Hitchcock's People, Places, and Things

"In this elegantly written book, Bruns wryly turns the apparently cynical observation attributed to Hitchcock that 'actors are cattle' into a new and exciting way of viewing the director’s work. For if actors can be characterized in this way, then nonhuman places and things—including the so-called “unimportant” MacGuffin—also reward critical attention. Studying crowded urban settings and small apartments, tracing movement that occurs telepathically through time and space, and revealing the interactions of human and nonhuman, Bruns takes us on an exhilarating tour of Hitchcock’s often treacherous landscapes and the people and things in it." —Tania Modleski, author of The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory
 

"Hitchcock's People, Places, and Things is a knowledgeable, carefully thought out, and attractively written examination of key recurrent elements in Hitchcock’s films and the overall subtlety and effectiveness of his visual design. John Bruns expertly reveals how Hitchcock’s objects and spaces powerfully convey the vulnerability and fragility of the self, an inescapable sense of homelessness and impenetrable isolation, the difficulties and limits of communication and knowledge, and the often punishing impact of nonrational forces in life." —Sidney Gottlieb, editor of Hitchcock on Hitchcock

"Whereas most texts . . . provide a 2-D reading of Hitchcock’s films, Bruns's text 'flattens' the landscape—like a map—providing an overview of the symbiotic, uncanny relationships between people, places, and things and providing readers with a new and interesting line of discourse." —A. F. Winstead, Our Lady of the Lake University, CHOICE