Scripting Hitchcock

Scripting Hitchcock PDF

Author: Walter Raubicheck

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2011-10-01

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0252093518

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Scripting Hitchcock explores the collaborative process between Alfred Hitchcock and the screenwriters he hired to write the scripts for three of his greatest films: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie. Drawing from extensive interviews with the screenwriters and other film technicians who worked for Hitchcock, Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick illustrate how much of the filmmaking process took place not on the set or in front of the camera, but in the adaptation of the sources, the mutual creation of plot and characters by the director and the writers, and the various revisions of the written texts of the films. Hitchcock allowed his writers a great deal of creative freedom, which resulted in dynamic screenplays that expanded traditional narrative and defied earlier conventions. Critically examining the question of authorship in film, Raubicheck and Srebnick argue that Hitchcock did establish visual and narrative priorities for his writers, but his role in the writing process was that of an editor. While the writers and their contributions have generally been underappreciated, this study reveals that all the dialogue and much of the narrative structure of the films were the work of screenwriters Jay Presson Allen, Joseph Stefano, and Evan Hunter. The writers also shaped American cultural themes into material specifically for actors such as Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedren, and Tony Perkins. This volume gives due credit to those writers who gave narrative form to Hitchcock's filmic vision.

Scripting Hitchcock

Scripting Hitchcock PDF

Author: Walter Raubicheck

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2011-10-13

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0252036484

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Preface. -- The triptych and the screenplays. -- The sources. -- From treatment to script. -- Final drafts : the shooting script. -- Afterword.

Writing with Hitchcock

Writing with Hitchcock PDF

Author: Steven DeRosa

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 9780571199907

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An entertaining, in-depth look at the films, including Rear Window, made by Alfred Hitchcock with screenwriter John Michael Hayes. In spring 1953, the great director Alfred Hitchcock decided to take a chance and work with a young writer, John Michael Hayes. The decision turned out to be a pivotal one, for the four films that Hitchcock made with Hayes over the next several years -- Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much -- represented an extraordinarily successful change of style. Each of the movies was distinguished by a combination of glamorous stars, sophisticated dialogue, and inventive plots -- James Stewart and Grace Kelly trading barbs in the tensely plotted Rear Window, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly engaging in witty repartee in To Catch a Thief -- and resulted in some of Hitchcock's most distinctive and intimate work, based in large part on Hayes's exceptional scripts. Exploring for the first time the details of this collaboration, Steven DeRosa follows Hitchcock and Hayes through each film from initial discussions to completed picture and presents an analysis of each screenplay. He also reveals the personal story -- filled with inspiration and humor, jealousy and frustration -- of the initial synergy between the two very different men before their relationship fell apart. Writing with Hitchcock not only provides new insight into four films from a master but also sheds light on the process through which classic motion pictures are created.

Hitchcock's America

Hitchcock's America PDF

Author: Jonathan Freedman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1999-02-25

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0195353315

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Alfred Hitchcock's American films are not only among the most admired works in world cinema, they also offer some of our most acute responses to the changing shape of American society in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. The authors of this anthology show how famous films such as Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Rear Window, along with more obscure ones such as Rope, The Wrong Man, and Family Plot, register the ideologies and insurgencies, the normative assumptions and the cultural alternatives, that shaped these tumultuous decades. They argue that, just as these films occupy a visual landscape defined by the grand monuments of American civic life--Mt. Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations--they are also marked by their preoccupation with the social mores and private practices of mid-century America. Not only are big-city and suburban life the explicit subjects of films like Rear Window and Shadow of a Doubt, so are the forms of experience that emerge within these social spaces, whether the urban voyeurism examined by the former or the intertwining of banality and violence depicted in the latter. Indeed, just about every form of American life that was achieving social power at this time--the national security state; the science and art of psychoanalysis; the privileging of the free-wheeling, improvisatory self; the postwar codification and fissuring of gender roles; road-culture and its ancillary creation, the motel--is given detailed, critical, and mordant examination in Hitchcocks films. The Hitchcock who emerges is not merely the inspired technician and psychological excavator that critics of the past two generations have justly hailed; he is also a cultural critic of remarkable insight and undeniable prescience.

Hitchcock At Work

Hitchcock At Work PDF

Author: Bill Krohn

Publisher: Phaidon Press

Published: 2003-06-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780714843339

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Hitchcock at Workis a comprehensive, behind-the-scenes examination of the work of 'The Master of Suspense', Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). It examines the director's entire career from the early films made in the UK in the 1920s and 30s, to his move to Hollywood where he came to co-produce as well as direct his films. Film expert Bill Krohn looks beyond the usual anecdotal sources about Hitchcock, paying unprecedented attention to the director's personal papers and the archives of the film studios for which he worked. This seminal survey includes rare shooting schedules, budgets, memos, letters, storyboards and transcripts of discussions with key collaborators. The result is a major reassessment of the working methods of this historic director: one that transcends many of the myths often promulgated by Hitchcock himself that have warped previous criticism. Hitchcock at Workis fully illustrated throughout in both colour and black and white, and features stills from films, shots taken on set, storyboards and annotated film scripts. A complete filmography reveals the scope of Hitchcock's momentous career, suggesting the subtle nuances of its development.

