How does the works of alfred hichcock compare or contrast to edgar allen poes work

-- Anonymous, January 13, 2004

Answers

1) You might want to think about how each auteur creates suspense. As a story is gradually laid out---when does the viewer/reader start to get the creeps, and why?

2)Rooting for the bad guy. How do Hitchcock & Poe put you "inside the head of" the murderer?

You might enjoy an essay comparing the two, "Imps of the Perverse," on www.cswnet.com/~erin/eap4.htm.

It quotes Hitchcock: "'Very likely it's because I was so taken with the Poe stories that I later made suspense films. I don't want to seem immodest, but I can't help comparing what I've tried to put in my films with what Edgar Allan Poe put in his novels [sic]: a completely unbelievable story told to the readers with such a spellbinding logic that you get the impression that the same thing could happen to you tomorrow.'

"Hitchcock traces his interest in suspense to Poe: 'But both Poe and I are prisoners of the suspense genre. If I made Cinderella into a movie, everyone would look for a corpse. And if Poe had written Sleeping Beauty they'd be looking for a murderer!'"

-- Anonymous, January 14, 2004