Communication, Culture & Critique (2012) - The Ritual Function of the Press in Alfred Hitchcock's Movies

Details

• article: The Ritual Function of the Press in Alfred Hitchcock's Movies
• author(s): Sandrine Boudana
• journal: Communication, Culture & Critique (01/Jun/2012)
• issue: volume 5, issue 2, pages 273-294
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2012.01134.x
• journal ISSN: 1753-9129
• publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• keywords: "The Hanging Figure: On Suspense and the Films of Alfred Hitchcock" - by Christopher D. Morris, Alfred Hitchcock, Blackmail (1929), British Film Institute, British International Pictures, Cary Grant, Chicago, Illinois, Claude Chabrol, David O. Selznick, Dial M for Murder (1954), Donald Spoto, Easy Virtue (1928), Family Plot (1976), Foreign Correspondent (1940), François Truffaut, Frenzy (1972), Gainsborough Pictures, Gaumont British Picture Corporation Limited, Grand Central Station, New York City, New York, I Confess (1953), Islington Studios, London, Jamaica Inn (1939), Joel McCrea, Juno and the Paycock (1930), Laura Mulvey, Lifeboat (1944), Madison Avenue, New York City, New York, Marnie (1964), New York City, New York, North by Northwest (1959), Paramount Pictures, Patrick McGilligan, Psycho (1960), Rear Window (1954), Rebecca (1940), Rich and Strange (1931), Robert Walker, Roger O. Thornhill, Rope (1948), Sabotage (1936), Saboteur (1942), San Francisco, California, Sandrine Boudana, Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Spellbound (1945), Strangers on a Train (1951), Tania Modleski, The 39 Steps (1935), The Birds (1963), The Lady Vanishes (1938), The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Paradine Case (1947), The Wrong Man (1956), Topaz (1969), Torn Curtain (1966), Transatlantic Pictures, Under Capricorn (1949), United Nations, New York City, New York, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Éric Rohmer

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Abstract

As the representation of the press and journalists in fiction has potential impact on the public's perception, this paper more specifically examines this representation in Hitchcock's movies, which grant a significant role to newspapers and newspapermen in their narratives. In these movies, the press fulfills the ritual function that J. W. and N. have emphasized in their work. The analysis of the 56 movies directed by Hitchcock points to an ambivalent representation of the press as an apparatus of the bourgeois order. Such depiction may reinforce this order by naturalizing it or, on the contrary, inspire sociopolitical contestation by showing its failures. This ambivalence is inherent in Hitchcock's art, which promotes a logic of monstration rather than plain demonstration.