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Alfred Hitchcock Filmography
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Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April, 1980) was a British film director closely associated with the suspense genre. Influenced by expressionism in Germany, he began directing in England and worked in the United States from 1939. With more than fifty feature films to his credit, in a career spanning six decades, he remains one of the best known and most popular directors of all time. His innovations and vision have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers, and actors.
Hitchcock's films draw heavily on both fear and fantasy, and are known for their droll humour. They often portray innocent people caught up in circumstances beyond their control or understanding. This often involves a transference of guilt in which the "innocent" character's failings are transferred to another character and magnified. Another common theme is the exploration of the compatibility of men and women; Hitchcock's films often take a cynical view of traditional romantic relationships.
Although Hitchcock was an enormous star during his lifetime, he did not rank highly with film critics of his own day. Except for
Rebecca, none of his films won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Although he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in 1967, he never personally received an Academy Award of Merit.
The French new wave critics, especially
François Truffaut, were the first to promote his films as having artistic merit beyond entertainment. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to whom they applied their auteur theory, which stresses the centrality of the director in the movie-making process. Indeed, through his fame, public persona, and degree of creative control, Hitchcock transformed the role of the director, which had previously been eclipsed by that of the producer.
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