Alfred Hitchcock by Peter Ackroyd, Paperback, 9780099287667 | Buy online at The Nile
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Alfred Hitchcock

Author: Peter Ackroyd  

Paperback

Peter Ackroyd turns his gimlet eye to one of the twentieth century's most revered directors.

So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century?As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of himself, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out.

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Summary

Peter Ackroyd turns his gimlet eye to one of the twentieth century's most revered directors.

So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century?As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of himself, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out.

Read more

Description

Peter Ackroyd turns his gimlet eye to one of the twentieth century's most revered directors.Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century?As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of himself, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more- a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances, just as Hitch did in his own films. Grace Kelly, Carey Grant and James Stewart despair of his detached directing style, and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren endures cuts and bruises from a real-life fearsome flock of birds.Alfred Hitchcock wrests the director's chair back from the master of control and discovers what lurks just out of sight, in the corner of the shot.

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Critic Reviews

“Irresistible”

Superb, insightful short life... Deft and moving -- Bee Wilson The Guardian
-- Louise Jury The Independent
An elegant and hugely enjoyable read -- Alexander Larman Sunday Express
[A] nutritious, compact and superb critical biography -- Roger Lewis Daily Mail
Shelves of serious biographies have been written on Alfred Hitchcock, but perhaps none as pleasurable as Peter Ackroyd’s -- Kate Muir The Times

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About the Author

Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning historian, biographer, novelist, poet and broadcaster. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers London- The Biography, Thames- Sacred River and London Under; biographies of figures including Charles Dickens, William Blake, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock; and a multi-volume history of England. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature's William Heinemann Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and the South Bank Prize for Literature. He holds a CBE for services to literature.

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Product Details

Publisher
Vintage Publishing | Vintage
Published
7th April 2016
Pages
288
ISBN
9780099287667

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