SYNOPSIS

Exactly when Alfred Hitchcock was at a turning point in his life in regard to his celebrity and critical assessment, the director caught the audience and the critics off guard moving away from the formulas of his usual films based on suspense in favor of a macabre "carousel" based on surprise. However, behind its humble look, Psycho (Psyco, 1960) proves to be an extraordinarily complicated and innovative film, delving into the most distressful recesses of the society. Along the lines of Robert Bloch’s novel – a book which has never been taken in serious consideration by film scholars because of its debatable quality – Hitchcock updates the Romantic copule love-death in the light of the popularization of psychoanalysis in the 1950s and carries his obsession with violence, sex and inhibitions caused by the family to extremes. The result is a challenging film which aims at modernity but does not make a clean break with the classic cinema, and has been capable to exert an enormous influence on the collective imagination, which is the subject of another book, Nell'ombra di Hitchcock.

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​TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduzione V

1.    Alfred Hitchcock, regista serio

Luna park e lager - La carne e il sangue - Dalla mela al trauma - La Donna Coplevole - La Madre Colpevole - In vino veritas

2.    Eros. Sistema dei personaggi e strutture di gender

Una normale tragedia ploretaria - Da Mary a Marion - Quarantamila dollari per Marion Crane - Persuasori occulti - Gli sguardi che non hanno salvato Marion - Norman ama Norma - La Madre (Colpevole) - La sorella di Mary non è la sorella di Marion

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3.    Thanatos. Sorpresa e retorica della morte

Necrofilia - La «sorpresa» della morte - Eros, Thanatos e agonia - La morte sporca

4.    Shocker. Gestione moderna dello spettatore classico

Il maestro del melodramma - Quasi un «mystery» - Come un trailer può creare suspense - Chi è la donna sepolta nel cimitero di Greenlawn? - Sospensione per «antipatia» - Tutto quello che Marion avrebbe dovuto sapere... - La pipa e il camice - Un «classico»?

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Antologia critica

Bibliografia