CAS 415
Rhetoric of Film - Alfred Hitchcock and the Critics: The Rhetoric of the Thriller as Art, Entertainment, and Social Text
Some resources for research and writing for this course
This semester you are asked to write three medium-sized critical analyses of the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Each assignment has a slightly different structure, to allow you to develop skills across a range of critical practices. In each case, the core of the assignment is to engage in a detailed close reading of the film(s) you are writing about. This will involve gathering a series of examples from the film that support the specific theme you have chosen for your paper. You will describe in detail the examples, their contribution to the rhetoric of the film experience, and their contribution to your theme. In every case, the point is to try to identify what sort of response you assert the film is designed to evoke, and how Hitchcock is employing the rhetoric of film to invite that response, using all the resources of film technique. In various ways, this is what the critical readings assigned for class are also doing, and what we are doing in conversational form in the ANGEL discussion forum and in class discussion of the films.
Your primary source for each paper is the film itself. I strongly suggest that you make sure you have access to the film you are writing about for long enough to study it in detail--this will involve watching the film more than once.
As you begin to develop a sense of the core themes of your paper, study what other scholars and critics have had to say about the film you are studying, and about Hitchcock's use in his other films of the issues that interest you in the film you are writing about.
Finding sources.
Each paper assignment requires that you employ at least three serious, published sources related to your paper. You may certainly consult sources on-line, and if you quote them you should cite them properly, but you are asked specifically to identify, cite, and engage with serious academic and critical sources that have been published (though if your access to them is through an on-line database that is fine). You may find that these sources provide you with ideas that you can amplify, extend, or contest in your own paper. At the very least, they will allow you to put your own work in the context of Hitchcock scholarship, and to practice the skills required in doing that.
Start by reading about the film in our required textbooks. There will almost certainly be an account of the making of the film and its critical reception in McGilligan's Hitchcock biography, and there may be reference to the film in some of the critical works we are reading. Check the bibliographical suggestions in A Hitchcock Reader for possible references; there are lists of suggested readings at the end of each of the introductory essays to the book's several sections. Several of the textbooks include filmographies of Hitchcock; the most detailed is in Patrick McGilligan, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light.
I suggest searching at least the following databases in the LIAS electronic database list:
ProQuest
JStor
MUSE
Communication and Mass Media Complete
New York Times Historical
Lexis/Nexis
Check the library's suggestions for finding sources in related fields:
Communications and Media Studies
Film/Video Studies (this also has a link to suggestions for finding film reviews and criticism in additional databases)
Some of the citations to scholarly and critical articles that may be of interest to you will point to full-text versions of the articles; in many cases, there is no full-text electronic access. If you have started work on your paper early enough, there should be time to ask for the article through Interlibrary Loan. Take down the full citation information and submit a request to Interlibrary Loan.
You may also consult with a reference librarian either at the library or on-line. This will almost certainly turn up some useful suggestions--and you will get better suggestions if you have already done enough work to have fairly specific questions.
Citing Sources.
The library's Research Tools site links to many useful sites, including instructions in how to cite your sources in MLA format for the paper.