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Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0 (B), LMU Munich (American Studies Institute), course: Hauptseminar: Women, Sexuality and Popular Culture in Twentieth Century America, language: English, abstract: Thesis Statement: Hitchcock's Blondes were a formation of the director's own creative vision, the image of women in film during the Monroe Era did not influence him in his depiction of women Without question, Alfred Hitchcock is considered one of the most important and most influential film directors of the Twentieth Century. Throughout his career, which lasted more than 50 years, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are now considered classics. Interestingly, he directed his most critically acclaimed movies during the relatively short life and career of one distinctive actress: Marilyn Monroe. It is a striking fact, however, that Marilyn Monroe never starred in a Hitchcock film, although it seems that her blond hair and her star-status would have made her the perfect 'Hitchcock Blonde'. In this paper I will attempt to compare Hitchcock's female characters during the Monroe Era with the image of women in film and how they differed from each other. For this purpose, it is necessary to first take a closer look at Marilyn Monroe and the image she embodied as well as women's role in general during that period. In addition, Hitchcock's background, education and attitude towards his leading ladies must also be examined. In my analysis I will focus on three films by Hitchcock: Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). I chose these films in particular because they not only show a certain progression in Hitchcock's work in the way he treats and presents his female characters, but also because these films were highly successful. Granted Hitchcock's rich body of work has been analyzed under various points of view by many scholars, I have not been able to locate a work solel
Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0 (B), LMU Munich (American Studies Institute), course: Hauptseminar: Women, Sexuality and Popular Culture in Twentieth Century America, language: English, abstract: Thesis Statement: Hitchcock’s Blondes were a formation of the director’s own creative vision, the image of women in film during the Monroe Era did not influence him in his depiction of women Without question, Alfred Hitchcock is considered one of the most important and most influential film directors of the Twentieth Century. Throughout his career, which lasted more than 50 years, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are now considered classics. Interestingly, he directed his most critically acclaimed movies during the relatively short life and career of one distinctive actress: Marilyn Monroe. It is a striking fact, however, that Marilyn Monroe never starred in a Hitchcock film, although it seems that her blond hair and her star-status would have made her the perfect ‘Hitchcock Blonde’. In this paper I will attempt to compare Hitchcock’s female characters during the Monroe Era with the image of women in film and how they differed from each other. For this purpose, it is necessary to first take a closer look at Marilyn Monroe and the image she embodied as well as women’s role in general during that period. In addition, Hitchcock’s background, education and attitude towards his leading ladies must also be examined. In my analysis I will focus on three films by Hitchcock: Vertigo (1958), North By Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). I chose these films in particular because they not only show a certain progression in Hitchcock’s work in the way he treats and presents his female characters, but also because these films were highly successful. Granted Hitchcock’s rich body of work has been analyzed under various points of view by many scholars, I have not been able to locate a work solely concerned with the female characters in his films during the Monroe Era. But before turning to Alfred Hitchcock and some of his works, it is important to circumscribe the period we are looking at by focusing on the life, career and image of Marilyn Monroe.
The author of the bestselling book, "The Martini, " now pays tribute to a cultural icon that changed the world. 125 color photos.
Bestselling author of Capote's Women Laurence Leamer shares an engrossing account of the enigmatic director Alfred Hitchcock that finally puts the dazzling actresses he cast in his legendary movies at the center of the story. Alfred Hitchcock was fixated--not just on the dark, twisty stories that became his hallmark, but also by the blond actresses who starred in many of his iconic movies. The director of North by Northwest, Rear Window, and other classic films didn't much care if they wore wigs, got their hair coloring out of a bottle, or were the rarest human specimen--a natural blonde--as long as they shone with a golden veneer on camera. The lengths he went to in order to showcase (and often manipulate) these women would become the stuff of movie legend. But the women themselves have rarely been at the center of the story, until now. In Hitchcock's Blondes, bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer offers an intimate journey into the lives of eight legendary actresses whose stories helped chart the course of the troubled, talented director's career--from his early days in the British film industry, to his triumphant American debut, to his Hollywood heyday and beyond. Through the stories of June Howard-Tripp, Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Tippi Hedren--who starred in fourteen of Hitchcock's most notable films and who bore the brunt of his fondness and sometimes fixation--we can finally start to see the enigmatic man himself. After all, "his" blondes (as he thought of them) knew the truths of his art, his obsessions and desires, as well as anyone. From the acclaimed author of Capote's Women comes an intimate, revealing, and thoroughly modern look at both the enduring art created by a man obsessed...and the private toll that fixation took on the women in his orbit.
