Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light - Softcover

McGilligan, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470869739 ISBN 13: 9780470869734

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2004

Synopsis

A fresh and definitive portrait of the Master of Suspense by acclaimed biographer Patrick McGilligan

Full of fresh revelations, dark humour and cliff hanging suspense, this new biography of Alfred Hitchcock follows his life from its humble beginnings, as the son of an East End greengrocer, through an extraordinary career in which his films set new standards for cinematic invention, to his death as a Hollywood legend in Beverley Hills.

• Gives a uniquely comprehensive and balanced view of Hitchcock’s life, uncovering details not just of his work but also his personal life, and with an insight into how they interacted and sometimes clashed
• Covers Hitchcock’s relationships with Hollywood screen legends such as Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.
• Challenges the interpretations of Hitchcock as ‘the macabre Englishman’ and a sexual obsessive
• Describes the enduring love story behind his 54 year marriage to Alma Reville
• Enduring interest in Hitchcock’s influence on the thriller genre, and his 50+ films
• The 25th anniversary of Hitchcock’s death is on 20 April 2005
• 32 pages of black and white photos.
• The first complete biography of his life in 25 years

About this title

Review:

“...authoritative and exhaustively researched...a fitting study of the director... – will inform and inspire the studies that are certain to follow.” (Journal of British Cinema & Television, Vol.1, No.2, 2004)

From the Back Cover:

In a career that spanned six decades and more than sixty films, Alfred Hitchcock became the most widely recognised director who ever lived.  His films – including The 39 Steps, Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds – set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling elan.  Since his death, Hitchcock has become crystallised in the public imagination as the macabre Englishman, the sexual obsessive, the Master of Suspense.  But this remarkable biography draws on prodigious new research to restore Hitchcock the man – the ingenious craftsman, the avid collaborator, the constant trickster, provocateur and romantic.  Like Hitchcock′s best films, Patrick McGilligan′s life of Hitchcock is a drama full of revelation, graced by a central love story, dark humour and cliff hanging suspense: a definitive portrait of the most creative, and least understood, figure in film history.

About this edition

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0470869739
• ISBN 13: 9780470869734
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 894