download or read book Fetishism and Curiosity written by Laura Mulvey and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writer and film-maker Laura Mulvey is widely regarded as one of the most challenging and incisive contemporary cultural theorists, credited for incorporating film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism. Part of the pathbeating 1970s generation of British film theorists and independent film-makers, she came to prominence with her classic essay on the pleasures – and displeasures – of narrative cinema, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'. She went on to make her own avant-garde films, co-directed with Peter Wollen, and to write further, greatly influential works – including this one. Fetishism and Curiosity contains writings which range from analyses of Xala, Citizen Kane and Blue Velvet, to an extended engagement with the creations of Native American artist Jimmie Durham and the feminist photographer Cindy Sherman. Essays explore the concept of fetishism as developed by Marx and Freud, and how it relates to the ways in which artistic texts work. Mulvey returns to some of the knottier issues in contemporary cultural theory, especially the links between looking, fantasy and theorisation on the one hand, and the processes of historical change on the other. What are the modes of address that characterise 'societies of the spectacle'? How might 'curiosity' be directed towards deciphering the politics of popular culture? These are just some of the questions raised in this brilliant and subtle collection. Published as part of the BFI Silver series, this new edition of Mulvey's classic work of feminist theory features a new, specially commissioned introduction and stills from the films discussed.
Download or read book Film Theory written by Thomas Elsaesser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the relationship between cinema and spectator? This is the key question for film theory, and one that Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener put at the center of their insightful and engaging book, now revised from its popular first edition. Every kind of cinema (and every film theory) first imagines an ideal spectator, and then maps certain dynamic interactions between the screen and the spectator’s mind, body and senses. Using seven distinctive configurations of spectator and screen that move progressively from ‘exterior’ to ‘interior’ relationships, the authors retrace the most important stages of film theory from its beginnings to the present—from neo-realist and modernist theories to psychoanalytic, ‘apparatus,’ phenomenological and cognitivist theories, and including recent cross-overs with philosophy and neurology. This new and updated edition of Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses has been extensively revised and rewritten throughout, incorporating discussion of contemporary films like Her and Gravity, and including a greatly expanded final chapter, which brings film theory fully into the digital age.
Download or read book Filmguide to Psycho written by James Naremore and published by Bloomington : Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Speaking about Godard written by Kaja Silverman and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1998-07 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A filmmaker and a film theorist construct a dialogue around a close reading of eight Godard films, in chronological order, beginning with My Life to Live (1962) and ending with New Wave (1990). Their close reading follows the unfolding of the films as if the two were sitting at a flatbed, with the benefit of a filmmaker's eye for the formal issues of shooting and editing and a theorist's attention to the relations of text and interpretation. Includes bandw photos. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
