Hitchcock's Films Revisited

by Robin Wood

When Hitchcock's Films was first published, it quickly became known as a new kind of book on film and a necessary text in the growing body of Hitchcock criticism. When Robin Wood returned to his writings in Hitchcock's films and published Hitchcock's Films Revisited in 1989, the multidimensional essays took on a new shape―one tempered by Wood's own development as a critic.

This revised edition of Hitchcock's Films Revisited includes a substantial new preface in which Wood reveals his personal history as a film scholar―including his coming out as a gay man, his views on his previows critical work, and how his writings, his love of film, and his personal life have remained deeply intertwined through the years. This revised edition includes all eighteen original essays and a new chapter on Marnie titled "You Freud, Me Hitchcock: Does Mark Cure Marnie?"

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Art, Textbooks, Pop Culture

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Robert Paul Wood, known as Robin Wood, was an English film critic and educator who lived in Canada for much of his life. He wrote books on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Arthur Penn. Wood was a longtime member - and co-founder, along with other colleagues at Toronto's York University - of the editorial collective which publishes CineACTION!, a film theory magazine. Wood was also York professor emeritus of film.[2]

Robin Wood was a founding editor of CineAction! and author of numerous influential works, including new editions published by Wayne State University Press of Personal Views: Explorations in Film (2006), Howard Hawks (2006), Ingmar Bergman (2013), Arthur Penn (2014) and The Apu Trilogy (2016). He was professor emeritus at York University, Toronto, and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin was one of my dearest friends. I want to leave it at that. He's a visionary/pioneer in terms of film analysis, and loved red wine as much as myself. I miss him. If you respect Hitchcock AND gender, READ THIS.

[Teddy Farias · Rating 3 out of 5]

the first part of it was great...but then author 'revisits' what he wrote years before as if to make a new or fresh point about his critique on Hitchcock's films. why? too technical in the end.

[Jack Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant look at Hitchcock's films. Wood in this version looks back on his original text and reworks them whilst adding new content. I found the new introduction and discussion about F.R. Leavis particularly enlightening. Even though this may be a little dated in some ways ( Wood comments on this himself) it is still a thought provoking text.

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin Wood's readings of Hitchcock are justifiably renowned-- the man is a piercing critic and an excellent stylist-- but I think the thing that really turned me on to "Hitchcock's Films Revisited" is Wood's readings of... Robin Wood. Basically, when Wood released the first edition of this book he was a completely different person and thinker than he was during subsequent releases. Uncloseted and unashamedly Marxist, the "new Wood" who writes the latter half of this edition looks not for auteurist coherence in Hitch's work, but sociological contradiction. How does Hitchcock's corpus make sense of its wider world? Or how does it fail to? These questions and their corollaries drive some people insane (people who see the word "gender" and think "eww politics"; ie the kind of people who American empire has relentlessly propagandized), and Wood himself points out several examples of a sort of hacky leftist critique that is incapable of shedding any new light on its chosen subject.

Wood is assuredly not a hacky leftist, though. These are nuanced, thoughtful essays that make no bones about their ideological commitments but that also refuse to give up on the idea of, well, careful study. For Wood that carefulness also means taking full account of his place in the world, which somehow makes the fifty page Introduction here maybe one of the most moving things I've ever read.

Anyway you know the drill: fuck Donald Trump and free Palestine.

[Marnie Cannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wood's work clearly works for others but was not my personal favorite analysis of Hitchcock film theory to read. Wood focused heavily on auteur studies and mise-en-scene. Both are important parts of film studies, but I need more than that to create a stable argument. I found the discussion of Marnie intriguing but had to disagree with the claims Wood made about Rebecca. Wood's statements about Rebecca fell too much into "personal opinion" and not enough into analysis - much like this review. lol

[Tristan Dearden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really monumental, and can be read as a history of approaches to film studies as much as a work of film studies. The stuff on identification is particularly interesting and subtle. Also, it's odd to see someone so confidently trotting out psychoanalytic theory (although with that confidence comes clarity... maybe the obscurity of a lot of modern psychoanalytic theory is due to that retreat from the mainstream).

