452ºF (Jul 2010)

Not so strangers. Patricia Highsmith according to Alfred Hitchcock

  • Peralta, Jorge Luis

Journal volume & issue
no. 3
pp. 148 – 170

Abstract

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In this work I propose to analyze how the cinematographic transposition of Strangers on a train has changed the suffocating amoral world of Patricia Highsmith in a typical Hitchcockian frantic suspense story, blurring the darkest edges of the characters and situations of the original novel. The aim is not to determine whether the film is «more», «better» or «worse» than the text –an unproductive enterprise– but to reflect on the operations made by the director to seize the literary work and make of it a film that responds to his own vision of the world and of cinema.

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