The Hitchcock Murders

by Peter Conrad

Alfred Hitchcock relished his power to frighten us and believed the shocks he administered improved our psychological health. But he could never satisfactorily explain our curiosity to see forbidden things or the perverse desire to experience anxiety and dread that made his work so popular.

In The Hitchcock Murders , Peter Conrad, one of Hitchcock's eager victims, undertakes the task on the master's behalf. At the age of thirteen, Conrad snuck into his first screening of Psycho, and he's been wary of showers and fruit cellars ever since. Thanks to Hitchcock, he's also suspicious of staircases, seagulls, and crop-dusting planes. Now he sets out to analyze the nature of Hitchcock's appeal to both himself and the millions of moviegoers for whom Hitchcock is cinema's foremost auteur. Examining Hitchcock's use of religion, morality, conscience, culpability, and literary symbols, Conrad unveils a chilling Nietzschean universe-one in which there is no God and no moral standard, where humans are petty and disposable and the neutral hand of fate can take a life in the blink of an eye. A timid, respectable man with the imagination of a psychopath, a chubby jester whose practical jokes took merciless advantage of human insecurities, Hitchcock is revealed here as the man who knew too much-about all of us.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Criticism

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

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Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure what the author was trying to convey in this book......the appeal of Hitchcock films?..... the psychological mind set of the man himself?....the cultural significance of his work?.......or what?

This is a free association of what the author feels about Hitchcock and it is all over the place. There is detail that the author analyzes of which little attention has been paid and stretches the points a bit thinly. The films are not taken chronologically which might make the author's study clearer since it could dissect the development of the "Hitchcock touch" over the years. Instead we jump from "The Lodger" to "Frenzy" in a blink of the eye which was an approach that further confused the point of the book.

I love Hitchcock films but this book was not for me since I never really figured out the author's point. Others may disagree.

[Karmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pensaba que iba a ser más ameno, se me hace aburrida la manera de contarlo, lo he dejado a la mitad, no te engancha para seguir leyendo.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14411783

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting overview of some of what makes Hitchcock a great director, and a discussion of why we find his films so compelling. Conrad annoyed me, however; in the introduction to the book, he mocks scholars of film who make use of postmodernism and feminism to discuss Hitchcock's works and suggests that they muddy the waters unnessarily, but then throughout the book proceeds to use all kinds of Freudian critiques, sometimes to the same effect. I also think the book might have been better if he had been less of a fanboy, as it seems to hamper him when things get really interesting -- Conrad freely admits that Hitchcock had bizarre attitudes toward his leading ladies, but then backs off and doesn't follow up on the critique. All in all, this struck me as a good, but not great, book.

[Ximena Apisdorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una lectura totalmente disfrutare que toca desde experiencias anecdóticas tanto del autor como del director, como un análisis desde la historia del arte tocando la música, sus musas... tanto la introducción como el epílogo son una delicia de leer, porque es donde el autor se permite mayor libertad de esbozar el territorio donde se movía el director. Una lectura obligada para los amantes del director, del género y de las cosas mórbidas por todas sus conexiones tanto a lo sublime, al surrealismo incluso a Dalí.

[Claire Meadows · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, but I feel it would be better suited to someone who knew nothing about film theory, and/or symbolism in Hitchcock's work. I felt I learnt more from Donald Spoto's work on Hitchcock that I read fifteen years ago.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel kind of ambivalent about this book.