Dimensions
152 x 229 x 51mm
The most famous director of all time finally gets the biography he deserves: a fresh and definitive portrait by our most acclaimed film biographer offers a radical new understanding of the most creative but little understood figure in film history.
In a career that spanned 60 years and as many films, Alfred Hitchcock changed the face of cinema with a raft of the most influential films ever made. From 'The 39 Steps' to 'The Birds', from 'Rear Window' to 'Psycho', Hitchcock mastered the language of film and suspense as no one before had. Along the way, as one of the shrewdest self-promoters in film history, he created a persona for himself as the depraved English gentleman of Hollywood - a reputation that would come back to haunt him years after his death.
The public image of Hitchcock as the beloved eccentric has since morphed into a sensational but largely fantastical portrait of the director as a dirty old man, twisted by sexual obsession. Yet the true Hitchcock was far more complex: witty, gregarious, urbane, a commercial and artistic genius of the highest order.
Patrick McGilligan has won the cooperation of hundreds of interviewees who knew Hitch personally, along with access to Hitchcock archives previously unavailable.