The Dark Side Of Genius: The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock
by Donald Spoto
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Book Summary Information
Author: Donald SpotoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-08-30
ISBN: 030680932X
Number of pages: 508
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Book Reviews of The Dark Side Of Genius: The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock
Book Review: "an extremely unpleasant book"
Summary: 2 Stars
For a one line summary of this work I am hard pressed to find anything better than Robin Wood's summary in his superb 'Hitchcock's Films Revisited'. Spoto's book is, without question well researched (although it does include a large amount of material already contained in John Russel Taylor's authorised biography). But the style of the book makes it incredibly hard to read. I will constrict myself to just two of the major sins of this book. Firstly Spoto looks at every fact or event and puts the most nasty spin he can find on it, leading to incredibly spurious interpretations of Hitchcock's life, and due to the lack of validity makes for very dull reading. The second point is that many of Spoto's readings of the films lead to a set list of doubles which appear in the film, these end up taking large amounts of space for very little gain, again draw your attention to how little enjoyment you are gaining from the book.There are some plus sides, as already mentioned, the book is very well researched, and there are a few nuggets of interesting information. But all in all not a very interesting or pleasant book, and all I can say is that we are still waiting for the definitive Hitchcock biography.
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