Hitchcock

Jeffrey Keeten

Rating: really liked it
”To reproach Hitchcock for specializing in suspense is to accuse him of being the least boring of film-makers; it is also tantamount to blaming a lover who instead of concentrating on his own pleasure insists on sharing it with his partner. The nature of Hitchcock’s cinema is to absorb the audience so completely that the Arab viewer will forget to shell his peanuts, the Frenchman will ignore the girl in the next seat, the Italian will suspend his chain smoking, the compulsive cougher will refrain from coughing, and the Swedes will interrupt their love-making in the aisles.”


Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock

Francois Truffaut, a renown filmmaker in his own right, convinced Alfred Hitchcock to sit down for an interview that would cover the span of his career up to 1966. They recorded over fifty hours of tape over several days and the result is this book. It is written in interview form lending it a tennis match feel of the reader actually being there swiveling our head from one person talking to the next person replying.

It is absurdly good.

I lost sleep on more than one night because I just couldn’t bear to put it down...just one more chapter I would reassure the part of brain that was wanting to go to bed. The book is brimming with photographs of his films and also of Hitchcock working on set. Even if someone didn’t want to read the book, which would be a shame, the pictures alone are worth owning this book.

”During a Hollywood press conference in 1947, Alfred Hitchcock stated: ‘I aim to provide the public with beneficial shocks. Civilization has become so protective that we’re no longer able to get our goose bumps instinctively. The only way to remove the numbness and revive our moral equilibrium is to use artificial means to bring about the shock. The best way to achieve that, it seems to me, is through a movie.’”



My son is getting ready to start, in a few short weeks, at the University of Kansas majoring in History, and minoring in film. He has always been interested in movies, but mostly recent movies so this summer under the guise of... well of course if you are going to study film you can’t show up to class not having seen at least the most important Hitchcock films. I convinced him to go on a tour of suspense films with me. It turns out he is a chip off the old block. The first Hitchcock film I ever remembering seeing was The Birds.

It scared the crap out of me.



I don’t know how old I was, but probably the perfect age to have my mind warped ever so slightly by experiencing this terrifying spectacle of birds, these creatures we see everyday that decided for no definable reason to start attacking people. I thought that Tippi Hedren was the most beautiful woman in the world until I saw Grace Kelly in Rear Window.

*Sigh*

Did anyone else feel the urge to boink Jimmy Stewart on the head every time he was dismissive of Grace Kelly?



The joy for me was watching my son watch these movies. That famous scene when Grace Kelly is over at the murderer’s apartment searching for clues and we can see the murderer returning is probably still one of the most tension filled moments in cinematic history. My son pulled one leg up and pressed his face against his knee and put a hand to the other side of his face as if he were shielding himself from a blow. His eyes were of course riveted to the screen. Joseph Cotten’s wife had a similar reaction.

Alfred Hitchcock Of course, when the character is attractive, as for instance Grace Kelly in Rear Window, the public’s emotion is greatly intensified. As a matter of fact, I happened to be sitting next to Joseph Cotten’s wife at the premiere of Rear Window, and during the scene where Grace Kelly is going through the killer’s room and he appears in the hall, she was so upset that she turned to her husband and whispered. ‘Do something, do something!’

I can’t think of a better compliment to a director than to see an audience so caught up in your movie that they feel they are IN the movie.

Hitchcock was famous for his blondes. I mentioned already Tippi Hedren, and Grace Kelly, but there was also Janet Leigh in Psycho. There was discussions about filming that movie in color instead of black and white, but lucky for us Hitchcock decided to stick with black and white. He filmed a scene that made the whole world afraid to take a shower. The details are spectacular and would have been lost in the garish splash of blood if color had been present. His leading ladies were elegant and sophisticated which lent more tension to the plot as their circumstances became more perilous. Hitchcock explains his views of his leading ladies.

