It’s said that more books have been written about Hitchcock than any other filmmaker. Edward White’s sleek and modest The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock does not offer grand revelation but a provocative new way of thinking about biography ... Strangely, through these refractions, we receive a smoother, more cohesive sense of a man so adept at toying with his audience, on and off the screen ... White’s style is unadorned and unobtrusive; only occasionally does he allow himself a little turn of phrase...The psychologizing is of a delicate sort — far from Hitchcock’s own ham-handed attempts, which his own characters seemed to mock ... White never forces an explanation or coherence. The radial structure vibrates, like Hitchcock’s best films, with intuition and mystery.
The many ways of being the world’s most famous film director are what Mr. White attempts to pin down in The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock ... Mr. White [...] He takes a middle road in his estimation of his subject as a person, more empathetic than biographer Donald Spoto or critic David Thomson, less reverent than François Truffaut or Peter Bogdanovich. The book presents Hitchcock’s best and worst behavior, and there is a good deal of both ... The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock isn’t groundbreaking, but it is full of such sharp observations, offering a Hitchcock whose art endures alongside—and in some ways depends upon—his insecurities and mistakes.
Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) has been the subject of dozens of books in the last 20 years, but White (The Tastemaker) distinguishes his work with an inspired approach. Bypassing a traditional narrative, this necessary and perceptive study of the filmmaker and his cinematic impact is framed in 12 separate portraits, each focusing on a particular aspect of Hitchcock’s character ... detailed but highly readable ... An absorbing, thoughtful, and balanced look at a master of his medium.
While not essential to casual filmgoers, the study helpfully dissects, for Hitchcock obsessives, this most calculatingly self-conscious director’s methods and compulsions ... White’s shrewd, interlocking essays yield no new juicy gossip about the occasionally wayward and chronically manipulative director, but they draw from the huge trove of revelations by Donald Spoto, Patrick McGilligan and other biographers ... the great strength of The Twelve Lives is that a reader comes away from it with a vivid sense of how Hitchcock ignited screen masterpieces with the fires of his inner discord and contradictions ... The Twelve Lives also explores a central paradox of Hitchcock’s work: how a director who infamously referred to actors as cattle drew from them some of their best work ... If that kind of appreciation seems, to some, dated and unwelcome, it’s still a staple of our entertainment universe.
... thoughtful and nuanced ... White argues with cogency and passion ... White doesn’t hesitate to redistribute credit where he believes it is due, especially where Reville is concerned, but he also concedes that Hitchcock’s films reflected his distinctive sensibility ... White...grasps Hitchcock’s enduring hold on our aspirations and our fears.
Edward White divides the legendary director's life into 12 categories, including his Catholicism, childhood, weight and artistry. The approach can be confounding—early on, White refers to Hitch's formative 20s in Germany but doesn't get to why they were formative until the end—but when it works, it really works. By far the most compelling of the chapters is 'The Womanizer,' which grapples with whether the mind behind 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho' was a total perv. White balances admirers (Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman loved him) with detractors such as Tippi Hedren ... As good as [White] is at differentiating between acceptable behavior across the decades, he doesn't seem to consider that Hedren's view of her relationship with Hitchcock may have changed over the years not because she made up stories but because she came to see her trauma differently ... White also occasionally falls into the trap of conflating Hitchcock's art with his life but, even there, he draws interesting parallels between the director's childhood traumas and violence depicted in his films ... The book will mostly appeal to fans who know those movies but some chapters hint at subjects of broader interest[.]
... incisive ... Do we really need another? The answer turns out to be yes: White makes multiple connections between Hitchcock’s complex personality and unsettling films in fresh and stimulating ways ... White probes the conflicted man concealed behind the persona but respects Hitchcock’s jovially sinister facade as a means of placing uncomfortable personal emotions under the control of his creativity ... White’s measured take on Hitchcock is evident throughout — as is his fondness for meandering ... As in The Tastemaker, his brilliant biography of the writer and photorapher Carl Van Vechten, White perceptively explores the interplay between someone whose tastes and neuroses might have made him an outsider, but who instead asserted himself to make an enormous impact on the culture of his time. Dealing with a much more famous subject, The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock can’t be as revelatory. but it offers an intriguing approach to a much-chronicled career. Hitchcock the insecure man and Hitchcock the supremely self-assured artist each get his due.
White regards Hitchcock as 'the emblematic artist of the 20th century'...occasionally he over-reaches in trying to prove his ambitious case ... I’m uneasy too when White describes the shower head that spurts cleansing water on to Janet Leigh as an allusion to the ceiling vents for Zyklon B at Auschwitz. He is better on the avant-gardism of The Birds, a precursor of cinema’s current surrender to technology: a sodium vapour process merged separate shots to amass those squadrons of attacking crows, and an early electronic synthesiser called the Mixtur-Trautonium supplied their squawks of triumph ... Tracking Hitchcock’s contemporary influence, White is an enterprising tour guide.
... what is especially interesting are chapters covering his attitudes regarding style and fashion, religion, and even his own weight issues ... White doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty about Hitchcock’s filmography as Francois Truffaut did in Hitchcock. But it’s just this type of inspection that sets his book apart from previous examinations ... However, this is not a perfect book by any means. Some readers might look askance as the author seems to take a certain pleasure in pointing out Hitchcock’s not insubstantial faults, although those looking for gossipy tidbits might enjoy such disclosures. Similarly, there is a haughty film studies feeling in spots where White might discuss aspects of the movies beyond the casual fan’s education ... Overall, though, The Twelve Lives of Alrfred Hitchcock makes a worthy addition to the cinephile’s library and undoubtedly will appeal to Hitchcock devotees.
There probably will never be a definitive book about Hitchcock (like his movies, he is open to infinite interpretations), but this one adds much to our understanding of the man and his movies. The approach is certainly intriguing, the writing is engaging, and the author provides us with a wealth of new insights into Hitchcock. White engages in some fine detective work, too, trying to get to the truth behind some of the most intriguing Hitchcock legends, including an oft-told origin story that might be more fiction than fact. A solid entry in the voluminous literature of Alfred Hitchcock.
White (The Tastemaker) suggests legendary director Alfred Hitchcock had more lives than a cat in this sweeping biography. In his coverage of Hitchcock’s 60-plus-year career, White examines 12 'lives' that shaped what he terms the 'Hitchcock brand' ... Hitchcock fans will be enamored of this canny, full portrait of an artist with a singular vision.
A fresh assessment of the legendary director ... The author plumbs Hitchcock’s films and TV shows to reinforce his view that he was a man of many contradiction ... Although the author doesn’t uncover much groundbreaking information, he presents the man and his films in a readable, entertaining package. An incisive literary autopsy of the Master of Suspense.
