Alfred Nobel

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm qualified enough to critique the masterpiece known as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The film is pretty much near perfection in all regards and there is nothing I could say that hasn't been heard a million times before. However, there is one thing I want to talk about and that is, the differences between the movie and book. Alfred Hitchcock is quoted as saying that everything that is in Psycho was from the book by Robert Bloch. For the most part, that statement…

Blockbusters would not have today's blockbuster directors without independent film. Some would argue that independent and blockbuster films co-exist in a way to portray form versus effects. Directors who merge both like Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino and George Lucas founded blockbuster films by starting with independent films outside of the system with distinct visions, attracting younger audiences. In today’s Hollywood system, it’s quite possible for an independent film to be purchased or…

books, and short stories all create and utilize suspense in many different ways, shapes, and forms. From the tension and worry feeling shown in movies, to foreshadowing about what will happen in literature. Author Daphne du Maurier and filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock both used many ways to create suspense in their takes on the horror story, “The Birds.” However, only one author utilized suspense the best. Between du Maurier’s short story and Hitchcock's film, Hitchcock’s film did a better job of…

Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). For the sake of comparison and to support my arguments I have made references to other prominent films of Hitchcock. My study also proposes to analyze how Alfred Hitchcock positions the culture of America in the 1950s in his films, how he represents the middle-class society, ideology and culture of America. It also aims to bring out how cultural studies can be applied to understand the Hitchcockian…

Vertigo is a sensation of whirling and loss of balance, associated particularly with looking down from a great height. This feeling translates to the 1958 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock titled Vertigo, which is based on the novel “D’entre Les Morts” by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The film is a romantic story of obsession, manipulation, and fear. In the film, a detective is forced to retire after his acrophobia, fear of heights, and accompanying vertigo causes the death of a fellow…

An Existentialist Pretending to be an Adlerian While I believe Adlerian therapy is the best practice for me working with clients, existentialism has played a primary role in my personal development over the past ten years. The concept that “The existentialist does not view death negatively but holds that awareness of death as a basic human condition gives significance to living” became crystal clear to me in 2006 (Corey, 2017, p 145). Following nearly a year of exponentially increasing pain, I…

A.J. Ayer is an emotivist, which is a non-cognitivist meta-ethical position which classifies all ethical statements as meaningless displays of emotion. Meta-ethics, not to be confused with normative ethics, is meant to establish whether morality truly exists, and not which particular ethical statements are true. According to Ayer, there are no such things as genuine ethical judgements, rather, all ethical judgments are distinguished as pseudo-judgements (i.e. judgements that sound like they make…

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo is now considered by the American Film Institute to be the best film of all time. With that title comes some flack for “beating” out all of the other films that come out ever. Obviously this title is subjective and doesn’t make the film anymore better or meaningful than it previously was, but the backlash from film critics are kind of ironic being about Vertigo. People are writing article after article and blog post after blog post about how Vertigo doesn’t…

language, and nudity—but at a level or an intensity that is lower than that found in an R-Rated movie.” Establishing a rating code is one thing, but casting a whole new light on the industry is another. Spielberg’s multiple awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, show that film is not just a form of entertainment. It’s an art that is capable of showing human emotion just as well as the most beautiful painting and the most cathartic poem. Spielberg will go down in history, not only for his…

watching Vertigo and my god, what a masterpiece. It is, of course, as good as anyone says it is. This film is packed with fantastic suspense techniques, a whole lot of mystery and a great amount of unhealthy obsession. There is no doubt about it, Alfred Hitchcock executed this film to nearly perfection BUT this film would not be the masterpiece it is without another incredible genius, Bernard Herrmann. His compositions throughout the entire movie literally made the movie and I am sure that most…