Hitchcock: Sex on the screen should be suspenseful, I feel. If sex is too blatant or obvious, there’s no suspense. You know why I favor sophisticated blondes in my films? We’re after the drawing-room type, the real ladies, who become whores once they’re in the bedroom. Poor Marilyn Monroe had sex written all over her face, and Brigitte Bardot isn’t very subtle either.
Truffaut: In other words what intrigues you is the paradox between the inner fire and the cool surface.
Hitchcock: Definitely, I think the most interesting women, sexually, are the English women. I feel that the English women, the Swedes, the northern Germans, and Scandinavians are a great deal more exciting than the Latin, the Italian, and the French women. Sex should not be advertised. An English girl, looking like a schoolteacher, is apt to get into a cab with you and, to your surprise, she’ll probably pull a man’s pants open.

Hitchcock and Truffaut discuss every film. One point in one film moves them to another point in another film. Hitchcock is very candid about what he did wrong and when he was right and when everyone else was wrong. They discuss nuances that even though I’ve watched a film several times I’ve never noticed. For instance: in Shadow of a Doubt when Joseph Cotten is arriving in town on the train, the smokestack is boiling out black smoke as if to herald the arriving of the Devil.

At the end of the film when the train is leaving the station the smoke is white. Reading this book will increase your enjoyment when you rewatch his films. If you have not seen many of his films be sure to avoid the footnotes discussing the plots of the films being discussed.

Watching these films with my son has been to quote the Mastercard commercials...priceless. TCM is devoting the month of September to Hitchcock and I wish that Caleb was still going to be at home to watch them with me, but we will be coordinating what films to be sure to watch with his school schedule and my work schedule and the discussions we have afterward will still be...priceless.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

Jaksen

Rating: really liked it
Loved this.

I didn't know this book existed! It's actually a transcript of a fifty-hour interview (done over several days) which Truffaut conducted with Hitchcock. The historical appeal alone was enough to make me WANT the thing, let alone read it. Some critics (of this book) have indicated that Truffaut was too kind to Hitchcock, that he agreed too readily with his opinions, that he couched his questions gently, but what the heck? I disagree! Because the two often DO disagree on certain points of film-making and story-telling, but they do so respectfully, without rancor, I mean - like gentlemen?

But the great thing about this record of Hitchcock's opinions, ideas, and thoughts on both the stories he told through film and HOW he did this, including mistakes he felt he made and how he'd 'fix' them, if he could, was the fact it even exists at all. What a record! This was a totally unprecedented and totally unexpected thing Truffaut did, and done at a time when Hitchcock still wasn't given a lot of respect for his work. His critics complained he was a mere director of 'thriller' movies, not serious film. But Truffaut did take Hitchcock seriously and methodically went through all the films, good and bad, which Hitchcock directed. By doing so he created a permanent record of Hitchcock's personal thoughts, ideas, and so on - taken directly from the most primary of primary sources, the master of the modern thriller himself!

Hitchcock died before special effects, computer-generated images and sequences, etc. came on board, but what he did with what he had was truly remarkable AND influenced and affected directors and writers to this day. The way he used the camera, the way he pulled in or back, or shot around shadows or got a lot out of a tiny gesture or movement - it's all there. There's also a good deal about how he handled dialogue - less is more; and the fact he continually was trying to 'show' the story, not 'tell it.' (He disdained nothing more than people standing around talking or explaining, and this is something that writers struggle to do today as well. SHOW the story. Don't TELL it to us.)

We know Hitch's favorite films and the ones he hated. He was even quite indifferent about a few. We know how he was limited by the film-making techniques of his day - and how he often overcame those limits. We know what he thought and felt about his 'cold' leading ladies, the parade of blondes who came to be so important in his films. (He thought the perfect and most sensual of women were the English girls who'd appear to be so correct on the surface, but could turn into a tiger in, of all places, a taxicab.) As I already said, Truffaut didn't agree with Hitch on everything, but I enjoyed reading about two men who obviously liked and respected one another, and yet could disagree on certain points and just keep on going: talking, discussing, arguing, digressing, etc.

Anyhow, I loved this book. I want to own it, and right now I don't. (This was a library borrow.) But I shall get my hands on a copy of my own...somehow, some way.

Five huge big stars!

Shawn Nuzzo

Rating: really liked it
This book will teach you more about the art of film making than 4 years (and $200,000) at NYU will.

Lynne King

Rating: really liked it
This book is about the two film directors Hitchcock and Truffaut. It is a wonderful book and Jeffrey has written a superb review today on this.

