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First published in 1982, William Rothman s Hitchcock is a classic
work of film criticism. Written in an engaging style that is
philosophically sophisticated yet free of jargon, and using over
nine hundred images from the films to illustrate and back up its
critical claims, the book follows six different Hitchcock films as
they unfold, moment by moment, from first shot to last.
In addition to a thoughtful new preface and the original readings
of The Lodger (1927), Murder (1930), The 39 Steps (1935), Shadow of
a Doubt (1943), and Psycho (1960), this expanded edition includes a
groundbreaking new chapter now the book s longest on Marnie (1964),
Hitchcock s most heartfelt yet most controversial film. Hitchcock
never tired of quoting Oscar Wilde s line, And all men kill the
thing they love. Dark moods therefore prevail in the five original
chapters, culminating in the reading of Psycho, but in
demonstrating how Marnie overcomes, or transcends, the murderous
aspect of Hitchcock s art, this new chapter balances the scales and
gives an important new dimension to the book.
With exemplary precision, Hitchcock, Second Edition shows how
Hitchcock films express, cinematically, serious thoughts about such
matters as the nature and relationships of love, murder, sexuality,
marriage, and theater and about their own medium. In so doing, it
keeps faith with the idea that Hitchcock was a master, perhaps the
master, of what he called the art of pure cinema. However, insofar
as it investigates philosophically the conditions of authorship in
the medium of film, it is an auteurist study unlike any other. By
attending to the films themselves and to the ways we experience
them, rather than allowing some theory to dictate what to say about
them, the book proves the fruitfulness of an approach that is open
and responsive to the ways serious films are capable of teaching us
how to think seriously about them."
William Rothman argues that the driving force of Hitchcock's work
was his struggle to reconcile the dark vision of his favorite Oscar
Wilde quote, "Each man kills the thing he loves," with the
quintessentially American philosophy, articulated in Emerson's
writings, that gave classical Hollywood movies of the New Deal era
their extraordinary combination of popularity and artistic
seriousness. A Hitchcock thriller could be a comedy of remarriage
or a melodrama of an unknown woman, both Emersonian genres, except
for the murderous villain and godlike author, Hitchcock, who pulls
the villain's strings-and ours. Because Hitchcock believed that the
camera has a murderous aspect, the question "What if anything
justifies killing?," which every Hitchcock film engages, was for
him a disturbing question about his own art. Tracing the trajectory
of Hitchcock's career, Rothman discerns a progression in the films'
meditations on murder and artistic creation. This progression
culminates in Marnie (1964), Hitchcock's most controversial film,
in which Hitchcock overcame his ambivalence and fully embraced the
Emersonian worldview he had always also resisted. Reading key
Emerson passages with the degree of attention he accords to
Hitchcock sequences, Rothman discovers surprising affinities
between Hitchcock's way of thinking cinematically and the
philosophical way of thinking Emerson's essays exemplify. He finds
that the terms in which Emerson thought about reality, about our
"flux of moods," about what it is within us that never changes,
about freedom, about America, about reading, about writing, and
about thinking are remarkably pertinent to our experience of films
and to thinking and writing about them. He also reflects on the
implications of this discovery, not only for Hitchcock scholarship
but also for film criticism in general.
In their thoughtful study of one of Stanley Cavell's greatest yet
most neglected books, William Rothman and Marian Keane address this
eminent philosopher's many readers, from a variety of disciplines,
who have neither understood why he has given film so much
attention, nor grasped the place of The World Viewed within the
totality of his writings about film.
Rothman and Keane also reintroduce The World Viewed to the field
of film studies. When the new field entered universities in the
late 1960s, it predicated its legitimacy on the conviction that the
medium's artistic achievements called for serious criticism and on
the corollary conviction that no existing field was capable of the
criticism film called for. The study of film needed to found
itself, intellectually, upon a philosophical investigation of the
conditions of the medium and art of film. Such was the challenge
The World Viewed took upon itself. However, film studies opted to
embrace theory as a higher authority than our experiences of
movies, divorcing itself from the philosophical perspective of
self-reflection apart from which, The World Viewed teaches, we
cannot know what movies mean, or what they are.
Rothman and Keane now argue that the poststructuralist theories
that dominated film studies for a quarter of a century no longer
compel conviction, Cavell's brilliant and beautiful book can
provide a sense of liberation to a field that has forsaken its
original calling. Read in a way that acknowledges its philosophical
achievement, The World Viewed can show the field a way to move
forward by rediscovering its passion for the art of film.
