Critique of Patrick McGilligan's bio of Hitchcock

[Ken Mogg]

Readers of alt.movies.silent may like to note that my 'Report' on
Patrick McGilligan's 'Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light'
has been posted on the Web:

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/mcgilligan1_c.html (incl. the
silent era)

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/mcgilligan2_c.html

Also, my 'column' called "Editor's Day" has returned for a few weeks
on the News & Comment (Home) page of the Hitchcock
Scholars/'MacGuffin' site:

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/news-home_c.html

If I can obtain quality work, the same site will next year include
selected academic writing on Hitchcock. However, because McGilligan
(p. 749) calls most academic analysis of texts 'lunacy', I will not
permit stylistic indulgence, or a low ratio of hard content to mere
opinion (especially where inadequately supported by evidence!), or the
slightest lack of clarity. Active verbs will be especially
encouraged. Any takers?! (Material is already promised by Professor
Richard Allen and others.)

- Ken Mogg (Ed., 'The MacGuffin')

[Lokke Heiss]

>
> If I can obtain quality work, the same site will next year include
> selected academic writing on Hitchcock. However, because McGilligan
> (p. 749) calls most academic analysis of texts 'lunacy',

It's not lunancy, a lot of it is just bad writing, hidden by
academese.

I do have a pet-peeve": having to read a paper where the author feels
obligated to use the word "problematize" in the first sentence.

On the other hand, there's a lot of reverse-snobism by theory-phobes
who
instead of thinking, "hmmm, maybe if I study some of this academic
stuff, I might actually learn something," just give a knee-jerk
reaction that it's all
doggerel written by stuffed-chair nabobs.

Moderation may be boring, but it does have its benefits in a balanced
look
at a subject.

[Bob Birchard]

Lokke Heiss wrote:

I would agree that being a "theory snob" can be detrimental to
expanding one's horizons, but is it too much to ask that theory be
expressed in something approaching standard English so that ALL might
share the insights of the "theosophers"?

My biggest complaint with "academic" writing--especially on the
subject of film is that BIG words like "problematize" and "diegesis" so
often dress up some very small ideas.

"Complicate" and "narrative" are perfectly good English words that
virtually anyone who speaks the language can understand, and academics
would better serve their readers--and find a wider audience--if they used
such words rather than the the more high-falutin academese.

They might also find that they are better able to clarify and organize
their thoughts and make points that are worth reading.

--
Bob Birchard

Now available from the University Press of Kentucky
“Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood”
by Robert S. Birchard
I.S.B.N. # 0-8131-2324-0
http://kentuckypress.com/viewbook.cfm?Category_ID=1&Group=42&ID=1113

[Robert Miller]

Impenetrability may be fun, but it can't compare with
one hundred percent clarity and three square meals a day.

"Lokke Heiss" <lokke...@yahoo.com> wrote