So my advice is to read Jeffrey's review and then purchase this book. It is an historical document of the film world.

A gem to have.

Kyle Sullivan

Rating: really liked it
I just reread this book, because it shifted my focus from being an artist to being a filmmaker (and now writer), and I'm not overstating. I was making a living designing and building backdrops for visual merchandising and doing display windows in San Antonio, as well as commissioned works of art, when I found an early edition of Truffaut's interview with Hitchcock and got my first idea of how films were made. In fact, this book should be a primer for all film classes; once you've read it, you've got a good foundation in how to make a movie.

Now I'm not talking about the technical aspects of moviemaking -- lighting, sound, working with today's actors unlike yesterdays stars (who weren't really all that less difficult to deal with), things like that. I mean the visual needs and limitations of telling a story on film. Hitchcock and Truffaut do a lot of commenting on how to use images to forward the story and how much more important that in in this medium...and how you can trick the audience but you cannot lie to them.

For instance, when he made "Sabotage" in 1936, Hitch has an anarchist give an innocent boy a bomb to carry to another location. The kid thinks it's just a reel of film in a movie canister. The bomb is set to go off at 1pm, during a parade, but the boy's delayed. He gets on a bus to make up time, sits next to a nice old lady and a puppy and plays with it. But the bus is caught in traffic (due to that parade) and the suspense builds and builds and builds until the bomb goes off, killing everyone on the bus. It's a horrifying reminder of what terrorism is all about.

The audience was furious and the movie was a flop. Why? Because he'd ostensibly offered up a piece of fun entertainment and then, without warning, shoved the audience's face in the brutality of life. You don't tell someone you'll give them a kiss...then punch them in the face and assume they will accept that. I've seen other movies make this same mistake, and even though they're fine films they crash and burn with the moviegoers. Hitchcock would still toy with the audience's emotions in movies like "Vertigo" (which hurt its box office but not its standing as a work of art) and "Psycho" (where he was a bit more careful in leading up to the famous shower sequence), but he never flat-out lied to them, again.

But then, Hitchcock knew film was an odd art form that didn't have the full freedom of true art and shouldn't be taken too seriously. Too many people were involved in its creation, and the audience is too important a part of the final result. This book backs up his assertions about that. His famous quote, in fact, is -- "It's only a movie." But by the time you've finished reading this extended version of the first edition of the book, you'll see that the medium is also one that is fit for artists who truly understand it. Reading this book will help them find that understanding.

Abdallah Mohamud

Rating: really liked it
What surprised me most was not only Francois Truffaut's knowledge of the cinema, but his knowledge about Alfred Hitchcock movies. As a former critic and an acclaimed director by then, Truffaut was one of the most suitable for the task. Truffaut studied Hitchcock, memorized some of his favorite movies, and interviewed Hitchcock about his carer film by film.


The revised edition has an additional chapter, where Truffaut covers what happened after the original edition release in 1966, and up until Hitchcock's death. In this edition Truffaut added some commentary, letters from Hitchcock and some more interviews.

This is indeed a definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock, a master class.

Kirk

Rating: really liked it
He is not involved in life; he merely contemplates it.
-Francois Truffaut, on Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock is so beyond famous he's pretty much his own category. When I was growing up in the '70s he was simultaneously extremely famous, extremely popular, and extremely well regarded in his field. That's not easy to pull off. I'm guessing he was the first film director I knew by name, and I can count 26 of his films that I've seen, which is almost certainly more than I've seen of any other individual director. I've owned this book for decades but only now got around to reading it.

The French director Truffaut does an admirable job as the interviewer, he clearly holds Hitchcock in high esteem but is not star-struck. He doesn't hesitate to comment (accurately) that Spellbound isn't very good, and Hitchcock doesn't disagree. Hitchcock himself can be quite critical of his films, if there's an element that bothered him or he feels wasn't quite right, he always mentions it. He can be quite clinical, but seems to have the most enthusiasm for Psycho, which did spectacularly well at the box office and which Hitchcock regards as a film that belongs entirely to the filmmaking:

I don't care about the subject matter; I don't care about the acting; but I do care about the pieces of film and the photography and the sound track and all of the technical ingredients that made the audience scream. I feel it's tremendously satisfying for us to be able to use the cinematic art to achieve something of a mass emotion...They were aroused by pure film.

