The Books of My Life: Alfred Hitchcock (Haeffner)

Nicholas Haeffner's Alfred Hitchcock (On Directors series, Harlow, England: Pearson Longman, 2005) is one of the best academic introductions I have read to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Eschewing the psychoanalytic approach to Hitchcock that has dominated mainstream films studies since the mid-1970s, Haeffner opts instead--rightly in my opinion--for a historical and sociological approach that puts Hitchcock in his historical, economic, and cultural contexts.

For Haeffner Hitchcock and his films have to be seen as the product of an emerging middlebrow culture that brought together theatrical melodrama, picaresque thriller, German expressionism, Soviet montage, and French surrealism. They are also, as Haeffner notes, a product of a capitalist economy. Hitchcock did, after all, as Haeffner notes, want his films to make money.

Haeffner nicely integrates theoretical critique--Haeffner explores debates over Hitchcock and authorship, Hitchcock's mise-en-scène, Hitchcock's realism, Hitchcock's portrayal of women, Hitchcock and audience analysis, and Hitchcock's legacy--Hitchcock's themes--the evil lurking beneath the ordinary and the wrong man themes, for instance--and Hitchcock's mise-en-scène--camera movement, visual forms, sets, and Hitchcock's implication of his audience in the voyeurism of his films. In the midst of all this Haeffner offers his own analysis of how to approach and interpret Hitchcock in this excellent compact and straight to the point book. Highly recommended.