Truffaut’s Hitchcock on Hitchcock, which while technically a book-long interview between the two great directors, will provide as much insight as anything. It’s a coffee table book chock full of stills and can be bought used on amazon for 10 bucks.
I just looked at the table of contents at amazon; i had no idea that the interview went chronologically. That’s awesome. Thanks for the suggestion!
Laurent Bouzereau’s Hitchcock, Piece by Piece is a great interactive read featuring reproductions of various Hitchcock artifacts. I highly recommend it.
co sign jerry johnson,I’ve been meaning 2 get that book myself for awhile now.
Well I guess I have to take advice from THE Scottie Ferguson.
and check out the essays for the criterion editions of hitchcock films.you can read them for free on criterion website too.great shit.
Robin Wood’s Hitchcock book is exceptionally good.
Hitchcock/Truffaut, and Hitchcock – The First Forty-Four Films by Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol.
For some reason the French Cahiers group just loved Under CapricornFantastic Hitchcock website
A series I did on Hitchcock called “The Lost Masterworks”
http://www.bobbywisecriticism.com/category/cinematic-arts/alfred-hitchcock/
i suggest you get the Hitchcock book published by Taschen; i haven’t got that one, but i have the ones on Kubrick, Fellini, Truffaut and Antonioni, they’re all quite interesting and full of useful information.
If you are interested in a more easy going approach to all of Hitchcock’s films and online for free, I can also suggest Notebook regular David Cairns blog Shadowplay where he did a year of Hitchcock, watching one of his films every week and writing about them. David is nothing if not an enjoyable host and his approach to the films is appealing and jargon-free. Might be worth a peek anyway as I enjoyed reading each entry, and the comments, as it was going on.
Donald Spoto’s The Art of Alfred Hitchcock has essays on all the films and he doesn’t get too erudite. Great book.
Robin Wood’s Hitchcock’s Films Revisited (includes the original Hitchcock’s Films plus Wood’s later revisions) is also an excellent work.
This is a massive resource, but it’s not especially well organized or clean in navigation. Still, some amazing discoveries to be found:
http://labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/
There are some books puiblished by the British Film Institute on Hitchcock films like Vertigo and The Birds by Camille Paglia and a special book on Psycho. Maybe when I get home I can give you the exact title of that Psycho book and the author of the Vertigo book. I haven’t read the Psyho book myself, but it looks interesting. I’m pretty sure that the British Film Institute published that book as well.
I’d recommend the BFI monograph books on The Birds by Camille Paglia and the other on Vertigo whose author I can’t seem to remember at the moment. In that list of books by Girlfriend In A Coma lists, A Long Hard Look At Psycho looks good. I’ve never read it, but I’ve leafed through it a while back and it looks like it’s interesting..
Jacob
Me and my wife are going to watch all of Hitchcock’s major films (the 30 italicized films in Sarris’s book), and we are looking for a book or blog (preferably a blog) that gives essays on all his major films to read as we watch the movies.
Anyone know of anything? (surely something like this must exist)