Hitchcock also amusingly tells the origin of the 'MacGuffin', which has entered film parlance as the thing that propels the plot or object that the characters are after, but which otherwise is of little importance:

(There are) two men in a train. One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?"
And the other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin."
The first one asks, "What's a MacGuffin?"
"Well" the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands."
The first man says, "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands."
And the other one answers, "Well then, that's no MacGuffin."

But for me there weren't enough moments of such insight to rate this higher. I find too much technical discussion of camera angles and such makes my eyes glaze over. Others might feel differently. The one film where such talk really came alive for me was Hitchcock's discussion of The Birds, his explanation of cutting away or not cutting from an image to heighten suspense was amazingly clear, also the use of sound (The Birds famously has no music score, only sound effects).

But with other films discussed, there are missed opportunities. They talk about the resolution of Suspicion, where (this is a spoiler) Cary Grant is revealed not to have been plotting his wife's murder after all, when in the novel he very much was. Yet bafflingly, neither Truffaut nor Hitchcock mention the Production Code, which forbade a character getting away with murder, and in this case it neuters the movie. When discussing Vertigo, Truffaut adroitly points out that unlike almost every other Hitchcock film, the pacing is deliberate, contemplative, dreamlike, not the usual brisk storytelling. Hitchcock replies that's because the main character is in an emotional crisis. Which, sure fine, I assumed that would open up a longer discussion, but the director has nothing else to say about it (!).

One interesting thing (but frustrating for a reader) is Hitchcock's attitude toward actors. Some have thought he was hostile to actors, but that's not quite it; I would say he's essentially indifferent to them. He rarely comments on the quality of a performance, unless it's to say he would have preferred to cast a different actor for a certain part. His outlook is summarized in this quote:

When a film has been properly staged, it isn't necessary to rely upon the player's virtuosity or personality for tension and dramatic effects. In my opinion, the chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be utilized and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera.

So when Truffaut particularly praises Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train or Claude Rains in Notorious, Hitchcock neither agrees nor disagrees, he adds nothing. And one thing that's striking is nearly always a film director will have alot to say about actors he or she works with, what they are like on the set, or amusing anecdotes, or a particular approach to a performance--but not here. It's remarkable to me to think how many times Hitchcock worked with Cary Grant and James Stewart, yet has almost nothing to say about them. I began to think that something that's been said about Quentin Tarentino might also have been true about Hitchcock, that he had an intense fascination with cinema but not so much about life. That's why I found the quote at the top of this review so interesting. Truffaut saw it too.

The Inevitable Lists:

My Personal Essential Hitchcock Films (in order of release)
The Thirty-nine Steps
Rebecca
Lifeboat
Notorious
Strangers on a Train
Vertigo
Psycho
The Birds

One That's Overrated
North by Northwest

One That's Underrated
I Confess

Nandakishore Mridula

Rating: really liked it
Exhaustive and detailed interviews of Hitchcock by Truffaut, where the director explains his vision and technique. A must-read for all Hitchcock fans. Truffaut proves himself as a brilliant interviewer, in addition to being a terrific filmmaker.

Raquel

Rating: really liked it
Alfred Hitchcock is considered to be one of the best directors of all time but that wasn't always the case. At the height of his career, many critics saw Hitchcock as a commercial director whose films thrilled audiences with their suspense but weren’t meant to be taken seriously. All that changed when French director François Truffaut drastically altered the narrative of how we discussed Hitchcock’s work and he did so with this book.

This is film school in book form. Never have I read a book so full of enlightening information about the film-making process. I learned so much from both directors on how to build suspense, expert use of the camera as storyteller and how stories are adapted. This book is chock-full of these kinds of insights. And for Hitchcock fans, myself included, there are lots of behind-the-scenes trivia bits that will delight and inform.

Full review, with photos and lots and lots of quotes, can be found here: http://www.outofthepastblog.com/2016/...

