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FDU PRESS
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| Scholarly Review |
 | DIAL "M" FOR MOTHER: A Freudian Hitchcock
ISBN# 9780838641330
Reviewed by: S. Bernardo, Wagner College
Choice, October 2008 |
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Gordon (comparative literature/humanities, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) makes a case for an aesthetic, character-oriented application of Freudian ideas about the problematic link between sons and mothers in Hitchcock's work, and he occasionally draws in the arguments of Lacan and Kristeva as well. Among the book's strengths are the author's close readings of key scenes in important films such as Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Psycho, Marnie, and Frenzy. Gordon's dense prose style makes for tough going in places (especially in the introduction, where he rightly differentiates his study from others that make use of psychoanalytic and feminist theory in understanding Hitchcock's oeuvre), but he does a good job of working with complex ideas. Gordon convincingly argues that HItchcock's use of the figure of the harlot/madonna mother in his films wwas consistent from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. In studying the various manifestations of mothers, Gordon illuminates HItchcock's male protagonists and takes up many of the oddest moments in these canonical films. Anyone interested in Hitchcock should certainly consult this book. Summing Up: Recommended. Uppper-division undergraduates through faculty.
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