Spellbound, Surrealism and L’Amour Fou: the Backstory
HtichCon '21: What’s It All about, Alfie?
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19m
Alfred Hitchcock was a consummate surrealist filmmaker. As such, he followed in a tradition reaching back to late 19th century Romantic and Symbolist art and, earlier, to the work of Edgar Allan Poe. In this talk, Joel retraces that history to show how it culminated, in a sense, in the Surrealist theme of l’amour fou—mad love—that suffuses Hitchcock’s 1945 collaboration with Salvador Dalí, Spellbound.
Joel Gunz is President & Host of HitchCon. An independent scholar known online as the Alfred Hitchcock Geek, Joel is an award-winning filmmaker and publisher of "The Hitchcockian Quarterly." His fascination with the Master of Cinema commenced at age 12 and never stopped, eventuating in hundreds of scholarly articles, chapters and essays. As a film essayist, Joel adds his personal history to his scholarship, blending the two with special effects that re-examine the duality of subject and object, the imaginal and the real. His latest such film, "Spellbound by L’Amour Fou," won Best Short Documentary at the Medusa Film Festival. He is also producer and director of three essay film series: "How to Watch Hitchcock" (2018-19), "Freak the Geek" (2018-current) and "Alfred Hitchcock, Master of the Surreal" (2019-current). Joel and his partner, Christy La Guardia, live with their beagle, Charlie, in Olympia, Washington.
Up Next in HtichCon '21: What’s It All about, Alfie?
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Spellbound by L'Amour Fou
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