David Rain

Rating: really liked it
There’s a brilliant moment in Truffaut’s introduction in which he explains why suspense, far from being a mere trick or incidental effect, is in fact of the essence of cinema, indeed, of narrative itself: “Suspense is simply the dramatisation of a film’s narrative material, or, if you will, the most intense presentation possible of dramatic situations.” Which is one reason, perhaps, why Hitchcock, the wonderfully perverse genius behind Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and a host of other classics, was the definitive film director; and this long, large-format, lavishly-illustrated book is the ultimate celebration in book form of his life and work.

Distilled from over fifty hours of taped interviews with Hitchcock, this sustained dialogue between two great directors is required reading for anyone interested in film, and anyone interested in storytelling too. You won’t learn everything about Hitchcock here; you should also read Donald Spoto’s biography, The Dark Side of Genius (1982), for a start. But it’s notable just how many of the best Hitchcock quotes in Spoto come straight from the Truffaut book. The first English-language edition, from 1967, is worth getting hold of, if you can find a copy, because it’s a beautifully designed book. But for content, it’s the 1983 update which is best, featuring additional interviews recorded after 1967, as well as Truffaut’s reflections on Hitchcock’s final years.

James

Rating: really liked it
Always heralded as one of THE great books on cinema and the best, supposedly, on Hitchcock, these documented interview sessions with the great French director Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock is as good as reported. This was a revised edition that includes an addendum by Truffaut after Hitchcock's death in 1979. It is full of insights both by Truffaut and Hitchcock and has a great amount of photographs. At times Truffaut gets a bit stuffy and opinionated and corrective of the choices Hitchcock made in his great work and at times, it appears, that Hitchcock gets a bit ... politely annoyed. The reader is treated to the reason why Hitchcock featured mostly blondes in his films and the answer was quite sexually surprising. Hitchcock cared ONLY about the visual and the set pieces, while the actors were just there to move it along. Even so, his work is some of the most memorable pieces of cinema experience in history.

Leo Robertson

Rating: really liked it
It’s okay—there’s a documentary that shows almost all the technical feats described in this book, I’d watch that 🤣

A lot of time is spent describing the plots of various films, of which there’s not much value. There’s one interesting insight per chapter on a technical solution or story concept but they’re fewer and further between than I would’ve liked.

As an entirely self-taught writer and filmmaker, I sometimes take too seriously the recommendations of people who went to school for these things. They themselves may well be parroting recommendations given by their professors.

All this stems from “fear of not doing it properly”, knowledge gaps or fear of an unsophisticated taste. But all that does is lock you in step with everyone else, which should always be the opposite of your intentions.

It makes me so mad when I see it. Their lack of artistry and my pointless deference.

Was someone telling me they enjoyed this book or merely that they wanted to be known as someone who appreciated this?

Ben

Rating: really liked it
"Good evening, students of the macabre."

Hitchcock is a comprehensive study of the films of the great British-American director Alfred Hitchcock, which explores every one of his films from the beginning of his career up to Torn Curtain (1966). After Hitch's death, Truffaut apparently updated the work to include Hitchcock's final films. The book, like Objects of Desire: Conversations with Luis Buñuel or such works as Godard on Godard or Fellini on Fellini, is a collection of interviews. What makes it unique, however, is that Hitchcock’s interviewer is not just a film critic (though he was that, too), but a great director in his own right: Franҫois Truffaut, the director of such classics as The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim and Shoot the Piano Player.

Although the two directors have linguistic and cultural differences and though they each have different directorial styles, they both speak the language of cinema. And one gets the impression that they both value one another’s work, with Truffaut a greater admirer of Hitchcock for obvious reasons – likely because of Hitchcock’s influence on filmmakers like Truffaut and his contemporaries and on cinema in general, for Hitch had already (at the time of these interviews) worked in cinema for nearly 50 years as a title maker and assistant director, then as a director of films in both America and Britain and of both silents and talkies.

The interviews took place over the course of a week in an office at Universal Studios and due to a language barrier there was a translator – Helen Scott – who served as the communication bridge between the two great directors. In these interviews Hitchcock comes across as a relatively easy interview subject (at least much more so than was the case in similar books on directors that I’ve read), eager to discuss his films and his methods and style as a director. Perhaps this is partly owed to the fact that he made more commercial films than did many of those other directors who I refer to, and knew, thus, how to accept criticism (though Truffaut offers much more praise than negative criticism) and play the publicity game.

