Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock

Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Author :
Publisher : Lexington Books
Total Pages : 337
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781498529167
ISBN-13 : 149852916X
Rating : 4/5 (16X Downloads)

Book Synopsis Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock by : Mark William Padilla

Download or read book Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock written by Mark William Padilla and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock presents an original study of Alfred Hitchcock by considering how his classics-informed London upbringing marks some of his films. The Catholic and Irish-English Hitchcock (1899-1980) was born to a mercantile family and attended a Jesuit college preparatory, whose curriculum featured Latin and classical humanities. An important expression of Edwardian culture at-large was an appreciation for classical ideas, texts, images, and myth. Mark Padilla traces the ways that Hitchcock’s films convey mythical themes, patterns, and symbols, though they do not overtly reference them. Hitchcock was a modernist who used myth in unconscious ways as he sought to tell effective stories in the film medium. This book treats four representative films, each from a different decade of his early career. The first two movies were produced in London: The Farmer’s Wife (1928) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); the second two in Hollywood: Rebecca (1940) and Strangers on a Train (1951). In close readings of these movies, Padilla discusses myths and literary texts such as the Judgment of Paris, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Aristophanes’s Frogs, Apuleius’s tale “Cupid and Psyche,” Homer’s Odyssey, and The Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Additionally, many Olympian deities and heroes have archetypal resonances in the films in question. Padilla also presents a new reading of Hitchcock’s circumstances as he entered film work in 1920 and theorizes why and how the films may be viewed as an expression of the classical tradition and of classical reception. This new and important contribution to the field of classical reception in the cinema will be of great value to classicists, film scholars, and general readers interested in these topics.

Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock Related Books

Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Language: en
Pages: 337
Authors: Mark William Padilla
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-09-30 - Publisher: Lexington Books

GET EBOOK

Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock presents an original study of Alfred Hitchcock by considering how his classics-informed London upbringing marks
Classical Myth in Alfred Hitchcock's Wrong Man and Grace Kelly Films
Language: en
Pages: 413
Authors: Mark William Padilla
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-12-12 - Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

GET EBOOK

Mark Padilla’s classical reception readings of Alfred Hitchcock features some of the director’s most loved and important films, and demonstrates how they ar
Classical Vertigo
Language: en
Pages: 339
Authors: Mark William Padilla
Categories: Art
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-03-18 - Publisher: Lexington Books

GET EBOOK

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo has dazzled and challenged audiences with its unique aesthetic design and startling plot devices since its release in 1958. In Clas
Haunted by Vertigo
Language: en
Pages: 266
Authors: Sidney Gottlieb
Categories: Performing Arts
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-10-26 - Publisher: Indiana University Press

GET EBOOK

When Richard Schickel stated unequivocally in 1972 that "We're living in a Hitchcock world, all right", he did so without even mentioning the film that now stan
Locating Classical Receptions on Screen
Language: en
Pages: 203
Authors: Ricardo Apostol
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-10-19 - Publisher: Springer

GET EBOOK

This volume explores film and television sources in problematic conversation with classical antiquity, to better understand the nature of artistic reception and