Hitchcock & the Anxiety of Authorship

Hitchcock and the
Anxiety of Authorship examines issues of
cinema authorship engaged by and dynamized within the director's films. A
unique study of self-reflexivity in Hitchcock's work from his earliest English
silents to his final Hollywood features, this book considers how the director's
releases constitute ever-shifting meditations on the conditions and struggles
of creative agency in cinema. Abramson explores how, located in literal and
emblematic sites of dramatic production, exhibition, and reception, and
populated by figures of directors, actors, and audiences, Hitchcock's films
exhibit a complicated, often disturbing vision of authorship - one that
consistently problematizes rather than exemplifies the director's longstanding
auteurist image. Viewing Hitchcock in a striking new light, Abramson analyzes
these allegories of vexed agency in the context of his concepts of and
commentary on the troubled association between cinema artistry and authorship,
as well as the changing cultural, industrial, theoretical, and historical
milieus in which his features were produced. Accordingly, the book illuminates
how Hitchcock and his cinema register the constant dynamics that constitute
film authorship.

Introduction: Self-Reflexivity in Hitchcock' s Cinema & Struggles of Authorship
PART I: COMPROMISING POSITIONS: THE DIRECTOR
1. Introduction
2. Murder!
3. Sabotage
4. Notorious
5. Vertigo
6. Psycho
PART II: DRAMATIC ARTFULNESS: THE ACTOR
7. Introduction
8. The Lodger
9. The 39 Steps
10. Spellbound
11. Marnie
PART III: DISTURBING SIGHTS: THE AUDIENCE
12. Introduction
13. The Ring
14. The Man Who Knew Too Much
15. Strangers on a Train
16. Rear Window
17. The Birds
Appendix: In Brief - Hitchcock' s Cameos