Nearly every page of the text is sprinkled with pictures from Hitchcock’s many films (472 photos in total), particularly to illustrate images that are discussed in the course of these interviews. In over 250 pages the Master of Suspense tells some very funny jokes, gets a childlike excitement when discussing technical aspects of his films, lays out certain “rules” for filmmaking (particularly when it comes to suspense), and theorizes on what factors led to the weaknesses in some of his pictures. As for the last point, amusingly, very rarely does he assume responsibility for a film’s flaws, but rather blames these weaknesses on casting, poor performances from his actors or on weak scripts. But I assume that many of us would try to find justifications for our deficiencies, for it’s easier than accepting full responsibility (and sometimes indeed there are what we perceive to be causal factors for our flaws).

Fifty-four of Hitch’s films are discussed (29 of which I’ve seen to date), some in greater detail than others, but all at least somewhat interesting. One of Hitchcock’s favorites: Shadow of a Doubt. And Truffaut (also two of my favorites): Notorious (interestingly both Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman comment on the female lead of that picture – Ingrid Bergman – being an exceptionally difficult actress to work with) and Rear Window. I'm also very partial to both North by Northwest and Psycho, probably at least in part because those were the first two Hitchcock films to which I was exposed.

It’s a very interesting study, sure to be appreciated more by other Hitchcock admirers than anyone else. And while I like to think that everyone is (or at least should be) a Hitchcock fan I do know a few Hitchcock detractors; I just can’t see their perspective, for Hitchcock had a unique vision and approach like none before him (though like his early contemporaries he admits that he was greatly influenced by directors like D.W. Griffith and also, to a lesser degree, Fritz Lang and FW Murnau) and which has been mimicked by many after, some more effectively than others.

Nathan Hale

Rating: really liked it
This is the book to read for any Hitchcock fan!

He goes over every movie he’s ever done, so it’s inevitable that I’ll be re-reading parts about what movies I watch! It was so fascinating to learn the behind the scenes of his movies. I also liked how Truffaut didn’t hold back on his opinions just because he was interviewing someone as iconic as Alfred Hitchcock. There were even times where it seemed like if they continued on a certain topic, they might get in a fight. But maybe not, Hitchcock said in this book that he’s not a fighting-type person.

I highly recommend this to Hitchcock fans and prospective film-makers! He shares so much incite as to how he did certain things and why he did them. I learned so much and am so happy with this read!

Full Review Here: https://youtu.be/h38UwRi_ioE (Skip to around the 8:30 minute mark)

Joshua

Rating: really liked it
19 August 2018

Hitchcock and Truffaut managed to create the ultimate film podcast, and I would highly encourage the reader to look up the actual tapes of these interviews because they will catch far more of the inflections and delivery which in turn will create a stronger impact. These conversations illuminate how important the process of film-making is, and how Hitchcock, during his life, seemed constantly concerned with making his films dynamic and significant to the larger body of what film was and could be.

Books like this matter because they show new artists what is possible, and they can inspire the next generation to see more from the camera than just the possibility to take pictures. It can inspire them to see the medium as a realm of possibility.
_________________________________________________________
July 13 2017
Like Lynch on Lynch I did not read the entirety of this book so my review should be taken with a grain of salt. I enjoyed these interviews, because the exchange between Hitchcock and Truffaut really allowed for an interesting examination of cinema as an art form and how the artist crafts their style and voice through their work. Hitchcock as a director was a man who seemed far more concerned with the medium than he was about critical concern or even whether or not his actors were happy. He was wanted to experiment with the form and connect with audiences, and for this I can't really fault him too much.

My only concern with the book was that while it was interesting digging into each of Hitchcock's pictures, there were some dialogues that really could have pushed deeper into the medium of film and how Hitchcock was playing and re-inventing, or else Truffault could have prodded him deeper.

Still this collection is a must for the reader who considers themselves either a cinemaphile, an aspiring director, or else a serious critic of film.