Hitchcock At Work

Rating:
Summary: The most astute (non-interview) book on Hitchcock's films
Review: After the Truffaut interview book called 'Hitchcock', this is the one that is best informed, and most insightful, about Hitchcock's involvement in the art and craft of his films.

Bill Krohn has gone on from here lately with a superb article - based again on meticulous research in the Hitchcock files - about the scripting, production, and post-production of SUSPICION. (See the 'Hitchcock Annual', 2002-03 edition.)

I highly recommend 'Hitchcock at Work'.

Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock at Work - Not Just Another Picture Book
Review: Anyone trying to decide whether to buy Bill Krohn's new, award-winning Hitchcock at Work should know that this reviewer is particularly pleased to be able to offer an unqualified thumbs up. Using original sources and applying a formidable intellect, Krohn has assembled the kind of "behind the camera" quiltwork that humanizes Hitchcock the great director without debunking the genius of the master's artistry. Real-life events and historic accuracy are the high octane fuel of the prose, and a great selection of finely printed color and black and white photos, from the archives, from the movies and from selected production sources, add depth and texture. Those who know Krohn and his seemingly boundless knowledge of films, directors, writers, actors, camera people and producers, will not be surprised to find in Hitchcock at Work the kind of revelations that make the best biographies compelling reading. The book is big in every way. Hitchcock at Work not only has visual coffee-table appeal, but is also an excellent reference tool. It will surprise and delight real cineastes and casual movie goers alike. In addition, Krohn writes from the perspective of someone who understands how movies are made. His years as a publicist at Fox and the work he did posthumously on behalf of Orson Wells, assembling and producing a completed version of that director's previously unfinished South American movie, along with decades of critical writing for the prestigious Cahiers du Cinema, give him a rare skillset with which to gently and precisely open up Hitchcock's world in ways hitherto unavailable to film buffs and audiences. But Krohn is no intellectual snob. His excellent prose style is clear and readable. If you can only buy one book about Hitchcock, this is the one, whether for its film history, detail and insights, or simply because you want easy access to the many images and visual delights which Hitchcock brought to the screen. Five stars aren't enough! END

Rating:
Summary: Krohn at work on Hitchcock
Review: First and foremost I shoud state that although I consider myself a film buff, I emphatically dislike the medium of coffee table books. They appear to be just another way to rip off consumers by creating great expensive "packages" with little or no substance. There are of course exceptions to this generality and the best one I've seen so far is this epic retelling by Bill Krohn of the work of Alfred Hitchcock. The Master's centennial has come and gone and with it so has the media hoopla surrounding him that made any interested fan at a loss to find the right vehicle to discover what it was that made him indeed the Master. Now that the dust has settled, Bill Krohn's book on Hitchcock emerges as the undisputed source for Hitchcock's film work. Yes, it is formatted as a coffee table tome but this unprecedented work requires nothing less.Meticulously researched, Krohn has done the unthinkable in his text and graphics by not only debunking the great myth of the director tyranically planning the enitre film in advance of production but uses storyboards and the like to prove this worthy point. Nor does Krohn rely solely on the sometimes faulty memory of the directors collaborators. He substantiates all claims with archival production notes to state emphatically once and for all that Hitchcock's genuis lay not in the pre-programmed myth of his work but his ability to be malleable in the collective art of filmmaking. In short, Bill Krohn's book has made me re-evealute the coffee table book format and more importantly, the work of the great Alfred Hitchcock!

Rating:
Summary: Lavishly illustrated, but not without its flaws
Review: First and foremost it should be noted that "Hitchcock At Work" suffers greatly from an imbalance in coverage of the director's titles. For a major work such as "North by Northwest", author Bill Krohn devotes 13 pages, and to a significantly lesser work, like "Saboteur", he allows 16 pages. This initial imbalance held promise. Was someone finally going to give attention to some of Hitchcock's films that for years have been overlooked? If that was the author's intent, it was quickly rejected, for many of the less appreciated films which would have been interesting to read about, such as "Frenzy", "The Wrong Man", "Torn Curtain", "I Confess", "Under Capricorn", and others, receive a scant two pages each! (As another reviewer noted, the British Period is almost completely ignored - but most books on Hitchcock are guilty of that.)

Some major works, like "Rebecca", are also glossed over in a couple of pages (as are all the films Hitchcock made for producer David Selznick, which is surprising, since the author makes a case for Hitchcock adopting a number of his pre-planning methods from Selznick himself). Even "Suspicion", which had such trouble over its ending that at different times it was rewritten, reshot, and even edited all over again, warranted only two boring stills, and four brief paragraphs.