“The trouble today is that we don’t torture women enough.” —Alfred Hitchcock It is remarkable how infrequently, over a period of more than fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about the beautiful, legendary and talented actresses he directed. And when he did, his remarks were mostly indifferent and often hostile. But his leading ladies greatly enriched his films, even as many of them achieved international stardom precisely because of their work for Hitchcock—among the dozens of women were Madeleine Carroll, Joan Fontaine, Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren. Yet he maintained a stony, insistent silence about the quality of their performances and their contributions to his art. Spellbound by Beauty—the final volume in master biographer Donald Spoto’s Hitchcock trilogy that began with The Art of Alfred Hitchcock and continued with The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock—is the fascinating, complex and finally tragic story of the great moviemaker and his female stars, the unusual ideas of sex and romance that inform his films and the Hollywood dreams that often became nightmares. Rich with fresh revelations based on previously undisclosed tapes, new interviews, private correspondence and personal papers made available only to the author, this thoughtful, compassionate yet explosive portrait details Hitchcock’s outbursts of cruelty, the shocking humor and the odd amalgam of adoration and contempt that time and again characterized Hitchcock’s obsessive relationships with women—and that also, paradoxically, fed his genius. He insisted, for example, that Madeleine Carroll submit herself to painful physical demands during the making of The 39 Steps. He harbored a poignantly unrequited love for Ingrid Bergman. He meticulously and deliberately constructed Grace Kelly’s image. Finally, he stalked, harassed and abused Tippi Hedren. His treatment of his daughter, Pat, was certainly unusual, while his strange marriage to his sometime collaborator Alma Reville was a union that (according to Hitchcock himself) was forever chaste after one incident. Spellbound by Beauty offers important insights into the life of a brilliant, powerful, eccentric and tortured artist, and it corrects a major gap in movie history by paying tribute at last to those extraordinarily talented actresses who gave so much to his films.
Hitchcock's 1964 psychological thriller 'Marnie' generated wider critical controversy than any other film of his career. This study details the film from conception to postproduction and marketing, showing the film-making process in action, with production details and participants' oral history.
*Includes pictures *Includes quotes and summaries of the famous Hitchcock movies *Includes bibliographies for further reading *Includes a table of contents Considering that her film career lasted just six years, it would seem as though the reputation of Grace Kelly far outweighs her actual output. Indeed, from the time of her arrival in Hollywood in 1951 through her final film, High Society, in 1956, Kelly acted in just 11 films, leaving viewers to wonder whether Kelly was still in the beginning of her career or whether High Society was a proper culmination to an extraordinarily brief stay in the film industry? Ultimately, it is might be most accurate to state that Kelly was still in the prime of her career, but it's unclear what direction her career would have taken, as well as who inherited the void she left. Despite the short resume, Kelly is one of America's most famous actresses, and she left an indelible impact on Hollywood. Kelly brought a well-heeled, almost regal quality that deviated from the film noir roles and musical showgirls who had populated the screen during the 1930s and 1940s, and it is this new identity Kelly brought to the motion picture industry that remains her overriding trademark. Ingrid Bergman's fame cannot be doubted, but the international quality of her career has prevented most people from gaining a complete understanding of her filmography. Moreover, the immense success of her most famous films obscured her other achievements; one of Bergman's persistent lamentations late in her career was that even though she appeared in other films she deemed more significant, the only film of hers that people wanted to discuss was Casablanca. As a result, her early films in Sweden, the Italian Neorealist films she made with famous director and future husband Roberto Rossellini, and her French film with Jean Renoir have all been relegated to the margins. Bergman is thus recognized as a Hollywood star rather than an actress who should be identified with an array of different film industries, reducing the enormous scope of her career to a relatively small proportion of her filmography. In 1939, Olivia de Havilland had her most memorable role as Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind (1939), perhaps the most famous movie in American history, but Hollywood legend has it that she only got the role because her own younger sister, Joan Fontaine, was asked to audition for the part and recommended Olivia instead so that she could audition for Scarlett O'Hara. Although Fontaine and de Havilland would make history by becoming the only sisters to both win an Academy Award for Best Actress, that anecdote was just one of the various stories about the siblings that has shed light on their notoriously contentious and complicated relationship. As Fontaine once put it, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" De Havilland herself once said, "Joan is very bright and sharp and can be cutting." An art student in her early 20s, Novak found herself in Los Angeles by chance and appeared as an extra in a 1954 film to earn money, only to be almost immediately discovered by Columbia and turned into a star when she appeared in Picnic (1955). Picnic began a 10 year run that witnessed Novak become one of the biggest names in Hollywood, starring in major hits like Pal Joey (1957), Middle of the Night (1959), The Notorious Landlady (1962), and Of Human Bondage (1964). However, Novak's most famous role was as one of Alfred Hitchcock's legendary "icy blondes" in Vertigo (1958), beguiling Jimmy Stewart's character to the point of madness in what is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. In addition to being one of the country's most recognizable and alluring sex icons, the girl who originally wanted to be an artist had reached the upper echelon of Hollywood itself, all before she turned 30.