HITCHCOCK

This new collection of writings on Alfred Hitchcock celebrates the remarkable depth and scope of his artistic achievement in film. It explores his works in relationship both to their social context and to the traditions of critical theory they continue to inspire. The collection draws on the best of current Hitchcock scholarship, featuring the work of both new and established scholars. It displays the full diversity of critical methods that have characterized the study of this director's films in recent years. The articles are grouped into four thematic sections: "Authorship and Aesthetics" examines Hitchcock as auteur and investigates central topics in Hitchcockian aesthetics. "French Hitchcock" looks at Hitchcock's influence on filmmakers such as Chabrol, Truffaut and Rohmer, and how film critics such as Bazin and Deleuze have engaged with Hitchcock's work. "Poetics and Politics of Identity" explores the representation of personal and political in Hitchcock's work, and the final section, "Death and Transfiguration" addresses the manner in which the spectacle and figuration of death haunts the narrative universe of Hitchcock's films, in particular his subversive masterpiece Psycho.