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Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock presents an original study of Alfred Hitchcock by considering how his classics-informed London upbringing marks some of his films. The Catholic and Irish-English Hitchcock (1899-1980) was born to a mercantile family and attended a Jesuit college preparatory, whose curriculum featured Latin and classical humanities. An important expression of Edwardian culture at-large was an appreciation for classical ideas, texts, images, and myth. Mark Padilla traces the ways that Hitchcock’s films convey mythical themes, patterns, and symbols, though they do not overtly reference them. Hitchcock was a modernist who used myth in unconscious ways as he sought to tell effective stories in the film medium. This book treats four representative films, each from a different decade of his early career. The first two movies were produced in London: The Farmer’s Wife (1928) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); the second two in Hollywood: Rebecca (1940) and Strangers on a Train (1951). In close readings of these movies, Padilla discusses myths and literary texts such as the Judgment of Paris, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Aristophanes’s Frogs, Apuleius’s tale “Cupid and Psyche,” Homer’s Odyssey, and The Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Additionally, many Olympian deities and heroes have archetypal resonances in the films in question. Padilla also presents a new reading of Hitchcock’s circumstances as he entered film work in 1920 and theorizes why and how the films may be viewed as an expression of the classical tradition and of classical reception.
This new and important contribution to the field of classical reception in the cinema will be of great value to classicists, film scholars, and general readers interested in these topics.
Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock presents an original study of Alfred Hitchcock by considering how his classics-informed London upbringing marks some of his films. The Catholic and Irish-English Hitchcock (1899-1980) was born to a mercantile family and attended a Jesuit college preparatory, whose curriculum featured Latin and classical humanities. An important expression of Edwardian culture at-large was an appreciation for classical ideas, texts, images, and myth. Mark Padilla traces the ways that Hitchcock’s films convey mythical themes, patterns, and symbols, though they do not overtly reference them. Hitchcock was a modernist who used myth in unconscious ways as he sought to tell effective stories in the film medium. This book treats four representative films, each from a different decade of his early career. The first two movies were produced in London: The Farmer’s Wife (1928) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); the second two in Hollywood: Rebecca (1940) and Strangers on a Train (1951). In close readings of these movies, Padilla discusses myths and literary texts such as the Judgment of Paris, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Aristophanes’s Frogs, Apuleius’s tale “Cupid and Psyche,” Homer’s Odyssey, and The Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Additionally, many Olympian deities and heroes have archetypal resonances in the films in question. Padilla also presents a new reading of Hitchcock’s circumstances as he entered film work in 1920 and theorizes why and how the films may be viewed as an expression of the classical tradition and of classical reception.
This new and important contribution to the field of classical reception in the cinema will be of great value to classicists, film scholars, and general readers interested in these topics.
The Feature Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
One: Hestia's Hearths and the Judgment of Paris in The Farmer’s
Wife
Two: Eleusinian Mysteries and Heroic Catabasis in the 1934 The Man
Who Knew Too Much
Three: The Heroine Pattern of Cupid and Psyche in Rebecca
Four: Crisscrossing Strangers on a Train with the Homeric Hymn to
Hermes
Appendix
Story Summaries
Mark W. Padilla is distinguished professor of classical studies at Christopher Newport University
One rarely finds a more exciting book on Hitchcock, or indeed on
any movie director, than this one by Padilla (classical studies,
Christopher Newport Univ.)... [T]he observations are detailed and
perceptive. The classical themes Padilla finds are mostly from
Homer and Virgil. The Farmer's Wife (1928) brings in
Hestia and the judgment of Paris (and includes telling symbols:
fireplace, pants, sheep, cupid); The Man Who Knew Too
Much, the Eleusinian mysteries (symbols: bull, teeth, hair,
seasons, eating, storms, labyrinths,
metal); Rebecca, Cupid and Psyche (symbols: the sea,
windows, Valhalla, pig, picnic baskets); Strangers on a Train,
Hermes, Venus, Pan, and Hercules (symbols: architecture, chains,
sores, Mt. Olympus, eyeglasses, shoes, lobsters, cow, calf,
watches, satyrs, statues, goats, Cerberus). Provocative and
demanding, the book is invaluable, and it includes hundreds of
footnotes and bibliographical references. Summing Up: Highly
recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
*CHOICE*
Mark Padilla's study on the role of classical myth in the movies of
Alfred Hitchcock is an intriguing piece of scholarly work. Strongly
embedded within the ever-expanding scholarship on the reception of
classical antiquity in cinema, his book sets out to explore how
mythological stories, symbols, motifs and archetypal themes
influenced narrative structures and character developments in
Hitchcock's films over a time span of ca. 25 years (1928-1951)….
Through a careful selection of texts, sculptures, paintings and
archaeological objects, Padilla meticulously deconstructs each of
these films, and analyses how classical sources repeatedly shaped
story patterns and character actions. Padilla hereby never tries to
fit his reasoning into one fundamental source myth, opting instead
for a more complex-and therefore more rewarding-interpretation…. In
the end, Padilla has produced an exceptionally learned and
informative study. He ultimately succeeds in illuminating
Hitchcock's eclectic and arbitrary use of classical myth in his
filmmaking process, while at the same time revealing a much
neglected yet crucial aspect of the director's multi-layered film
language. In doing so, he makes a strong case for the universality
of mythical stories, as well as their everlasting narrative power
in popular culture.
*The Classical Journal*
[Padilla's] work expands the terrain of classical reception studies
because his analysis of Hitchcock and myth opens up the director’s
unacknowledged development in a classics-rich background as a new
area of investigation. This book needs to be read by anyone
interested in myth and film, Hitchcock, or reception studies.
*Bryn Mawr Classical Review*
The several "prodigious feats" of classicist Mark Padilla in this
book more than emulate those of Mr Memory in Alfred
Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935). Professor
Padilla's accomplishment is to have placed six Hitchcock films and
their characters in something like a fundamental position in the
history of art and narrative. His lens is that of Greek
myth and culture, and it works splendidly. The character
Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) in The 39 Steps is "both
high and low", and we are told exactly why. Lisa Fremont
(Grace Kelly) in Rear Window (1954) is successively
"self-centered" and "heroic", and Padilla illustrates this by
analogues drawn from two separate versions of the Aphrodite/Venus
story. Exemplary stuff. Whole courses on the
Western-art heritage could be based on Padilla's book.
*Ken Mogg, Author of The Alfred Hitchcock Story*
Aimed at a wide audience, which includes lovers of the seventh art
in general but also the students of the current reception of
classical authors, Classical Myth in Four Films of Alfred Hitchcock
is the result of long years dedicated to the investigation of the
filmography of this director, including visits to the sets of
filming and to the main archives and libraries in which his legacy
is conserved.
*FILMHISTORIA Online*
In this welcome follow-up to his Classical Myth in Four Films
of Alfred Hitchcock, Padilla continues to demonstrate the
profound influence of classical myths and imagery on many of the
Master of Suspense’s most important works. Classicists and scholars
of film and classical receptions alike will appreciate Padilla’s
thorough research, keen insights, and perceptive analysis, which
are made accessible to lay audiences - both Hitchcock fans and
armchair mythologists - through clear organization, direct prose,
and full exposition of the works he discusses. By highlighting the
imprint of classical myths, images, and patterns on the seemingly
unrelated works of one of the most influential auteur-directors in
the history of cinema, Padilla here makes an important contribution
to the growing field of Reception Studies.
*Kirsten Day, Augustana College*
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