On Murderers and Artists: Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho and Hollywood Exquisitely cast, Sacha Gervasi’s film, Hitchcock (2012), about the making of the master of suspense’s Psycho (1960) relies on star intertextuality to interrogate issues of gender and authorship in popular cinema. For example, Ralph Macchio portrays screenwriter Joseph Stefano as a therapeutic mess, perfect for writing ...

Stairway to Heaven: Urban Space and The Big Bang Theory At the beginning of Stan Brakhage’s experimental American film, Reflections on Black (1955), a mysterious somnambulist ascends the steps of a New York City walk-up apartment building. Inside, he climbs the stairs, passing three apartments. Inside of each, a melodrama transpires, which he seems to ...

Silver Linings, No Books For those of us interested in the relationship between film and literature, Silver Linings Playbook begins promisingly enough. Based on a 2008 novel by Matthew Quick in which the mentally ill central character, Pat believes his life is a movie directed by God, the film is structured around engagements with an ...

My Beautiful Wizardness: Masculinity and Oz the Great and Powerful Despite crucial gains in the second half of the 20th century, American patriarchal culture resisted the full gender transformation for which feminists toiled for 150 years. Consciousness raising groups helped women resist the acceptance of passive roles, but men’s bad behavior continued unchecked. To stop ...