A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most famous, revered, and widely imitated filmmakers of all time. This companion is the most ambitious and comprehensive volume ever published on the Master of Suspense, considering the full range of his career – from his earliest contributions to other directors′ silent films to his uncompleted last film. Thirty chapters by the world′s leading Hitchcock experts cover well–established approaches as well as cutting–edge scholarship and tackle the most puzzling and complex problems in Hitchcock′s films and contemporary film studies. Placing Hitchcock and his works in their cultural and intellectual contexts, essays explore the genres with which his work is most closely associated, his relationships with his performers and other leading collaborators, the verbal and visual style of his films, his rise to prominence as the quintessential Hollywood auteur, the ideological and ethical implications of his films, and the enduring legacy he left to filmmakers and audiences alike. Accessible and yet sophisticated, this companion is essential reading for scholars, film enthusiasts, and anyone interested in this hugely influential filmmaker.

Notes on Contributors x Introduction 1 Thomas Leitch and Leland Poague Part I Background 9 1. Hitchcock′s Lives 11 Thomas Leitch 2. Hitchcock′s Literary Sources 28 Ken Mogg 3. Hitchcock and Early Filmmakers 48 Charles Barr 4. Hitchcock′s Narrative Modernism: Ironies of Fictional Time 67 Thomas Hemmeter Part II Genre 87 5. Hitchcock and Romance 89 Lesley Brill 6. Family Plots: Hitchcock and Melodrama 109 Richard R. Ness 7. Conceptual Suspense in Hitchcock′s Films 126 Paula Marantz Cohen Part III Collaboration 139 8. "Tell Me the Story So Far": Hitchcock and His Writers 141 Leland Poague 9. Suspicion: Collusion and Resistance in the Work of Hitchcock′s Female Collaborators 162 Tania Modleski 10. A Surface Collaboration: Hitchcock and Performance 181 Susan White Part IV Style 199 11. Aesthetic Space in Hitchcock 201 Brigitte Peucker 12. Hitchcock and Music 219 Jack Sullivan 13. Some Hitchcockian Shots 237 Murray Pomerance Part V Development 253 14. Hitchcock′s Silent Cinema 255 Sidney Gottlieb 15. Gaumont Hitchcock 270 Tom Ryall 16. Hitchcock Discovers America: The Selznick–Era Films 289 Ina Rae Hark 17. From Transatlantic to Warner Bros. 309 David Sterritt 18. Hitchcock, Metteur–en–scène: 1954–60 329 Joe McElhaney 19. The Universal Hitchcock 347 William Rothman Part VI Auteurism 365 20. French Hitchcock, 1945–55 367 James M. Vest 21. Lost in Translation? Listening to the Hitchcock–Truffaut Interview 387 Janet Bergstrom 22. Robin Wood′s Hitchcock 405 Harry Oldmeadow Part VII Ideology 425 23. Accidental Heroes and Gifted Amateurs: Hitchcock and Ideology 427 Toby Miller with Noel King 24. Hitchcock and Feminist Criticism: From Rebecca to Marnie 452 Florence Jacobowitz 25. Queer Hitchcock 473 Alexander Doty Part VIII Ethics 491 26. Hitchcock and Philosophy 493 Richard Gilmore 27. Hitchcock′s Ethics of Suspense: Psychoanalysis and the Devaluation of the Object 508 Todd McGowan 28. Occasions of Sin: The Forgotten Cigarette Lighter and Other Moral Accidents in Hitchcock 529 George Toles Part IX Beyond Hitchcock 553 29. Hitchcock and the Postmodern 555 Angelo Restivo 30. Hitchcock′s Legacy 572 Richard Allen Index 592

Thomas Leitch is Professor of English at the University of Delaware, where he directs the Film Studies Program. His books include Find the Director and Other Hitchcock Games (1991), The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock (2002), and, most recently, Film Adaptation and Its Discontents: From Gone with the Wind to The Passion of the Christ (2007). Leland Poague is Professor of English at Iowa State University.  With Marshall Deutelbaum, he edited A Hitchcock Reader (1986, 2009).  His other books include Another Frank Capra (1994), Howard Hawks (1982), and, with William Cadbury, Film Criticism: A Counter Theory (1982).

“Teachers and students alike will find much to keep themselves busy in A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock .. . at least until the next heavy–duty study of his work arrives.”  ( Psychobabble200 , 20 March 2014) "A great resource for students of Hitchcock′s films, craft, thought, influences, and aesthetics. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower–and upper–division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, faculty." (Choice, 1 November 2011)