Hitchcock and Adaptation

Hitchcock and Adaptation PDF

Author: Mark Osteen

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2014-03-14

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1442230886

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From early silent features like The Lodger and Easy Virtue to his final film, Family Plot, in 1976, most of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies were adapted from plays, novels, and short stories. Hitchcock always took care to collaborate with those who would not just execute his vision but shape it, and many of the screenwriters he enlisted—including Eliot Stannard, Charles Bennett, John Michael Hayes, and Ernest Lehman—worked with the director more than once. And of course Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville, his most constant collaborator, was with him from the 1920s until his death. In Hitchcock and Adaptation: On the Page and Screen, Mark Osteen has assembled a wide-ranging collection of essays that explore how Hitchcock and his screenwriters transformed literary and theatrical source material into masterpieces of cinema. Some of these essays look at adaptations through a specific lens, such as queer aesthetics applied to Rope, Strangers on a Train, and Psycho, while others tackle the issue of Hitchcock as author, auteur, adaptor, and, for the first time, present Hitchcock as a literary source. Film adaptations discussed in this volume include The 39 Steps, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Rear Window, Vertigo, Marnie, and Frenzy. Additional essays analyze Hitchcock-inspired works by W. G. Sebald, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, and others. These close examinations of Alfred Hitchcock and the creative process illuminate the significance of the material he turned to for inspiration, celebrate the men and women who helped bring his artistic vision from the printed word to the screen, and explore how the director has influenced contemporary writers. A fascinating look into an underexplored aspect of the director’s working methods, Hitchcock and Adaptation will be of interest to film scholars and fans of cinema’s most gifted auteur.

Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch

Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch PDF

Author: Wieland Schwanebeck

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-20

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 3319600087

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This volume is dedicated to the elusive category of the Hitchcock Touch, the qualities and techniques which had manifested in Alfred Hitchcock’s own films yet which cannot be limited to the realm of Hitchcockian cinema alone. While the first section of this collection focuses on Hitchcock’s own films and the various people who made important artistic contributions to them, the subsequent chapters draw wider circles. Case studies focusing on the branding effects associated with Hitchcockian cinema and its seductive qualities highlight the paratextual dimension of his films and the importance of his well-publicized persona, while the final section addresses both Hitchcock’s formative period, as well as other filmmakers who drew upon the Hitchcock Touch. The collection not only serves as an introduction to the field of Hitchcock scholarship for a wider audience, it also delivers in-depth assessments of the lesser-known early period of his career, in addition to providing new takes on canonical films like Vertigo (1958) and Frenzy (1972).

Hitchcock Lost and Found

Hitchcock Lost and Found PDF

Author: Alain Kerzoncuf

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2015-03-17

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0813160847

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Known as the celebrated director of critical and commercial successes such as Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963), Alfred Hitchcock is famous for his distinctive visual style and signature motifs. While recent books and articles discussing his life and work focus on the production and philosophy of his iconic Hollywood-era films like Notorious (1946) and Vertigo (1958), Hitchcock Lost and Found moves beyond these seminal works to explore forgotten, incomplete, lost, and recovered productions from all stages of his career, including his early years in Britain. Authors Alain Kerzoncuf and Charles Barr highlight Hitchcock's neglected works, including various films and television productions that supplement the critical attention already conferred on his feature films. They also explore the director's career during World War II, when he continued making high-profile features while also committing himself to a number of short war-effort projects on both sides of the Atlantic. Focusing on a range of forgotten but fascinating projects spanning five decades, Hitchcock Lost and Found offers a new, fuller perspective on the filmmaker's career and achievements.

Spellbound by Beauty

Spellbound by Beauty PDF

Author: Donald Spoto

Publisher: Crown Archetype

Published: 2008-10-28

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0307449971

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“The trouble today is that we don’t torture women enough.” —Alfred Hitchcock It is remarkable how infrequently, over a period of more than fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about the beautiful, legendary and talented actresses he directed. And when he did, his remarks were mostly indifferent and often hostile. But his leading ladies greatly enriched his films, even as many of them achieved international stardom precisely because of their work for Hitchcock—among the dozens of women were Madeleine Carroll, Joan Fontaine, Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren. Yet he maintained a stony, insistent silence about the quality of their performances and their contributions to his art. Spellbound by Beauty—the final volume in master biographer Donald Spoto’s Hitchcock trilogy that began with The Art of Alfred Hitchcock and continued with The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock—is the fascinating, complex and finally tragic story of the great moviemaker and his female stars, the unusual ideas of sex and romance that inform his films and the Hollywood dreams that often became nightmares. Rich with fresh revelations based on previously undisclosed tapes, new interviews, private correspondence and personal papers made available only to the author, this thoughtful, compassionate yet explosive portrait details Hitchcock’s outbursts of cruelty, the shocking humor and the odd amalgam of adoration and contempt that time and again characterized Hitchcock’s obsessive relationships with women—and that also, paradoxically, fed his genius. He insisted, for example, that Madeleine Carroll submit herself to painful physical demands during the making of The 39 Steps. He harbored a poignantly unrequited love for Ingrid Bergman. He meticulously and deliberately constructed Grace Kelly’s image. Finally, he stalked, harassed and abused Tippi Hedren. His treatment of his daughter, Pat, was certainly unusual, while his strange marriage to his sometime collaborator Alma Reville was a union that (according to Hitchcock himself) was forever chaste after one incident. Spellbound by Beauty offers important insights into the life of a brilliant, powerful, eccentric and tortured artist, and it corrects a major gap in movie history by paying tribute at last to those extraordinarily talented actresses who gave so much to his films.