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Essay: hitchcock's movies and techniques
Essay: hitchcock's movies and techniques
Hitchcock auteur
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I. Identification
A. Book Citation
Pomerance, Murray. Alfred Hitchcock's America. Somerset, NJ: Polity, 2013. Print.
B. Author Information
The author of Alfred Hitchcock’s America, Murray Pomerance was born in Hamilton, Canada. He grew up there with a budding fascination for film. He went on to study at the University of Michigan were he gained a BA in sociology (Ryerson 2013). Murray Pomerance is currently a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada and he has taught courses dealing with subjects on Hollywood and Society, and media and society, at Ryerson University since 1973. In 1997, Pomerance was elected Chairman of the Sociology Department at Ryerson University (Ryerson 2013). At Ryerson, he created the Media Studies Working Group. Pomerance has had many works published in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Boston Review. In addition, Pomerance has received an O. Henry Award, as well (Ryerson 2013). Pomerance has been noted as an Alfred Hitchcock expert with previous works such as, An Eye for Hitchcock (2004) and
Murray Pomerance has published many other works on sociology and film such as, Shining in Shadows: Movie Stars on the 2000s (2011). In 2004, Pomerance published An Eye for Hitchcock at Rutgers University (Ryerson 2013). In this publication, Pomerance gives readers the ability to view and understand Hitchcock films in a completely new light. However, in 2013, Pomerance expanded on understanding Hitchcock when he wrote Alfred Hitchcock’s America. He goes on to explain the Hitchcock’s vision of America. There will be a more of a thorough analysis further in the paper.
II. Analysis
A. Theme
Alfred Hitchcock’s America is a thorough analysis and clarification of Hitchcock’s depiction, in his films, o...
... middle of paper ...
...merance provided excellent insight to the symbolism asserted in Hitchcock’s films.
IV. Works Cited
Ryerson University. "Programs." faculty. http://www.ryerson.ca/graduate/programs/comcult/faculty/pomerance.html (accessed November 25, 2013).
Brooks, Xan. "Alfred Hitchcock: 'Psycho was a joke'." The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/feb/08/alfred-hitchcock-psycho-joke (accessed November 25, 2013).
Burgoyne, Robert . "Alfred Hitchcock's America." Wiley:. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd 0745653030.html (accessed November 25, 2013).
O'brien, Ciara . "Book Review: Alfred Hitchcock's America." Film Ireland RSS. http://filmireland.net/2013/04/29/book-review-alfred-hitchcocks-america/ (accessed November 24, 2013).
Nicholson, Malcolm. “The Master of Manipulation,” Review or Alfred Hitchcock’s America, by Prospect Magazine, May 21, 2013.
Rebello, Stephen. Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. New York: Red Dembner Enterprises Corporation, 1990.
Hitchcock has characteristics as an auteur that is apparent in most of his films, as well as this one.
Thus placing the film fully emersed in the old, mysterious, dreamlike settings of the city, they are equally balanced with modern technology and the collective past gives viewers a sense of definite decay, with no sure centre for future (Spotto 277). Through Hitchcock’s films Americans could reminiscence and ruminate about their past-a kind of nostalgia and longingness is created. When Scottie meets Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) in the shipbuilders’ office at the Embarcadero, what he says is striking: “The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast,” Elster complains quietly and referring to the old maps and woodcuts in his office he continues, “I should have liked to have lived here then-colour, excitement, power, freedom” (qtd in Spoto 280-281/qtd from the film). Here his speech echoes urbanisation that has gripped America and he also expresses a typical American sentiment of longingness for the past well expressed. And the sadness of the old things “disappearing past” is deliberately introduced to effect in Scottie and in us who are urged to identify with him, a nostalgia for bygone era (Spoto 281). Hitchcock has taken the film keeping in mind the viewers of postwar America who were nostalgic. Artist should be able to read the mind of the people. Taine has already pointed out the importance of ‘the man, milieu and
Have you ever had one of those days that were so bad that you desperately needed a night at the ice cream or candy store? The 1970’s was that really bad day, while the night of self- indulgence was the 1980’s. Americans love to escape from our daily stress, and of all the products that allow us to do so, none is more popular than the movies. Movies are key cultural artifacts that offer a view of American culture and social history. They not only offer a snapshot of hair styles and fashions of the times but they also provide a host of insights into Americans’ ever-changing ideals. Like any cultural artifact, the movies can be approached in a number of ways. Cultural historians have treated movies as a document that records the look and mood of the time that promotes a particular political or moral value or highlights individual or social anxieties and tensions. These cultural documents present a particular image of gender, ethnicity, romance, and violence. Out of the political and economic unrest of the 1970’s that saw the mood and esteem of the country, as reflected in the artistry and messages in the movies, sink to a new low, came a new sense of pride in who we are, not seen since the post-World War II economic boom of the 1950’s. Of this need to change, Oscar Award winner Paul Newman stated,
Among New American Ghost Cinema, one can witness the re-emergence of an interesting sub-genre: the Found Footage Cinema. We can observe this new fascination in many modern horror films such as 2008’s Cloverfield, 2009's Paranormal Activity, and 2011's Apollo 18. Digging below the surface of a literal reading of some of these movies, one finds a genre that can be far more intelligent than what meets the public eye. For example, within Cloverfield, the screams and images of smoke heaving through the city of Manhattan hint at post-September 11th. To understand the growing popularity of Found Footage Cinema and why we discover these political undertones, this paper will examine The Blair Witch Project (1999, Myrick and Sanchez) in the context of theorists Robin Wood and Jürgen Habermas’ discussion on humankind’s senses of truth and what our society represses or oppresses. Both Habermas’ essay “The Public Sphere” and Wood’s “Introduction to the American Horror Film” touch on the inner workings of the public’s mind. With these essays and an analysis of these films, I will be able to propose theories working towards a mode of critical engagement with the success of The Blair Witch Project. It is then that we will connect it to the wider social and political jungle surrounding America as it stood on the edge of the Twenty First Century.
