Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho: A Casebook

by Robert P. Kolker (Editor)

Alfred Hitchcock's A Casebook collects some of the finest essays on this groundbreaking film--a film that is ideal for teaching the language of cinema and the ways in which strong filmmakers can break Hollywood conventions. Psycho is a film that can be used to present the structures of composition and cutting, narrative and genre building, and point of view. The film is also a highpoint of the horror genre and an instigator of all the slasher films to come in its wake. The essays in the casebook cover all of these elements and more. They also serve another presented chronologically, they represent the changes in the methodologies of film criticism, from the first journalist reviews and early auteurist approaches, through current psychoanalytic and gender criticism. Other selections include an analysis of Bernard Hermann's score and its close relationship to Hitchcock's visual construction; the famous Hitchcock interview by François Truffaut; and an essay by
Robert Kolker that, through the use of stills taken directly from the film, closely reads its extraordinary cinematic structure. Contributors include Robert Kolker, Stephen Rebello, Bosley Crowther, Jean Douchet, Robin Wood, Raymond Durgnat, Royal S. Brown, George Toles, Robert Samuels, and Linda Williams.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2004

About the author

Robert Phillip Kolker, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, taught cinema studies for almost 50 years. He is author of A Cinema of Loneliness, The Extraordinary Image: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and the Reimagining of Cinema, and editor of 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays and The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies.

Reviews

[Suvi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hitchcock's masterpiece is considered one of the greatest horror films of all time, and it's definitely one of my favorites, too. Reading the essay collection Kolker edited, you realize how the film lends itself to various interpretations. The music essay I had to abandon, because it had so much music theory that I might as well have been reading a Hebrew Bible or something. Some of the viewpoints were repeated throughout several essays, but each was still good and perceptive in its own way.

Sometimes film (and literary) analysis reaches a bit too deep for my own taste and might try to point out something that isn't really there, but this collection was mostly saved from that. I felt like watching Psycho again, and other Hitchcock films will also get my attention in an entirely different way. Examined superficially, Hitchcock might seem mere entertainment, but in reality the films are extremely polished entities both visually and thematically. An amazing mixture of auteurism and mainstream suspense. Although he was mentioned to have considered his films funny, so maybe there was more twinkle in his eye than you would think. I have Hitchcock's biography waiting, and I expect it to elaborate on that aspect.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this being a collection of essays from different authors, there are just a few repeated points made. Each essay was able to offer a different piece of insight or background of the film.

Interesting read for film students or anyone interested in film. I recommend you watch the film before - for context-, and immediately after. You're viewing the second time will be totally different than the first.

[Ryan Splenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best breakdowns of a movie that has ever been written. Kolker thoroughly dissects every aspect of Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece. There is significant discussion of Hitchcock's montage, Bernard Herrmann's score, and some behind-the-scenes stories of the history of the production of the film. This is a must read for Hitchcock fans, as well as movie lovers.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a lot of different lenses to analyzing the film "Psycho", and while there are a few really strange articles, the bulk of the book is relevant and really interesting.