[GwenViolet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The model for basically any serious film study. Being a "revised" form enables to contrast the old (60s) essays with the newer (70s-80s) essays and see the intellectual development of a critic from "yoked between Leavis and Cahiers Du Cinema" and the introduction of Freud, Marx and Feminism basically unstabling the "unity" of the first set of essays, instead seeing Hitchcock's films in terms of dialectical contradiction, while not (entirely) giving up on the "new criticism" methods that work.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Required reading back in university, and wasn't I a lucky youngling to discover this updated volume, battered but still holding together, in an Oxfam for dirt cheap? Seriously though - my god, the expense of your textbooks in those days. Ruinous, it was. But some brilliant work was found on those reading lists, and I would recommend Robin Wood's volume as one of the best available on either Hitchcock's movies, or film criticism generally. Excellent comprehensives analyses of 'Vertigo', 'Psycho', 'Rear Window', 'Strangers on a Train' and others are the book's bread and butter. Parts of it have dated, originally penned as they were in 1969, but the 'revisited' subtitle is the important element - Wood himself acknowledges his limitations in the extensive new chapters, essays and footnotes, right down to owning his self-directed homophobia, how it informed his older perspectives on the movies, and how his coming-out changed those perspectives for the better. Kinda, sorta a masterpiece.

[Ben Archambeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have cherry picked large swaths of this book to read piecemeal as I worked through Hitchcock's filmography, but this is the first time I've read it as a whole. No one has changed my lens of interpretation like Robin Wood, who gives permission to understand every artistic creation as an act of full throated intention.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really helped me with my Hitchcock class--on the films he analyzes!!
Not all films were covered, but the ones that were, great insight!!

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un livre réellement intéressant.

[Ehsan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of some of Wood's best writings. This is probably the best book ever written about the master of suspense and his achievements.
Enjoy!

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the must have books for any serious student of Hitchcock. It will make you see his films in new ways. The author had his own interesting journey from the time of his original book in the '60s to this revision from 1989, and that's reflected as well. Personalities aside, reading Wood's agonizing reappraisal of "Marnie" is worth it for the aficionados. Wood had championed the film as a neglected masterpiece, defending what many feel are the films flaws as integral to appreciating it. In the interim Donald Spoto's biography of Hitchcock came out, telling the story of what really went on off-camera, and Wood's original comments could not stand. This is that rare volume of academic criticism that's actually worth reading.

[Jake Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simply masterful work of criticism, and I say that as someone who finds more than a few of Wood's conclusions a stretch. I still don't know if I can look at Hitchcock's work as such a progressive oeuvre, but Wood made me wrack my brain over the shots and scenarios he mentioned to see if I could refute them (I never could). It's also a highly readable distillation of some of the various critical theories to come out of the post-Derrida explosion, and after just spending a semester struggling with those theoreticians, I loved seeing their work put to practical, understandable use. One of the best film books I've ever read.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though not as enjoyable to read as A Hitchcock Reader, the other textbook I used for this class, I greatly enjoyed reading this book, as well!! I think I prefer anthologies in general, as there are different voices to be heard, rather than only one. This book also addressed many topics within films that I was interested in, though this is unique in that it analyzes films in general for the first part of the book, rather than ideas or topics pertaining to Hitchcock and the films themselves. The author does that in the second half of the book. This is a great book for the Hitchcock enthusiast, though the other one was far more intriguing and entertaining in the way it was written.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps still the foremost critic on Hitchcock's films, this is an update of Wood's landmark 1965 book that changed the director's reputation in the English-speaking world. No one else I've read has captured so well what is greatest in Hitchcock's films while pointing out their occasional weaknesses. The book is also a portrait of Wood's own evolution from callow wanna-be and closeted gay man to fierce and uncompromising Marxist/Feminist critic. It makes for a fascinating stew of opinion and insight into cinema, which was developed over a period of almost 30 years in Wood's career.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin Wood digs pretty deeply into the themes and subtexts of a selection of Hitchcock films - saying a lot about gender, sexuality (especially homosexuality), ambiguity, morality, psycho-analysis. An excellent read and a vital reference for anyone interested in film.
I love that he loves Marnie (one of Hitch's most misunderstood masterpieces) even though he is maybe a little too forgiving of some of the more unforgivable flaws.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing for being an interesting interpretation of Hitchcock's films, but also for being damned ballsy in its interpretation too. Sample: The author sees Cary Grant's Roger O Thornhill as a symbol for Christ. Because of his last name. Thorn. Hill. Crown of Thorns. Died on a hill. Crazy!

[CJ Fusco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bored with the David Mitchell novel I've been reading, I plucked this analysis of Hitchcock's films off my shelf, where it had been languishing for a couple of years... and read it essentially cover-to-cover in one sitting. Who knew that film scholarship could be so compelling?!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best and most irrefutable analysis of Hitchcock's cinema around. Wood is one of my favorite critics and this is probably his best work. The guy is right about most everything.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

this though....this is GREAT. love robin wood.

[Sergio · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must for any any Hitchcock fan, or film buff.