SOURCE: Thomas, Paul. Review of Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock), edited by Slavoj Žižek. Film Quarterly 47, no. 1 (fall 1993): 46-7.

In the following review, Thomas argues that the quality of the essays in Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) varies greatly and that the collection as a whole should have been edited more carefully.

In Slavoj Žižek's words [in Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock)], “Hitchcock as the theoretical phenomenon we have witnessed in recent decades—the endless flow of books, articles, university courses, conference panels—is a ‘post-modern’ phenomenon par excellence … for true Hitchcock aficionados everything has meaning in his films, the seemingly simplest plot conceals unexpected philosophical delicacies.” He adds that “this book partakes unrestrainedly in such madness.” Indeed it...