Alfred Hitchcock and the Art of the Story
Hitchcock reading to his granddaughters Mary Alma O'Connell and Terry O'Connell.
POOR SCHEHERAZADE. Under threat of nightly death, she strung along her husband, Persian King Shahryar, with stories as fantastical as they were suspenseful. For 1001 nights, these narratives alone—especially their nightly cliffhanger endings—stood between her neck and the hungry blade of an executioner’s axe. Move aside, Alfred Hitchcock, this quick-witted, well-read woman was the first Mistress of Suspense.
Conversely, Hitchcock was storyteller of Scheherazadian prodigiousness himself. For what are his 53 films but one long movie, populated by a handful of heroes and villains who share many of the same desires, needs, foibles and, at times, professions? He told stories as if his life depended upon it, even admitting that making movies was a way of keeping his fears and anxieties from overtaking him. Among Hitchcock’s own favorite stories were those by J. M. Barrie, whose Peter Pan cannot grow up because he was never told stories. As he confesses to Wendy: “None of the lost boys know any stories.” When Hitchcock found he couldn’t tell any more stories, he, too, was lost. But he knew what to do: submitting to his fate, he shuffled off into the eternal mists of his own private island.
In the years since, Hitchcock’s cinematic and televisual contributions to the art of the story continue to reverberate. Just as scholars are still discovering fresh approaches to genre and myth in his films, media creators continue to look to his storytelling and filmmaking techniques to enliven their own work.
Few knew better than Hitch when to follow convention and when to redefine it. Thriller? Horror? Crime drama, comedy or romance? Gothic, Victorian, Edwardian or modernist? Critics and scholars have long tried to pin down his work, yet it defies simple categorization. His body of work is a genre unto itself. By transcending easy definitions, Hitchcock’s stories move toward something greater, even universal. Along the way, they birthed new genres: the Modern Spy Thriller (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934) the Slasher (Psycho, 1960) and the Apocalypse Film (The Birds, 1963), to name three.
There are also an endless variety of lenses through which we can look at Hitchcock’s work, all of them fruitful: Psychological, philosophical, literary-historical and beyond. In The Nights, Scheherazade was said to have “perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples, and instances of bygone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories…” So too with Hitchcock. Traces of the classics, folk and fairy tales, Catholic passion plays, Elizabethan drama, Gothic and Romantic poetry, Decadent and Symbolist art and literature can all be found in his cinema. They also draw from contemporary sources—popular culture, current art and cinema and news events of the day.
Hitchcock’s screen is populated with character types and archetypes whose expected behaviors are subverted in the service of what he often described as “the avoidance of the cliche.” For example, the Elderly Dowager, so often a foil in classic comedy, may be revealed as surprisingly cruel (Rebecca) or kind-hearted (To Catch a Thief). The Successful Villain can fall hopelessly in love (Notorious) and out again (North by Northwest). When this happens, these stock characters manifest new depths, offering universal appeal. Such moves may even result in the creation of a new icon. A re-envisioned Everyman. The Hitchcock Blonde.
Predicated on the notion that the search for meaning is an essential and urgent human activity—and that Hitchcock’s films are a favorable companion on that journey—HitchCon ‘23 will explore Hitchcock’s handling of the art of the story. (Get tickets.) Take a look at the session themes and topics we’ll cover at HITCHCOCK UNBOUND: Reimagining the Art of the Story:
Saturday, October 7th
Morning: Narrative Tricks
9:30 am Joel Gunz Welcome remarks and introduction to host Steven Derosa
9:45 am Todd Berliner Psycho and the Art of Manipulation
10:10 am Steven DeRosa Hitchcockian Sleight of Hand: Unreliable Narrators, False Flashbacks and Cinematic Cheats
10:35 am BREAK
10:45 am Katy Coakley Struggling to Survive at Sea: The Challenges of Decisions in Lifeboat
11:00 am H. Marshall Leicester “If It Doesn’t Jell, It Isn’t Aspic”: Multiple Narratives in Psycho
11:25 am Rebecca McCallum Rooting for Rupert: How Hitchcock complicates our responses to the (Anti?) Hero of Rope
11:50 am LUNCH
Afternoon–Part 1: Every Frame A Story
1:00 pm Introduction to host Elizabeth Bullock
1:05 pm KEYNOTE: Thomas Leitch The King of Retro Storytelling
1:55 pm BREAK
2:05 pm Pat McFadden What Was He Thinking? The Scrambled Cinematic Language of Rich and Strange
2:30 pm Jeff Hughes Downhill and the Origins of a Horror POV Aesthetic
2:55 pm BREAK
Afternoon–Part 2: Watching Hitchcock Closely
3:00 pm Introduction to host Walter Raubicheck
3:05 pm KEYNOTE: William Rothman Shadow of a Doubt: The Thornton Wilder Screenplay
3:40 pm Maurice Yacowar Hitchcock’s “Misteaks”
4:05 pm BREAK
4:10 pm D. A. Miller Continuity Violations in Dial M for Murder
4:40 pm KEYNOTE: Murray Pomerance Hitchcock's Enchanting Silences
5:15 pm DINNER
Saturday Screening
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
7:00 pm Intro: Steven DeRosa followed by Icebox Conversation
Sunday, October 8th
Morning: Roots: Premodern and Bodegan
9:30 am Joel Gunz Welcome remarks and introduction to host Sidney Gottlieb
9:35 am KEYNOTE: Richard Allen Hitchcock, Melodrama, and the Catholic Imagination
10:25 am BREAK
10:35 am Mark William Padilla, PhD Scapegoat Themes in I Confess and Sophocles’ Oedipus the King
11:00 am Elizabeth L. Bullock “The Body in the Coach:” Fairy Tales in Alfred Hitchcock’s Corpus
11:25 am Neil Badmington In the Garden with Annie Hayworth
11:50 am LUNCH
Afternoon–Part 1: Meta-Hitchcock
1:00 pm Introduction to host Pat McFadden
1:05 pm Elisabeth Karlin "You Make This Very Room a Theater": Hitchcock Takes the Stage
1:30 pm KEYNOTE: Paula Marantz Cohen Conversational Sparring and Visual Reflexivity—How Hitchcock Encourages us to Talk about Him
2:00 pm BREAK
2:10 pm Joel Gunz Film Essay: Travels in the Hitchcockian Multiverse
2:35 pm BREAK
Afternoon–Part 2: The Rest of the Story
2:40 pm Introduction to host Steven DeRosa
2:45 pm Marilyn Fabe, PhD Whatever Happened to Mary Rose?
3:10 pm Tony Lee Moral The Art of Alfred Hitchcock's Storyboards
3:35 pm BREAK
3:45 pm Panel: Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick, with Joel Gunz Our Dinner with Evan: An Oral Story Of Two Agendas
4:20 pm BREAK
4:30 pm William Rothman and Murray Pomerance Fireside chat: A Conversation about Shadow of a Doubt
5:10 pm Joel Gunz Closing remarks and thank yous