Haunted by Vertigo

Hitchcock's Masterpiece Then and Now

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Edited by Sidney Gottlieb and Donal Martin

Type

Studies

Subject

One Film > Vertigo

Keywords

Alfred Hitchcock, psychology

Publishing date

2021

Publisher

John Libbey Publishing

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 250 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-86196-742-1

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Book Presentation:
When Richard Schickel stated unequivocally in 1972 that "We're living in a Hitchcock world, all right", he did so without even mentioning the film that now stands at the top of the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll: Vertigo. That omission needs to be redressed when we think about the Hitchcock world we live in now. Haunted by Vertigo: Hitchcock's Masterpiece Then and Now gathers essays that offer a variety of approaches to what many consider to be Hitchcock's signature film, one that shows him operating at full strength as a cinematic artist portraying some of the defining elements of modern life: romantic exhilaration and anxiety, the attractiveness and elusiveness of love, and the interpenetration of pain, pleasure, life, and death in our psyche and our culture.
The pieces in this volume explore numerous aspects of how, broadly speaking, Vertigo is about characters haunted by memories and desires; how the film itself is haunted by numerous literary and cinematic fore- bearers; and how it continues to haunt not only filmmakers but artists working in other media as well. Essays that concentrate on formative or interpretive contexts of the film, including Greek mythology, early German cinema, film noir, an ensemble of (mostly) French writers and filmmakers, andmodern and postmodern art are complemented by others that present close readings of hidden details in the film, its use of multiple gazes that underscore its meaning and drama, the darker sides of even gestures of love and hospitality, and how the film embodies Hitchcock's "late style". Taken together the essays in the volume reinforce how Vertigo is, like the majestic trees visited by the two main characters in the film, sempervirens – an enduring masterpiece of then, now, and, we can safely say, the future.

About the authors:
Sidney Gottlieb is Professor Communication and Media Studies at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S. Donal Martin, a statistician, filmmaker, and classical fine art analogue photographer, was the organizer of two international film conferences onVertigoin Dublin, in 2017 and 2018.

Press Reviews:
"Haunted by Vertigo: Hitchcock's Masterpiece Then and Now, a collection edited by premier Hitchcock scholar Sidney Gottlieb and photographer and statistician Donal Martin, comprises an eclectic array of essays, exploring the film from a wide variety of perspectives."
-CINEASTE

See the publisher website: John Libbey Publishing

See Vertigo (1958) on IMDB ...