The Art of Pure Cinema: Hitchcock and His Imitators, Isaacs Bruce

The Art of Pure Cinema is the first book-length study to examine the historical foundations and stylistic mechanics of pure cinema. Author Bruce Isaacs explores the potential of a philosophical and artistic approach most explicitly demonstrated by Hitchcock in his later films, beginning with
Hitchcocks contact with the European avant-garde film movement in the mid-1920s. Tracing the evolution of a philosophy of pure cinema across Hitchcocks most experimental works - Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, and Frenzy - Isaacs rereads these works in a new
and vital context. In addition to this historical account, the book presents the first examination of pure cinema as an integrated stylistics of mise en scиne, montage, and sound design. The films of so-called Hitchcockian imitators like Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Brian De Palma are also
examined in light of a provocative claim: that the art of pure cinema is only fully realized after Hitchcock.