Re-viewing Hitchcock

Re-viewing Hitchcock approaches Alfred Hitchcock's prolific career in film and television from a reception focus, charting the changing fortunes of the master auteur's work from 1926's silent The Lodger to his penultimate film, the controversial Frenzy of 1972.

Each of the chapters, written by eminent international film scholars, critics and historians, offers a detailed analyses of the historical reception of key Hitchcock films. These include films that have enjoyed consistent critical success, such as Rebecca (1940), Rear Window (1954), and North by Northwest (1959), as well as those that have received shifting degrees of critical and scholarly praise, such as Sabotage (1936), Rope (1949), Strangers on a Train (1951), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963). The contributors assess the significance of these changing critical perspectives and the extent to which they influence the meaning and significance of Hitchcock's films and filmmaking.

The book also sheds light on Hitchcock’s lesser-known television work of the 1950s and the 60s, reassessing its relationship to his film career. In addition, it expands the focus beyond Anglo-American contexts to consider how Hitchcock’s films have been received and interpreted in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Robert E. Kapsis is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Film Studies at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is author of Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation (1992); the e-book version was released in 2022. Shortly after its publication, Kapsis developed “Multimedia Hitchcock,” an innovative, interactive software project. Originally conceived as a pedagogical tool for his college courses on Hitchcock, the project grew into an interactive kiosk exhibited at MoMA, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and at other museums and nonprofit institutions celebrating the Hitchcock Centennial in 1999. Kapsis is also editor of Woody Allen: Interviews, Revised and Updated Edition (2016), Jonathan Demme: Interviews, Charles Burnett: Interviews, and Conversations with Steve Martin; and coeditor (with Kathie Coblentz)of Clint Eastwood: Interviews (2006). He is currently working on a book on Hitchcock’s posthumous reputation, to be published by Bloomsbury.

Kapsis’s work on Hitchcock and “the Hitchcockian” has been featured in many publications and venues, including the New York Times, Oxford University Press’s American National Biography, American Film, The Sociological Quarterly, Hitchcock Annual, Cineaste, and the Village Voice. It has also influenced the creation and development of documentaries about Hitchcock for the BBC, PBS’s American Masters series, Universal’s Dial H for Hitchcock: The Genius Behind the Showman, and promotional materials for the release of a Hitchcock stamp from the United States Postal Service.