This paper has attempted to investigate the ways in which Alfred Hitchcock blended conventions of film noir with those of a small town domestic comedy. It first looked at the opening scenes of the film in which the two conventions were introdruced. It then went on to analyse the film with the aid of Robin Wood's article Ideology, Genre, Auteur. From these two forms we can see that film noir and small town comedy were used as a means of commenting on the contradictions in American values.
Regular among his works, Hitchcock opens the film with a hovering crane shot coasting over the setting of Phoenix, Arizona. Even without the mysterious, chilling soundtrack, the shot itself watched in silence evokes a timid passage into danger. In a long take it sweeps across the cityscape to build initial curiosity in the viewer, and then surpasses a curtain-drawn window into the presence of a hotel room’s trysting occupants. Immediately the viewer is called into confronting his/her discretion regarding those things we are not customarily meant to see, in such ideas as privacy and good taste. How far should the law step into a man’s world before he is discovered with reasonable certitude for engaging in illegal activities?
After observing all of the Hitchcockian elements found in Rear Window, one can truly see that this movie is a genuine Hitchcockian film. It contains all the elements of a true Hitchcock film such as the icey platinum blonde, the blurring differentiation between what’s morally right and wrong, and the regular person being places into awkward or bizarre situations. All of these elements and characteristics of this film prove that Rear Window is a true Hitchcockian
Directed in 1999 the movie “America Beauty” by Sam Mendes takes the viewer to an average suburb community. Here, we meet the protagonist Lester Burnham. Lester is married to his wife Carolyn, and he has a fifteen-year-old daughter named Jane. Lester is portrayed as ordinary and unmemorable especially at his job. Thr...
Meneghetti, Michael. “Review: Ellis Cashmore (2009) Martin Scorsese’s America.” Film Philosophy 14.2 (2010). 161-168. Web. 6 Apr. 2014
Hitchcock embodies the ethical question of whether its morally acceptable to spy on the people living in the same neighbourhood, for the goodness of everyone living in that same community. The angle of the
Miller, Arthur. Miller on America. Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing 47.1 (2003): 13-16. EBSCO. Web. 8 Feb. 2013.
In the world today, most advocates stipulate that were live in ‘postmodern’ times. However, the term has been devalued in the past few decades. Though the term may have been regarded as concise in the past, it is today thinly spread over a broad range of social and cultural contexts. This issue is as true in film studies as in other aspects of the society. Postmodernity has become common while trying to characterize cinema in the 21st century. What the term suggests regarding contemporary film or the present-day society is far from agreed (Tudor, 2002). This paper examines the term ‘postmodernism’ as depicted in Andrew Tudor’s work “From Paranoia to Postmodernism: The Horror Movie in the Late Modern Society.”
Cinema in of itself has always been voyeuristic due to the nature of what film is, watching others, and because of the predominantly heterosexual male creative heads and audience. As cinema developed over the years, directors incorporated the general desire and scandal of watching, specifically voyeuristic male gazes on women, to combine the audience's desire to watch with the desire of the characters watching within the film. This essay will focus on directors Alfred Hitchcock with his movie Psycho (1960) and David Lynch with Blue Velvet (1986) on their use of different filmography techniques within the films to give the audience further insight into the psyche of the male characters and blur the lines between lust and violence. This all branching
In the film Hitchcock showed an American family’s unexpected encounter with the darkest side of European power struggles and a horrid personal misfortune that ensues. In the narrative space of the film we find the tongue-tied exasperations of Ben McKenna, Jo Conway’s frustrations both as a mother who lost her child and a Broadway performer who has lost her career and the kidnapped child Hank’s wide-eyed astonishment at the nefarious spectacles opening around him-all this brilliantly formalizes Hitchcock’s own encounter both with America and with the possibilities of cinema. (Pomerance 17). The ending of the film is based on a true life occurrence and the incident took place around 1910 known as Sidney Street siege (Truffaut 90). In the last