Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light [Paperback]

Patrick Mcgilligan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2004

In a career that spanned six decades and more than sixty films, Alfred Hitchcock became the most widely recognized director who ever lived. His films -- including The 39 Steps, Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds -- set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling Élan. Since his death, Hitchcock has become crystallized in the public imagination as the macabre Englishman, the sexual obsessive, the Master of Suspense. But this remarkable biography draws on prodigious new research to restore Hitchcock the man -- the ingenious craftsman, the avid collaborator, the constant trickster, provocateur, and romantic. Like Hitchcock's best films, Patrick McGilligan's life of Hitchcock is a drama full of revelation, graced by a central love story, dark humor, and cliff-hanging suspense: a definitive portrait of the most creative, and least understood, figure in film history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Director Hitchcock is in a class by himself. His legendary films, including Rear Window, The 39 Steps and Notorious, coupled with his TV show, Alfred Hitchock Presents, aired his singular brand of evil and salvation. In this enthralling, scholarly and candid appraisal of the artist, McGilligan, a biographer of James Cagney and Jack Nicholson, neatly reveals the man behind the camera. A quiet Catholic boy from London's East End, Hitchcock (1899- 1980) began as a production designer on silent films and eventually became Britain's premier movie director. David Selznick tapped him for Hollywood, and although their relationship was stormy, it spelled success. Hitchcock, who claimed, "I'm not interested in logic, I'm interested in effect," quickly redefined the medium. He told his stories visually, invented innovative camera angles and reveled in suspense tales. Always, he was aided by his wife, Alma, an invaluable partner on every project. A Hitchcock film "characteristically mingled light with darkness," possibly because its creator was so conflicted. Hitchcock adored gossip, dirty jokes and icy blondes, though, sexually impotent, he could not consummate his desire; his voyeurism instead played out on screen. He relished the occasional cruelty, but it did not obscure his genius or his generosity. He worked tirelessly for the British war effort, though America was committed to neutrality until Pearl Harbor, and was deeply loyal to old friends. McGilligan has crafted an inside look at this unique director and the studio machinations that sustained him. Film buffs will relish how power and creativity play out in Hollywood. The rest will learn how obsession can produce art. 32-page b&w photo insert not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The author of the useful George Cukor (1991) and Fritz Lang (1997), biographies of film directors less documented than Hitchcock, now turns to that perhaps most-written-about filmmaker of all. Of course, the last major biography (as opposed to various kinds of studies) came 20 years ago, and McGilligan's effort incorporates many significant findings made since. It also serves as a corrective to Donald Spoto's Dark Side of Genius (1983), which focused unduly on Hitchcock's baser qualities. McGilligan portrays Hitchcock as driven by his neuroses, but also as a devoted husband and father and a clear-headed businessman. Still, the gist of the volume focuses on its subject's inventive filmmaking in detailed accounts on the making of each of his 60 movies, with particular attention paid to the screenwriters, many of them relative tyros, with whom Hitchcock collaborated. McGilligan's valuable discoveries include short fiction by a 19-year-old Hitchcock; his insights, illumination on Hitchcock's flawed final films. So detailed and readable that it is hard to imagine another Hitchcock biography will be needed 20 years hence. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 864 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060988274
• ISBN-13: 978-0060988272
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #198,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional biography, December 1, 2003

By 

W. Oliver (Alabama) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (Hardcover)

Exhaustive, rich and incredibly detailed, this is sure to please the film enthusiast who enjoys scholarly film biographies. The text is over 700 pages and each film of Hitchcock's career is covered in detail, with particular attention to his relationships with his collaborators (screenwriters, costumers, musicians, actors, etc.). Hitckcock's creative genius was unique - he could visualize his film down to the most minute detail before the cameras even rolled (indeed after the script was completed he felt that filming the work was the most boring aspect of it). Script conferences were lengthy and detailed and Hitchcock's mulling and proscrastination often drove many screenwriters to distraction. Those who perservered however, earned respect and dedication from Hitchcock. Despite the book's meticulous attention to detail (some readers might find the analysis of Hitchcock's contract details with David Selznick exasperating), the personal character of Hitchcock shines through. He was a devoted family man, faithful and respectful of his wife Alma Reville, whose opinion he valued above all others when it came to criticism of his work. But he was also a passive admirer of beautiful actresses, often becoming obsessive with them, with sometimes devastating results. He was also a highly sensitive man and despite his own tendency to be unforgiving when crossed and boorish on the set, he was easily hurt by comments about his weight, habits, etc. And he loved animals and would not watch a film that depicted cruelty to animals (one of his favorite films was "Benji".) A lover of life, travel, good food and wine but most of all his work, his life is shown here as an exuberant one and not as dark as depicted in Donald Spoto's earlier biography. A wonderful read and highly recommended!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Hitch bio? Well, this is THE bio., January 6, 2004

