Dial ‘M’ for Mother: A Freudian Hitchcock

While many works on Hitchcock either openly reject psychoanalysis or utilize it only casually or peripherally, Dial ‘M’ for Mother: A Freudian Hitchcock is the first book-length study to consistently and systematically apply a Freudian psychoanalytic approach to a number of Hitchcock’s major films (Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Frenzy). Central to this book is the author’s analysis of a ‘mother complex’ that informs not only the major male and female characters of these and other Hitchcock films but their plot, formal structure, and visual, cinematic artistry as well. According to the author, the genius of Hitchcock is inseparable from the director’s unrelenting adherence to the ‘darker side’ of our unconscious fears and fascinations, and in its unwillingness to veil this exploration of the Freudian Unconscious with Hollywood’s and society’s denial of such truths.