Speech Communication 415 and 515

Fall 2002

Hitchcock and the Critics: The Rhetoric of the Thriller as Art, Entertainment, and Social Text

Here are the questions I will ask on your final examination in Speech Communication 415 and 515. At the beginning of the examination, I will ask you to write on two of these questions. The questions are designed to allow you to bring together your viewing of the films, our class discussions, and the assigned readings.

In choosing films to write about, you are often asked in these questions to specifically address three Hitchcock films; if I assign two such questions, try to write about different films in the two questions.

I will supply paper on which to write your answers. Please bring your own pencils or pens. Notes and books are not permitted in the exam.

I hope that these questions will help you to review some of the many issues we have talked about this semester. I have enjoyed sharing Hitchcock with you this semester and look forward to reading your thoughts on these questions.

Tom Benson

Hitchcock as auteur

(1) The auteur theory is an influential approach to film criticism proposing that some directors are able to rise above the constraints of the Hollywood system to create a body of work that projects a consistent and original moral and artistic vision.

Several of the books and essays you have read in this course discuss the notion of Alfred Hitchcock as an auteur, either directly or by implication. Trace the arguments about Hitchcock as auteur/artist/creator/implied-author in Donald Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius; Robert Kapsis, Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation, and other relevant class readings.

In your essay, discuss how, if at all, Spoto and Kapsis present Hitchock as a working artist; how they describe the establishment of Hitchcock's reputation; how they balance Hitchock's influence on his own work with the influence of the other forces-financial, collaborative, and so on.

Finally, discuss the work of any three of the authors of critical works you have read in the assigned reading as they bear on the issue of Hitchcock as auteur. For example, you might ask how, for each of your selected authors, the discussion of a single Hitchcock film is arguably illuminated by comparing it to other Hitchcock films (something that presumably would make sense only if it is assumed that there is some measure of consistency in Hitchcock's work).

Hitchcock and feminism

(2) Robin Wood writes that "the central question that haunts contemporary Hitchcock criticism in article after article [is], 'Can Hitchcock be saved for feminism?'" ("Male Desire, Male Anxiety: The Essential Hitchcock," A Hitchcock Reader, 220). What does Wood mean by the question? What is his answer?

Many of the critical works you have read this semester have struggled with Wood's question about Hitchcock's significance for feminism. In your essay, review the critics who have commented on Hitchcock and feminism, and write about the depiction of women as characters and as implied viewers in three of the following films:

The 39 Steps

The Lady Vanishes

Shadow of a Doubt

Notorious

Rear Window

Psycho

Conclude by providing your own answer to the question, "can Hitchcock be saved for feminism?"

Hitchcock and Identity

(3) The films of Alfred Hitchcock often explore issues of identity and identification - through doubling, deception, comparison, mistaken identity, disguise, self-construction, and the depiction of attempts to control the identity of another person. Write an essay in which you explore these themes in three of the following films (and the readings that refer to them):

Strangers on a Train

The Wrong Man

Vertigo

North by Northwest

Hitchcock and the Mother

(4) Many of the authors you have read this semester-including Elsie Michie, James McLaughlin, Camille Paglia, Donald Spoto, and Margaret Horwitz, write of Hitchcock's fascination with the role of the mother. Write an essay in which you explore how these and other writers address the mother in Hitchcock, and using this as a foundation, write about the mother in three of the following films:

Shadow of a Doubt

The Man Who Knew Too Much (either or both versions)

Psycho

The Birds

The Hitchcock Thriller and the Rhetoric of Suspense

(5) Donald Spoto quotes Alfred Hitchcock speaking in 1970 on the difference between mystery and suspense:

There is a great confusion between the words "mystery" and "suspense." The two things are absolutely miles apart. Mystery is an intellectual process, like in a "whodunit." But suspense is essentially an emotional process. You can only get the suspense element going by giving the audience information.

Spoto goes on to write of "The added dimension of Hitchcock's best work-its moral as well as its aesthetic sense," which, according to rhetorical critics, can best be found in the text of the film itself (504).

Write an essay on the rhetoric of suspense in three Hitchcock films (pick films you have not written about in another answer, but which have been seen in class this semester). In your essay, show how the suspense was constructed and address the question of how suspense contributed, if at all, to Hitchcock's moral and aesthetic vision, and to the way audiences are invited to experience the film. Mention relevant critical writings where appropriate.

Hitchcock and American Culture

(6) In Hitchcock's America, Jonathan Freedman and Richard Millington present Hitchcock as "an interpreter of American culture" and suggest that "at the center of Hitchcock's Hollywood films stands a sustained, specific, and extraordinarily acute exploration of American culture" (5). In this book and others, many of the authors you have read have commented on Hitchcock's vision of America, and the ways in which he uses his vision both to show the culture to itself and to engage the deepest fears and desires of his audience. Write an essay on Hitchcock as an observer and critic of American culture, using three of the Hitchcock films we have seen in class and citing relevant critics.

Hitchcock and Visual Rhetoric

(7) The following images are taken from the two first sequences of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. Using these images as the reference point for your essay, discuss the rhetoric of the sequence - that is, how Hitchcock uses images to construct the viewer's experience. You may, of course, refer to the readings, to the rest of Shadow of a Doubt (including sound as well as the moving, edited image as a source of information), and to other Hitchcock films, but you should devote most of your essay to what the images are contributing to the effect.

Sequence 1 - Meeting Uncle Charles (these images are shown in the order they appear in the film, though not every shot in the film is represented here; the images read left to right).

Sequence 2 -- Meeting Young Charlie in Santa Rosa

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