By 

Lee Hill - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (Hardcover)

As with John Ford, Orson Welles and a few other monument-like auteurs, one wonders if there is anything else to add when library shelves already groan under the weight of books about these great directors. In the case of Alfred Hitchcock, a proverbial household name, the challenge for a writer seems to double. And yet McGilligan as he did with Fritz Lang, Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood has pulled it off. In addition to seamlessly blending new research with a compelling narrative, this biography allows the reader to rediscover the familiar. McGilligan humanizes the director in the best way. Hitchcock is neither the repressed almost deviant sadist that Donald Spoto painted back in his controversial bio nor a droll, almost Santa Claus-like teller of ripping yarns, as mytholgized in Time-Life articles, but a highly talented man, a flawed, but essentially decent husband and father, and a complex artist caught between serving the demands of mainstream Hollywood and fulfilling his creative instincts. This is a big book, but it reads as briskly as one of Hitch's best films. Essential for any serious film book library.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the Most Definitive Biographies of Hitchcock, November 16, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (Hardcover)

The American Film Institute chose four of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpieces --- Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo and Rear Window --- for its list of the top 100 American films of the century. In a narrower category --- the top 100 thrillers --- Hitch ran away from the crowd with nine selections. He was, in his way, the Beatles of filmmaking.

Patrick McGilligan, whose previous biographies on cinematic legends include Fritz Lang, George Cukor, James Cagney and Clint Eastwood, has compiled another masterwork of research and insight. He concentrates on Hitchcock as an adult rather than trying to analyze what might have happened in his younger days to account for his "twisted genius." For example, much has been written about the way Hitchcock depicts women in his films (e.g., his predilection for "icy blondes"). "Hitchcock's male heroes generally do all right," writes McGilligan. "His women must kill or die, be humiliated, or endure a frustrating romance with an important hero on the run. One way or another the beautiful women always suffered." Yet he remained devoted to his wife, Alma, until his dying day.

Hitchcock began his career at a time when everything was open in film. He was a master of both sides of the camera, bringing out the best from his performers as well as developing new filming techniques, whether for the sake of art or to keep the accountants happy. He loved to "tinker" and figure out how to make an image on a storyboard into reality.

McGilligan draws a fascinating picture of the movie industry, pitting artiste against tyrannical studio mogul; the battles between Hitchcock and David O. Selznick are at once amusing, picayune and frustrating.

ALFRED HITCHCOCK --- the first biography on the writer, director and producer in nearly 25 years --- offers plenty of "back story" for each Hitchcock project, beginning with the silent film The Lodger in 1926. Hitchcock handled the transition to "talkies" very well, but he never forgot that sound was not always necessary to set the mood. In fact, McGilligan notes, "In nearly every Hitchcock film to come, the most celebrated sequences . . . might as well be silent. If there was sound, it was music, natural noise or screaming. (He loathed "cued music" that merely confirms what you can see.") If there was dialogue, it was unimportant --- even unintelligible.

The author also puts Hitchcock's movies in perspective with other films and mores of the changing eras. Hitchcock was always battling with the censors as he tried to push the envelope in terms of explicitness, while at the same time trying to maintain a degree of subtlety. He also had to contend with political sensitivities of certain movies made during wartime (such as Lifeboat) and the "cold war" years. All of these pieces go into forming the "Hitchcockian" puzzle.

McGilligan portrays Hitchcock's work habits, his devotion to family and his loyalty to writers and crew members, and relationships (and in some cases impatience) with certain actors to paint a sympathetic portrait, refuting many of the less-than-flattering allegations about Hitchcock in earlier books.

While many "psycho-biographies" have been written about the master of the macabre, the tsar of terror, the thane of thrillers, trying to explain what happened in his life that led him to weave such terrifying (and terrific) tales, McGilligan's ALFRED HITCHCOCK, with its in-depth research and easy going narrative, will no doubt be among the most definitive.

--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan