Children in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock

by Olson, Debbie

• ISBN13: 9781137475541
• ISBN10: 1137475544
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-12-17
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Weaving together film theory, cultural studies, and the growing field of childhood studies, this collection examines Hitchcock's use of children in his films. Many of the children and youth that appear in Hitchcock films are background or minor characters, yet they often hold special importance. From The Young and Innocent (1931), Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Strangers on a Train (1951) to The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964), among others, children and youth perform both innocence and knowingness within Hitchcock's complex cinematic texts. Though the child often plays a small part in Hitchcock's films, their significance - symbolically, theoretically, and philosophically - offers a unique opportunity to illuminate and interrogate the child presence within the cinematic complexity of Hitchcock's films.

Author Biography

Debbie Olson is Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Texas at Arlington, USA. Her research specialties are the image of the child (particularly children of color) in film and television, New Hollywood Cinema, race and identity politics, Cultural Studies, and African Cinema.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Hitchcock's Children; Debbie Olson
1. Hitchcock's Missing Children: Genre, Auteurship, and Audience Address; Noel Brown
2. "The Future's Not Ours to See": How Children and Young Adults Reflect the Anxiety of Lost Innocence in Alfred Hitchcock's American Movies; Jason McEntee
3. The Child Who Knew Too Much: Liminality in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man who Knew Too Much (1934 and 1956); Elizabeth Ramsey
4. No Laughing Matter: Imperiling Kids and Country in Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage; Peter Lee
5. "If You Ripped the Fronts Off Houses": Killing Innocence in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt; Markus Bohlmann and Sean Moreland
6. Daddy's Girl: The Knowing Innocent in Strangers on a Train; Brian Walter, St. Louis College of Pharmacy
7. Renegotiating Romanticism and the All-American Boy Child: Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry; Adrian Schober
8. Between Knowingness and Innocence: Child Ciphers in Hitchcock's Marnie and The Birds; F. E. Pheasant-Kelly
9. The Child Hero in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds; Samantha Lay
10. "It's the End of the World!": Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and the Evil Children Film; Craig Martin
11. Psycho without a Cause: Norman Bates and Juvenile Delinquency Cinema; Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.
12. Hitchcock's Stylized Capture of Post-Adolescent Fatheads; William McBride