Blogathon – Hitchcock Disciples, 2026
Welcome to our Hitchcock Disciples Spring 2026 Blogathon! About every other week of the semester a student will be blogging about a particular film, topic, or reading as part of the Hitchcock Disciples course. And that student’s classmates will continue the discussion by commenting on the post.
Masquerade, Desire, and Deception: The Hidden Depths of Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief
by Joe Trentacoste Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955) may have been dismissed by Hitchcock himself as a “lightweight story,” but D.H Lawrence’s reminder to “trust the tale” encourages us to look deeper than the director’s own assessment. Beneath the glamour of...
Hitchcock’s Vertigo: From Mystery to Tragedy
by Taeden Thorpe Revealing Judy’s Heartbreak and the Shift in Audience Empathy Judy Berton’s role in Madeleine Elster’s murder being revealed to the audience shortly after the midpoint of Vertigo rather than near the end shifts our focus from a mystery plot to an...
Redefining Heroism: The Female Force in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much
by Elijah Lagarde In Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), a family is entangled in a conspiracy involving the life of a prime minister and their kidnapped child. They must go to great lengths to reveal the architects of the conspiracy, while...
Masked Love
by Yecenia Estrada When we think of Notorious, it’s easy to label it simply as a thriller or a spy film. However, as Adrian Martin suggests in “Inside, Around and About Notorious,” the film exceeds a single genre or a closed narrative form. Alfred Hitchcock creates a...
Beyond the Manderley Gates: The Architecture of Betrayal
by Emely Matias A Tale of Shadows and Manipulation Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) is often seen as a ghost story or a critique of patriarchal dominance. But it’s more than that it’s a chilling study of manipulation, identity, and the weight of illusion. Based on...
Exploring Women and Suspense in The 39 Steps
by Joel Rivera Charles Silet suggests that in The 39 Steps, Richard Hannay’s interactions with women play a vital role in his moral and emotional growth. These moments also reveal some of the male anxieties about intimacy and marriage, highlighting Hitchcock’s...
Beyond the Mastermind: Rethinking Hitchcock’s Rear Window as a Collaborative Triumph
by Lee Sarang In my previous classes, when I encountered Rear Window, I mostly just heard about Hitchcock's theme of "voyeurism." At that time, I thought Hitchcock was a master director who truly showed the audience the essence of "film" as a medium. However, reading...