Hitchcock's
America by Jonathan Freedman, Richard H. Millington
Paperback from Oxford Press
Book Published: February, 1999
Alma
Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man by Pat Hitchcock, Laurent Bouzereau, Pat Hitchcock O'Connell
Hardcover from Berkley Pub Group
Book Published: 06 May, 2003
Alfred
Hitchcock's Rear Window by John Belton, Horton Andrew
Paperback from Cambridge University Press
Book Published: 13 September, 1999
The
Hitchcock Murders by Peter Conrad
Paperback from Faber & Faber
Book Published: 04 September, 2002
Vertigo by Charles Barr
Book Description: In the 1992 Sight and Sound poll critics and filmmakers
voted Vertigo the fourth greatest film of all time. Released in 1958, Hitchcock's
masterpiece is a pinnacle of the cinema. Yet in it Hitchcock abandoned
his trademark suspense, allowing the central mystery to be solved halfway
through. What remained was a study in sexual obsession, as James Stewart's
Scottie pursues Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) to her death in a remote Californian
mission. Novak is ice-cool but vulnerable; Stewart-in the darkest role
of his career-genial on the surface but damaged within. Though it seems
to many to be Hitchcock's most personal film, Charles Barr argues that,
like Citizen Kane, Vertigo is a triumph not so much of individual authorship
as of creative collaboration. Barr documents the crucial role of screenwriters
Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor and by a combination of textual and contextual
analysis explores the reasons why Vertigo has come to exert such a continuing
fascination both on general audiences and on a wide range of critics and
theorists.
Paperback from British Film Inst
Book Published: June, 2002
Vertigo
: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic by Dan Auiler
Vertigo is Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece and perhaps his most personal
film. To view it once is to be devastated. With each subsequent screening,
most viewers notice bits of business, depths of thought, and stunning ironies
that had previously eluded them. Vertigo is a riveting experience, haunting
its fans in the same way that Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) is haunted
by the mysterious Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak).
Upon researching the film, author Dan Auiler found that "this odd, obsessional,
very un-matter-of-fact film was created" under "systematic, businesslike,
matter-of-fact circumstances." His book gives us the opportunity to witness
the construction of a film that seems at once amazing complex and absolutely
seamless. He discusses the painstaking development of the screenplay (including
its controversial explication of the mystery only two-thirds of the way
through the film), the decision to cast Novak instead of Vera Miles opposite
Stewart, the typically meticulous Hitchcock shoot, the film's amazing special
effects and extraordinary credit and dream sequences, and the legendary
musical score composed by Bernard Herrmann. Upon finishing the book, readers
will appreciate the various contributions of Hitchcock, Herrmann, Stewart,
Novak, actress Barbara Bel Geddes, Thomas Narcejac and Pierre Boileau (who
wrote the book upon which it is based), uncredited scenarists Maxwell Anderson
and Angus MacPhail, screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, cinematographer
Robert Burks, editor George Tomasini, costume designer Edith Head, and
many others. The book includes a list of cast and crew, an appendix discussing
the VistaVision process in which it was shot, a forward by Vertigo enthusiast
Martin Scorsese, and hundreds of production photos, reproductions of memos,
storyboard sketches, and posters. Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic
has enhanced even this avid fan's appreciation of a film he's long known
and loved. --Raphael Shargel - Amazon.com
Paperback from Griffin Trade Paperback
Book Published: 19 August, 2000
