Film critic Robin Wood‘s Hitchcock’s Films was the second in-depth analysis of the films of Alfred Hitchcock that I read as a young lad. (The first was the legendary Hitchcock/Truffaut.) This brave, passionate essay went out on a limb by taking seriously the films of a director who’d been regarded his whole career as a kind of droll comedian. Wood instead saw a series of films rich with perception, shadows, moral ambiguity and profound echoes.
Wood was a huge influence; he’ll always be in my pantheon of critics. He died last Friday, but the N.Y. Times obit didn’t happen until today.
