Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic
by Dan Auiler
Our Price: $46.00
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $14.85 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Dan AuilerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-03-04
ISBN: 0312169159
Number of pages: 220
Publisher: St Martins Pr
Book Reviews of Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic
Book Review: Vertigo is a dizzyingly outstanding book on the makiing of a classic film
Summary: 3 Stars
Vertigo is one of the best films ever made. Sir Alfred Joseph
Hitchcock's masterpiece will keep you dizzy with the intricate
plot, the beauty of the streets of San Francisco and the great
acting of James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes.
Aulier begins his book with a short biography of the rotund
Cockny genius AJH. We learn of his career and the outstanding
team he assembled to produce such timeless masterpieces as Vertigo.
Vertigo is Hitchcock's most personal film as he explores such
heavy topics as:
1. Romantic obsession as Detective John Scottie Ferguson seeks his lost love Madeline seeking to remake her in shopgirl Judy.
2. Voyeurism as Hitchcok lovingly photographs the Bay area and gets inside the mind of his characters.
4, The haunting score by Bernard Hermann adds texture to the dreamlike operatic quality of this masterpeice, Hitch looks at
dreams and the elegaic desire to return to the past.
The convoluted plot is well known but readers will learn the
nuts and bolts of how a great film is put together from business
deals; casting (Vera Miles was scheduled to play Madeline)special effects; sound and filming techniques,
Aulier illustrates his book with stills from the film as well as letters from Hitch. The book contains interviews the author conducted with such Hitchcock aassociates as Saul Bass who created the titles noted for their swirling imagery.
Vertigo is based on a French novel and is like a wheel within
a wheel in its complexity and insight into the mind of AJH.
If you love movies, San Francisco, mystery, glamour and haunting music then Vertigo is the film for you! This fine book
is a requisite primer and introduction to this filmic classic.
Summary of Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic
Originally published in 1998 by St. Martin's Press, the story of the making of the Alfred Hitchcock film, "Vertigo". It contains script drafts, original production sketches, storyboards and interviews with some of the actors involved.Vertigo is Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece and perhaps his most personal film. To view it once is to be devastated. With each subsequent screening, most viewers notice bits of business, depths of thought, and stunning ironies that had previously eluded them. Vertigo is a riveting experience, haunting its fans in the same way that Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) is haunted by the mysterious Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak).
Upon researching the film, author Dan Auiler found that "this odd, obsessional, very un-matter-of-fact film was created" under "systematic, businesslike, matter-of-fact circumstances." His book gives us the opportunity to witness the construction of a film that seems at once amazing complex and absolutely seamless. He discusses the painstaking development of the screenplay (including its controversial explication of the mystery only two-thirds of the way through the film), the decision to cast Novak instead of Vera Miles opposite Stewart, the typically meticulous Hitchcock shoot, the film's amazing special effects and extraordinary credit and dream sequences, and the legendary musical score composed by Bernard Herrmann. Upon finishing the book, readers will appreciate the various contributions of Hitchcock, Herrmann, Stewart, Novak, actress Barbara Bel Geddes, Thomas Narcejac and Pierre Boileau (who wrote the book upon which it is based), uncredited scenarists Maxwell Anderson and Angus MacPhail, screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, cinematographer Robert Burks, editor George Tomasini, costume designer Edith Head, and many others. The book includes a list of cast and crew, an appendix discussing the VistaVision process in which it was shot, a forward by Vertigo enthusiast Martin Scorsese, and hundreds of production photos, reproductions of memos, storyboard sketches, and posters. Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic has enhanced even this avid fan's appreciation of a film he's long known and loved. --Raphael Shargel
History & Criticism Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Great Filmmaking Books
The Birds (BFI Film Classics)by Camille Paglia
British Film Institute; Published: 1998-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.62
Price in other shops:
Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Franciscoby Jeff Kraft, Aaron Leventhal
Santa Monica Press; Published: 2002-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.08
Price in other shops:
The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Bookby Kathleen Kaska
Renaissance Books; Published: 1999-06-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.54
Price in other shops:
Filmmaker's Pocket Reference, Theby Blain Brown
Focal Press; Published: 1994-05-16; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
A-Z Guide to Film Termsby Tim Moshansky
First Wave Publishing; Published: 2001-12-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.95
Inside Star Trek: The Real Storyby Herbert F. Solow, Robert H. Justman
Pocket Books; Published: 1996-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $28.00
Price in other shops:
Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classicby Dan Auiler
St Martins Pr; Published: 1998-03-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $50.00
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psychoby Stephen Rebello
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1998-12-15; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avengerby Lloyd Kaufman, James Gunn, Roger Corman
Berkley Trade; Published: 1998-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.95
Setting Up Your Shots: Great Camera Moves Every Filmmaker Should Knowby Jeremy Vineyard
Michael Wiese Productions; Published: 2000-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Lightby Patrick Mcgilligan
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.53
Price in other shops:
Hitchcock At Workby Bill Krohn
Phaidon Press; Published: 2003-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $23.46
Price in other shops:
The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Picturesby Donald Spoto
Anchor; Published: 1991-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.88
Price in other shops:
Hitchcock's Notebooks: An Authorized And Illustrated Look Inside The Creative Mind Of Alfred Hitchcockby Dan Auiler
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2001-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $148.79
Vertigo: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1958 Film)Release date: 1996-11-05; Music CD
Best price: $11.38
Price in other shops:
Hitchcock (Revised Edition)by Helen G. Scott, Francois Truffaut
Simon & Schuster; Published: 1985-10-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.10
Price in other shops:
Vertigo (BFI Film Classics)by Charles Barr
British Film Institute; Published: 2002-04-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.59
Price in other shops:
Vertigo (Collector's Edition)Universal Studios; Release date: 1998-03-31; DVD
Best price: $12.72
Price in other shops:
Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Franciscoby Jeff Kraft, Aaron Leventhal
Santa Monica Press; Published: 2002-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psychoby Stephen Rebello
Marion Boyars; Published: 1999-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.83