The philosophical Hitchcock : Vertigo and the anxieties of unknowingness / Robert B. Pippin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pippin, Robert B., 1948- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Vertigo (Motion picture : 1958).

Philosophy in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (155 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Summary:

On the surface, The Philosophical Hitchcock: Vertigo and the Anxieties of Unknowingness, is a close reading of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece Vertigo. This, however, is a book by Robert B. Pippin, one of our most penetrating and creative philosophers, and so it is also much more. Even as he provides detailed readings of each scene in the film, and its story of obsession and fantasy, Pippin reflects more broadly on the modern world depicted in Hitchcock’s films. Hitchcock’s characters, Pippin shows us, repeatedly face problems and dangers rooted in our general failure to understand others—or even ourselves—very well, or to make effective use of what little we do understand. Vertigo, with its impersonations, deceptions, and fantasies, embodies a general, common struggle for mutual understanding in the late modern social world of ever more complex dependencies. By treating this problem through a filmed fictional narrative, rather than discursively, Pippin argues, Hitchcock is able to help us see the systematic and deep mutual misunderstanding and self-deceit that we are subject to when we try to establish the knowledge necessary for love, trust, and commitment, and what it might be to live in such a state of unknowingness. A bold, brilliant exploration of one of the most admired works of cinema, The Philosophical Hitchcock will lead philosophers and cinephiles alike to a new appreciation of Vertigo and its meanings.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue: Film and Philosophy

Introduction: The Issue

1. The Opening Credits

2. The Opening Chase

3. Introducing Midge

4. Gavin Elster and the Scheme

5. Ernie’s

6. Pop Leibel

7. In the Bay and in Scottie’s Apartment

8. Two Are Going Somewhere

9. Semper virens

10. Midge and Carlotta

11. The “Suicide”

12. The Coroner’s Inquest

13. Scottie’s Dream

14. Music Therapy

15. Finding Judy

16. The Transformation

17. The Revelation

18. “I Loved You So, Madeleine”

Concluding Remarks: Moral Suspension

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780226503783

022650378X

OCLC:

1233040613