Hitchcock’s Music - Softcover

Sullivan, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300136188 ISBN 13: 9780300136180

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2008

Synopsis

For half a century Alfred Hitchcock created films full of gripping and memorable music. Over his long career he presided over more musical styles than any director in history and ultimately changed how we think about film music. This book is the first to fully explore the essential role music played in the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. Based on extensive interviews with composers, writers, and actors, and research in rare archives, Jack Sullivan discusses how Hitchcock used music to influence the atmosphere, characterization, and even storylines of his films. Sullivan examines the directors important relationships with various composers, especially Bernard Herrmann, and tells the stories behind the musical decisions. Covering the whole of the directors career, from the early British works up to Family Plot, this engaging look at the work of Alfred Hitchcock offers new insight into his achievement and genius and changes the way we watch, and listen, to his movies.

About this title

Review:

'This book is a major contribution to the understanding of both a great, infinitely fascinating director and the movie making process. It should appeal to musicologists and to those with little technical knowledge of music.' --Philip French, The Observer

'Sullivan's well-documented account, including some of Hitchcock's original music briefings, sheds a refreshingly different light on familiar film classics - and their creator.' --Michael Scott Rohan, BBC Music Magazine

'Sullivan, endlessly curious of ear, does not merely cherry-pick everyone's favourite seven or eight Hitchcock movie scores, but carefully analyses the music in all of them: consideration of the curio Waltzes from Vienna, or the almost subliminal, atonal electronica for The Birds, lends nuance and depth to his larger arguments. By the end he has thoroughly justified his opening gambit: ""One cannot fully understand Hitchcock's movies without facing his music. Music is an alternate language in Hitchcock, sounding his characters' unconcious thoughts as it engages our own"".' --Steve Poole, The Guardian

About the Author:

Jack Sullivan is director of American Studies and professor of English at Rider University.  He is the author of New World Symphonies: How American Culture Changed European Music, published by Yale University Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0300136188
• ISBN 13: 9780300136180
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376