Description
Book SynopsisWith an introductory chapter that sketches out a history of the way the close analysis of film developed, this work begins with a study of the Bodega Bay sequence of "The Birds", and then goes on to examine various aspects of that singular critical practice, 'the analysis of film'.
Trade ReviewWritten between 1969 and 1990, the essays in this collection remind the reader of what a brilliant film analyst Bellour was. Building on the work of Lacan, Metz, and Thierry Kuntzel, Bellour developed his own approach to analysis based primarily on a shot-by-shot study. This method enabled him to come as close as possible to surmounting what he perceived as the greatest difficulty in analyzing films—how to capture the moving image in words. Most of the essays here deal with Hitchcock films—The Birds, Psycho, Marnie, and North by Northwest. The last shows Bellour at his magisterial best: he couples a carefully worked out Oedipal interpretation of the plot with a close reading of the crop—duster sequence. The result is one of the best pieces ever written on Hitchcock. The other Hitchcock essays are also superb. The editor included pieces on other films—The Big Sleep, Gigi, The Lonedale Operator—but it is for the Hitchcock analyses that this book will be most valued. No serious student of film should miss the great work collected in this volume.
-- W. A. Vincent * Choice *
Table of ContentsPreface by Constance Penley
A Bit of History
1. The Unattainable Text
2. System of a Fragment (on The Birds)
3. The Obvious and the Code (on The Big Sleep)
4. Symbolic Blockage (on North by Northwest)
5. To Segment/To Analyze (on Gigi)
6. To Enunciate (on Marnie)
7. Psychosis, Neurosis, Perversion (on Psycho)
8. To Alternate/ to Narrate (on The Lonedale Operator)
Notes
Works by Raymond Bellour
Index
