Abstract

Auteurist criticism is among the most enduring methods of film scholarship, and many significant directors including Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford have been exalted, by audiences and academics alike, to the prestigious status of auteur. This thesis aims to investigate how the trailers for their films functioned, in an industry that continually navigates the territory between art and commerce. Rooted in preceding research on advertising in both film and print, this thesis investigates the development of the trailer form as a parallel text, or paratext, intended to shape audiences' conceptions about the feature film, and the experience of cinema in general. Rhetorical methods of appealing to consumers were honed in print publications beginning in the late 19 th Century, and particularly, in their advertising. These methods crossed over into the trailer, functioning to draw spectators into theatres based on conceptions that the Hollywood industry held of their potential audiences. The textual analysis of Hitchcock's and Ford's classical-era trailers offers insights into those industry conceptions, and affords an opportunity to trace how visual marketing techniques have carried into the present context of media-saturated culture. This thesis reveals how Hollywood appealed to spectators' assumed desires for quality and prestige through film, and how both Hitchcock and Ford were positioned as exemplary auteurs. It also offers a glimpse of how capitalist ideology was served through the promotion of specific narratives and thematic tropes in classical American cinema