A review by batbones
Alfred Hitchcock by Peter Ackroyd

4.0

It's quite good for an introductory biography - neither weighed down by technical intricacies nor too social and thus distanced from the actual day-to-day aspects of film-making, it can be an all-day read without need for pause. In my opinion this would have been improved if Ackroyd took a closer look at individual films, i.e. possible interpretations, interesting aspects and what he would make of it, whenever they were introduced, for a length beyond the few sentences this book has granted. The focus here evidently is on Hitchcock the man: his life, moods and sometimes tempestuous relationships (which by Ackroyd's telling are fairly odd), more than the intersection between his life and his films - a juicier topic this might have made aside. This may explain the lack of film criticism. Ackroyd bows to psychoanalytic explanations from time to time - surprising, given psychoanalysis' reputation in psychology, and yet unsurprising, given perhaps Hitchcock's own indulgences in his films that have enabled such interpretative orientations.