Robert Kapsis' book *Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation* is secondary
source material, but it does a very thorough job of tracing the rise of
Hitch's reputation in critical circles (both journalist and academic). At
the very least, Kapsis can point you towards to particular reviews that
might prove helpful.

Cheers,
James

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 7:23 PM, Peter Longworth <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm an undergraduate student studying Cultural and Media Studies at the
> University of Newcastle, Australia. The reason I am writing is I have a
> major essay on Alfred Hitchcock as an auteur, and to make my essay more
> interesting I'd like to locate articles / books which criticise Hitchcock
> somewhat negatively. I've been directed to criticism from feminist scholars,
> but was wondering where else I should be looking, and if anyone could please
> recommend any articles where I may concentrate my study.
>
> Apart from the feminist angle, I know of a couple of articles written by
> Andrew Sarris who comments on Hitchcock's films not being taken seriously in
> the 1960s because they weren't considered serious films like what the
> European directors were making such as Antonioni and Bergmann.
>
> Other place I could go with my essay is for Hitchcock's use of violence in
> Frenzy - I actually find the strangle scenes today pretty disturbing, and I
> understand critical reception to the film's use of violence was mixed. I
> think Rope might have been criticised also from a moralistic point of view.
> There is also Hitchcock's attack on religion in his films, such as the
> Catholic church, in how he represents / shows nuns in Vertigo, which is the
> key film i'll be discussing in my paper.
>
> I hope someone might be able to recommend me to resources articles giving a
> negative criticism, or mixed criticism of Hitchcock, because mostly everyone
> says positive things about his films. I seek to make my essay a mixture of
> positive and negative criticisms.
>
> Thanks
>
> Peter
>
> ----
> Learn to speak like a film/TV professor! Listen to the ScreenLex
> podcast:
> http://www.screenlex.org
>

----
To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]