Hitchcock – The Murderous Gaze (Paper) (Harvard Film Studies) - Softcover

Rothman, W

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674404114 ISBN 13: 9780674404113

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1982

Synopsis

No reader of this challenging book will ever view a Hitchcock film (perhaps any film) in quite the same way again. By a close analysis of five representative works and documenting his readings with more than 600 frame enlargements, Rothman shows how Hitchcock composed his films--how each moment bears his imprint and his special demands on the viewer.It is the seriousness of Hitchcock's reflections on the murderous power of the camera's gaze, and on the larger mysteries of love and murder, that makes him a monumental figure in the history of film. Rothman follows the course of these reflections from the gripping images of the silent film The Lodger (1926) to what he terms Hitchcock's final call for acknowledgment in Psycho (1960). The continuity is traced through Murder! (1930), the most ambitious of the early films; The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935), which established a new genre (the "Hitchcock thriller") and gave the world its sense of Hitchcock as the "master of suspense"; and Shadow of a Doubt (1943), the director's cunning demonstration to an American audience of what a Hitchcock film really is.Rothman's readings immeasurably deepen our appreciation of Hitchcock's individual achievement. At the same time the book is a sustained meditation, philosophically scrupulous, on the medium and the art of film, on the conditions of authorship in film, and on the ways that serious films might be approached in acts of viewing and criticism.

About this title

Review

William Rothman's "Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze is the best treatment of Hitchcock to date. It addresses what is unique about Hitchcock's films...[in order] to establish the centrality of Hitchcock to the art of making films...[The book] consists of detailed readings of five films "The Lodger," "Murder!," "The Thirty-Nine Steps," "Shadow of a Doubt," and "Psycho," illustrated with more than six hundred frame enlargements...The book rewards the reader by providing pleasures that convey, to a remarkable degree, the exhilarating experience of viewing a Hitchcock film...Most readers, I am convinced, will have the sense that Rothman has really captured Hitchcock, and that he has shown Hitchcock to be more masterly, and more profound, than they ever imagined...Rothman's book, clear, passionate, and witty, neither reduces the films it studies to a set of codes nor is itself written in code. An eloquent, intelligent work. -- Philip French "Times Literary Supplement" Perceptive, graceful, illuminating...As a model of how to view a movie it has few equals. This is academic film criticism of the very highest order; the readings are inclusive and illuminating, and the writing is at once polished and congenial. masterly, and more profound, than they ever imagined...Rothman's book, clear, passionate, and witty, neither reduces the films it studies to a set of codes nor is itself written in code. William Rothman's Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze is the best treatment of Hitchcock to date. It addresses what is unique about Hitchcock's films...[in order] to establish the centrality of Hitchcock to the art of making films...[The book] consists of detailed readings of five films The Lodger, Murder!, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Shadow of a Doubt, and Psycho, illustrated with more than six hundred frame enlargements...The book rewards the reader by providing pleasures that convey, to a remarkable degree, the exhilarating experience of viewing a Hitchcock film...Most readers, I am convinced, will have the sense that Rothman has really captured Hitchcock, and that he has shown Hitchcock to be more masterly, and more profound, than they ever imagined...Rothman's book, clear, passionate, and witty, neither reduces the films it studies to a set of codes nor is itself written in code. [An] eloquent, intelligent work. -- Philip French "Times Literary Supplement" Rothman's approach is engagingly far from dictatorial; his readings, crammed with useful questions rather than inflexible assertions, should stimulate...Rothman's is the best desert-island reading the Hitchcock fan could wish for.--Philip Strick "Films and Filming " [An] eloquent, intelligent work.--Philip French "Times Literary Supplement " The whole book in fact is richly suggestive--perhaps more fully responsive to Hitchcock's complexities than any previous account--and it deserves to be widely discussed.--Douglas Pye "Journal of American Studies " William Rothman's "Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze" is the best treatment of Hitchcock to date. It addresses what is unique about Hitchcock's films...[in order] to establish the centrality of Hitchcock to the art of making films...[The book] consists of detailed readings of five films "The Lodger", "Murder!", "The Thirty-Nine Steps", "Shadow of a Doubt", and "Psycho", illustrated with more than six hundred frame enlargements...The book rewards the reader by providing pleasures that convey, to a remarkable degree, the exhilarating experience of viewing a Hitchcock film...Most readers, I am convinced, will have the sense that Rothman has really captured Hitchcock, and that he has shown Hitchcock to be more masterly, and more profound, than they ever imagined...Rothman's book, clear, passionate, and witty, neither reduces the films it studies to a set of codes nor is itself written in code.--Paul Thomas "American Film " Rothman's study is like no other I have read of Hitchcock, or any other director for that matter...The book represents an immense labor of love and devotion.--Forsyth Hardy "Literary Review "

Synopsis

A detailed study of five Hitchcock films, The Lodger, Murder, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Shadow of a Doubt, and Psycho, analyzes the director's themes and techniques.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674404114
• ISBN 13: 9780674404113
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384