Reading Cavell's The World Viewed will prove invaluable to
scholars and students offilm and philosophy, and to those in other
fields, such as literary studies and American studies, who have
found Cavell's work provocative and fruitful.
William Rothman argues that the driving force of Hitchcock's work
was his struggle to reconcile the dark vision of his favorite Oscar
Wilde quote, "Each man kills the thing he loves," with the
quintessentially American philosophy, articulated in Emerson's
writings, that gave classical Hollywood movies of the New Deal era
their extraordinary combination of popularity and artistic
seriousness. A Hitchcock thriller could be a comedy of remarriage
or a melodrama of an unknown woman, both Emersonian genres, except
for the murderous villain and godlike author, Hitchcock, who pulls
the villain's strings-and ours. Because Hitchcock believed that the
camera has a murderous aspect, the question "What if anything
justifies killing?," which every Hitchcock film engages, was for
him a disturbing question about his own art. Tracing the trajectory
of Hitchcock's career, Rothman discerns a progression in the films'
meditations on murder and artistic creation. This progression
culminates in Marnie (1964), Hitchcock's most controversial film,
in which Hitchcock overcame his ambivalence and fully embraced the
Emersonian worldview he had always also resisted. Reading key
Emerson passages with the degree of attention he accords to
Hitchcock sequences, Rothman discovers surprising affinities
between Hitchcock's way of thinking cinematically and the
philosophical way of thinking Emerson's essays exemplify. He finds
that the terms in which Emerson thought about reality, about our
"flux of moods," about what it is within us that never changes,
about freedom, about America, about reading, about writing, and
about thinking are remarkably pertinent to our experience of films
and to thinking and writing about them. He also reflects on the
implications of this discovery, not only for Hitchcock scholarship
but also for film criticism in general.
Originally published in 1988, The ‘I’ of the Camera has become a classic in the literature of film. Offering alternatives to the viewing and criticism of film, William Rothman challenges readers to think about film in adventurous ways that are more open to movies and our experience of them. In a series of eloquent essays examining particular films, filmmakers, genres and movements, and the ‘Americanness’ of American film, Rothman argues compellingly that movies have inherited the philosophical perspective of American transcendentalism. This second edition contains all of the essays that made the book a benchmark of film criticism. It also includes fourteen essays, written subsequent to the book’s original publication, as well as a new foreword. The new chapters further broaden the scope of the volume, fleshing out its vision of film history and illuminating the author’s critical method and the philosophical perspective that informs it.
Originally published in 1988, The 'I' of the Camera has become a
classic in the literature of film. Offering alternatives to the
viewing and criticism of film, William Rothman challenges readers
to think about film in adventurous ways that are more open to
movies and our experience of them. In a series of eloquent essays
examining particular films, filmmakers, genres and movements, and
the 'Americanness' of American film, Rothman argues compellingly
that movies have inherited the philosophical perspective of
American transcendentalism. This second edition contains all of the
essays that made the book a benchmark of film criticism. It also
includes fourteen essays, written subsequent to the book's original
publication, as well as a new foreword. The new chapters further
broaden the scope of the volume, fleshing out its vision of film
history and illuminating the author's critical method and the
philosophical perspective that informs it.
Documentary Film Classics offers close readings on a number of major films, such as Nanook of the North, Land Without Bread, Night and Fog, Chronicle of a Summer and Don't Look Back. Spanning the history of the documentary film tradition, William Rothman analyzes the philosophical and historical issues and themes implicit in these works. Designed to guide film students through the "texts" of a wide range of documentaries, his readings also focus on the achievements of these works as films per se.
Uses new critical approaches to demonstrate deep affinities in
these vastly different filmmakers' philosophies on film, fantasy,
and reality.
This extensive collection offers a substantially complete
retrospective of, Stanley Cavell's previously uncollected writings
on film. Cavell is the only major philosopher in the Anglo-American
tradition who has made film a central concern of his work, and his
work offers inspiration and new directions to the field of film
studies. The essays and other writings in this volume, presented in
the order of their composition, range from major theoretical
statements and extended critical studies of individual films or
filmmakers to occasional pieces, all of which illuminate Cavell's
practice of philosophy as it has developed in the more than three
decades since the publication of "The World Viewed. All periods of
Cavell's career are represented, from the 1970s to the present, and
the book includes many previously unpublished essays written since
the early 1990s. In his introduction, William Rothman provides a
useful and eloquent overview of Cavell's work on film and his aim
as philosopher more generally.
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