Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much (Icons) - Hardcover

Wood, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 054445622X ISBN 13: 9780544456228

Publisher: New Harvest, 2015

Synopsis

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. 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 Alfred 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.
 

About this title

Review

"...an elegant introduction to the director for the novice and a wealth of knowledge for cineastes, demonstrating that when it comes to Alfred Hitchcock, you can never know too much.” —Wall Street Journal

“An intelligent introduction to the life and works of a very complicated director.” —Booklist

"It's a rare pleasure for a book to carry you from cover to cover with wit, verve, and profit. That's what happens with this new overview by Michael Wood." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Fine, brief biography of Hitchcock...The value of this book lies in its insights into Hitchcock’s art.” —The Washington Post

“With the confidence that he is among well-read friends, the author—a fellow Englishman transposed to America, and a professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton—wanders at a lively pace through intriguing and subtle observations about this great artist.” –The New York Times Book Review

“This slim contribution to the Hitchcock library, by a professor of literature at Princeton, surprises with the splintered connections it makes between individual films and other points of culture and politics.” —The Economist

“Elegant, elliptical new book.” —The Economist’s Intelligent Life Magazine

"As a literary critic, Wood probes more deeply into films that for him are 'visual texts.'" —The Guardian

“Wood’s achievement in this startling, insight-laden book is to point up how strange Hitchcock’s pictures remain, how so unlike conventional movies even his most conventional movies are. After an hour with Wood, you go back to Hitchcock more unsettled than ever.” —The Spectator (UK)

“A highly readable, entertaining, and thought-provoking overview of Hitchcock’s oeuvre.” —New York Journal of Books

“Sharp-witted contribution to the Amazon/New Harvest Icons series” —New Statesman (UK)

About the Author

Michael Wood is the author of many works, including The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction, Children of Silence: On Contemporary Fiction, and America in the Movies, a survey of Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and a professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton University.

Edition details

• Publisher: New Harvest
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 054445622X
• ISBN 13: 9780544456228
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 129