An explorative study into how masculinity, specifically the Crisis of the Male Ego, has been portrayed through Twentieth Century Cinema by using the films Alfred Hitchcock and David Fincher.

This dissertation aims to explore how masculinity, specifically the Crisis of the Male Ego, has been portrayed through classic and contemporary film of the Twentieth Century. The research has been undertaken using case studies of two directors: Alfred Hitchcock and David Fincher. Hitchcock's films have been chosen in order to analyse the portrayal of masculinity in Classic Twentieth Century film through: Psycho (1960), Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958). Fincher's films Se7en (1995), Zodiac (2007) and Fight Club (1999) have been chosen to analyse this portrayal in Contemporary Twentieth Century Cinema. The research was undertaken by using two forms of analysis: textual analysis and psychoanalysis. A range of film theory was used for the textual analysis of each film and the main theories that were employed were that of Sigmund Freud and Laura Mulvey. A comparison of the way that each director portrays masculinity was then drawn. This comparison resulted in the conclusion that the portrayal of masculinity has changed majorly through the Twentieth Century. The main change apparent was how the blame of emasculation has shifted from the female, maternal symbol to the male, paternal authority figure. This shift is due to many reasons such as the changing social and political climate of the Twentieth Century and the directors' personal lives.ba_dapunpub1341_ethesesunpu