Casting a Shadow: The Alfred Hitchcock Film

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is hosting an exhibition of material from the films of Alfred Hitchcock this month. The basic premise seems to be to “prove” that Hitchock was not an auteur but a collaborative artist; of course, the two terms are not mutually exclusive, but the exhibition sounds interesting anyway. A description from the website:

• Although Hitchcock’s image as a solitary and visionary artist was periodically buttressed by his own strident pronouncements for the press, “Casting a Shadow” reinforces the notion that in as complicated an art form as film, masterpieces do not spring from an artist’s mind fully formed.  In fact, Hitchcock himself once said that his movies were created “slowly, from discussion, arguments, random suggestions, casual desultory talk and furious intellectual quarrels.”  Through drawings, paintings, storyboards, script pages and clips from such classic films as Shadow of a Doubt (1943), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963), this exhibition reveals how Hitchcock’s colleagues contributed critical ideas and how the director himself engaged his team in the creative process; it examines how the films were crafted, sometimes frame by frame, as a collective enterprise that would ultimately be shared with an audience.“Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film” is organized by the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, in collaboration with the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.  Support for the exhibition is provided by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Northwestern University; the Alfred J. Hitchcock Foundation; American Airlines; the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; the Louis Family Foundation; the Myers Foundations; James B. Pick and Rosalyn M. Laudati; and the Rubens Family Foundation.

The exhibition is located in the Fourth Floor Gallery of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Hours for are from 10:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. There is no charge for admission.

Call 310-247-3000 for more information, or visit the official website.