The publisher, Phaidon, has put together a respectable volume, as they usually do (their "The American Art Book" is a fine example). Many of the illustrations have been published in other volumes on Hitchcock, but a majority of them are fresh and interesting. The frame enlargements from the actual films are often grainy or blurry, as they were meant to be projected at 24 frames per second, not printed in an expensive coffee table book. For the hefty price tag, one would expect the definitive edition on Alfred Hitchcock. This definitely isn't it.

Rating:
Summary: Lavishly illustrated, but not without its flaws
Review: First and foremost it should be noted that "Hitchcock At Work" suffers greatly from an imbalance in coverage of the director's titles. For a major work such as "North by Northwest", author Bill Krohn devotes 13 pages, and to a significantly lesser work, like "Saboteur", he allows 16 pages. This initial imbalance held promise. Was someone finally going to give attention to some of Hitchcock's films that for years have been overlooked? If that was the author's intent, it was quickly rejected, for many of the less appreciated films which would have been interesting to read about, such as "Frenzy", "The Wrong Man", "Torn Curtain", "I Confess", "Under Capricorn", and others, receive a scant two pages each! (As another reviewer noted, the British Period is almost completely ignored - but most books on Hitchcock are guilty of that.)

Some major works, like "Rebecca", are also glossed over in a couple of pages (as are all the films Hitchcock made for producer David Selznick, which is surprising, since the author makes a case for Hitchcock adopting a number of his pre-planning methods from Selznick himself). Even "Suspicion", which had such trouble over its ending that at different times it was rewritten, reshot, and even edited all over again, warranted only two boring stills, and four brief paragraphs.

The publisher, Phaidon, has put together a respectable volume, as they usually do (their "The American Art Book" is a fine example). Many of the illustrations have been published in other volumes on Hitchcock, but a majority of them are fresh and interesting. The frame enlargements from the actual films are often grainy or blurry, as they were meant to be projected at 24 frames per second, not printed in an expensive coffee table book. For the hefty price tag, one would expect the definitive edition on Alfred Hitchcock. This definitely isn't it.

Rating:
Summary: Lavishly illustrated, but not without its flaws
Review: I now like Rhomer/Chabrol's "Hitchcock: the first forty-four films" better.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Review: I now like Rhomer/Chabrol's "Hitchcock: the first forty-four films" better.

Rating:
Summary: An essential book about a great director
Review: In essence, this is a book intended to demythologize Alfred Hitchcock. It has long been a staple of criticism on Hitchcock's films to buy into his assertions that he made his films in his head, via screenplays and storyboards, prior to production, and that the production itself was largely irrelevant. This claim, amazingly, has gone largely uncontested until Krohn's book comes along and shatters it to pieces. One would expect that that sort of demythologization would result in a feeling that Hitchcock's films were, somehow, less great than we felt them to be before, but that is anything but the case. If anything, Krohn's work reaffirms Hitchcock's status as one of the all-time great filmmakers.

A previous reviewer criticized Krohn's book for giving some films more attention than others. Why carp? What's here is great, and it is reasonable to assume that Hitchcock improvised more on some sets than he did on others, and that the sort of documentation one needs to do the necessary research was more in abundance for some films than for others. Therefore, it is unfair to expect a film-by-film rundown. What we should focus on is what IS in the book, not what isn't, and what's here is amongst the most important work ever done on Hitchcock's films.

If you are a fan of Hitchcock's, and enjoy reading about his films as well as watching them, then you owe it to yourself to own this book.

Rating:
Summary: An essential book about a great director
Review: In essence, this is a book intended to demythologize Alfred Hitchcock. It has long been a staple of criticism on Hitchcock's films to buy into his assertions that he made his films in his head, via screenplays and storyboards, prior to production, and that the production itself was largely irrelevant. This claim, amazingly, has gone largely uncontested until Krohn's book comes along and shatters it to pieces. One would expect that that sort of demythologization would result in a feeling that Hitchcock's films were, somehow, less great than we felt them to be before, but that is anything but the case. If anything, Krohn's work reaffirms Hitchcock's status as one of the all-time great filmmakers.

A previous reviewer criticized Krohn's book for giving some films more attention than others. Why carp? What's here is great, and it is reasonable to assume that Hitchcock improvised more on some sets than he did on others, and that the sort of documentation one needs to do the necessary research was more in abundance for some films than for others. Therefore, it is unfair to expect a film-by-film rundown. What we should focus on is what IS in the book, not what isn't, and what's here is amongst the most important work ever done on Hitchcock's films.

If you are a fan of Hitchcock's, and enjoy reading about his films as well as watching them, then you owe it to yourself to own this book.