Monthly Review (2011) - Alfred Hitchcock Presents Class Struggle

Details

• article: Alfred Hitchcock Presents Class Struggle
• author(s): Mervyn Nicholson
• journal: Monthly Review (01/Dec/2011)
• issue: volume 63, issue 7, page 33
• journal ISSN: 0027-0520
• publisher: Monthly Review Press
• keywords: "A Long Hard Look at Psycho" - by Raymond Durgnat, "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light" - by Patrick McGilligan, "The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock" - by Donald Spoto, "The Women Who Knew Too Much" - by Tania Modleski, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV), Alfred Hitchcock, Analysis, British Film Institute, Capitalism, Christopher Sharrett, Criticism and interpretation, Donald Spoto, Family Plot (1976), Filmmakers, François Truffaut, Frenzy (1972), Garry Leonard, Henry Fonda, Hitchcock Annual (1999) - Remaking: "Psycho", Hitchcock Annual, James Naremore, Janet Leigh, John Orr, Lifeboat (1944), MacGuffin, Mervyn Nicholson, Money, Motion picture directors & producers, Murders & murder attempts, Murray Pomerance, New York City, New York, Notorious (1946), Patrick McGilligan, Portrayals, Poverty, Psycho (1960), Raymond Durgnat, Rope (1948), Saboteur (1942), Sarah Street, Secret Agent (1936), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Social aspects, Social change, Spellbound (1945), Tania Modleski, The 39 Steps (1935), The Birds (1963), The Wrong Man (1956), Torn Curtain (1966), United States, Vera Miles, Vertigo (1958)

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Abstract

What they focus on is the sort of thing that academics have a penchant for, often psychoanalysis, with its ever-complicating webwork of infant sexuality, Oedipal rages, anal sadism, castration anxiety, the "family romance" (a misnomer if ever there was one), phallic mothers and penis babies, and other exciting esoterica. Hitchcock goes out of his way to feature worksites, from the assembly line in the factory of Secret Agent to the greengrocer wholesale market in Frenzy to the inside of a cab (with its frustrated worker-driver) in his very last movie, Family Plot. Part of the appeal of this film-maker with a mass authence surely has to do with what are really mass issues, with the fact that he depicted struggles that resonated with the actual lives of viewers, even if in an unconscious or displaced form.