Hitchcock's Motifs

by Michael Walker

Alfred Hitchcock’s films are renowned the world over, and a mountain of literature has detailed seemingly every facet of them. Yet remarkably few studies have solely focused on the recurring motifs in Hitchcock’s films. Michael Walker remedies this surprising gap in Hitchcock literature with an innovative and in-depth study of the sustained motifs and themes threaded through Hitchcock’s entire body of work. 

Combing through all fifty-two extant feature films and representative episodes from Hitchcock’s television series, Walker traces over forty motifs that emerge in recurring objects, settings, character-types, and events. Whether the loaded meaning of staircases, the symbolic status of  keys and handbags, homoeroticism, guilt and confession, or the role of art, Walker analyzes such elements to reveal a complex web of cross-references in Hitchcock’s art. He also gives full attention to the broader social contexts in which the motifs and themes are played out, arguing that these interwoven elements add new and richer depths to Hitchcock’s oeuvre. An invaluable, encyclopedic resource for the scholar and fan, Hitchcock’s Motifs is a fascinating study of one of the best-known and most admired film directors in history.

Genres: Film

492 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael Walker is an independent writer and member of the editorial board of Movie magazine.

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a Freudian, you'll love this book which examines the various situations, characters, and symbols used by Alfred Hitchcock. Even though I don't buy into all of Freud, I found the book to be interesting. At the very least, it collects and puts into categories Hitchcock's motifs; then you can decide for yourself the meaning Hitchcock intended.