Hitchcock's Magic - Badmington, Neil (University of Wales Press, 2011)
Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations; Introduction: Hitchcock's Magic; or, How I Starred 1in Saboteur; Ps/zycho; Frame Tale: Rear Window and the Promise of Vision; SpectRebecca; Stories of 'O': North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much; The Animals Who Knew Too Much: The Zoopoetics of The Birds; Postscript: Into the Mystery; Appendix: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Why are we drawn to the work of Alfred Hitchcock so long after his final film appeared? What is the source of Hitchcock's magic? This book answers these questions by focussing upon the films themselves, upon how they hold our attention by constantly withholding something from us. Combining close analysis of a number of Hitchcock's most famous films with more general discussion his work, the volume takes issue with the biographical and psychoanalytic approaches that have dominated studies of Hitchcock's films to argue instead for the significance of textuality