-->, all rights reserved, all content copyright S Hitchman/A McNett 2008-2020. The interview is divided in 25 episodes if about half an hour, going deep in Hitchcock work, movie by movie, year after year True, but Hitchcock was always boss. Hitchcock thought that cinema didn’t have to evolve the way that it did.

Conducted with the help of a translator, Truffaut’s interview went chronologically through the life of Alfred Hitchcock life. ( Log Out / 

We respect him because he shoots scenes of murder like scenes of love.”. One of the most interesting segments in the Truffaut/Hitchcock interviews is the 27-minute segment, which discussed The Wrong Man and Vertigo. Hidden necrophilia in Vertigo, glowing milk, an on-set spat with Montgomery Clift … in 1962, Alfred Hitchcock revealed his tricks, and the often shocking meanings behind his films, to fellow director François Truffaut. Truffaut, when Hitchcock explains this to him, agrees: if Clift refused, he would have ruined the story arc. Photograph: Philippe Halsman/Magnum. Hitchcock would also provide Truffaut with insight on those scenes in question and his ideas that he had behind those scenes. People who like Vertigo may like to see my transcription of the three actual interviews in which Vertigo was discussed. “It’s wonderful that Truffaut got Hitchcock to talk because directors of his generation didn’t often,” says Jones, head of the New York film festival, and the director who collaborated on Martin Scorsese’s survey of Italian cinema, My Voyage to Italy.

John Ford had a public persona. The Philadelphia Story: Rising up, or stepping down?

Perhaps he should have given his actors more freedom. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  15 - Rope (1948) and a discussion about filming and lighting in colour. Coming from the silent era, Hitchcock had an almost purely visual approach to storytelling. In total, the two filmmakers talked for over 12 hours, and provided both Truffaut and the world of filmmaking with an astounding assortment of information both on the works of Hitchcock, critical analysis, and filmmaking techniques. 23 - Psycho (1960) and the triumph of pure film. That is what happened when newly introduced Francois Truffaut sat down with Hitchcock in an interview he was doing for a book dedicated to Hitchcock’s cinema. Truffaut’s aim was to liberate Hitchcock from his reputation (one that the Englishman cultivated) as a light entertainer and celebrate him for what he was, a great artist. Not only is Truffaut using Hitchcock to gain insight on the world of storytelling, but Hitchcock is using Truffaut to gain insight on how well his ideas are coming across to audiences. “There is some 16mm test film provisionally called Kaleidoscope/Frenzy, in which he tried to be freer and give some young kids in New York the chance to express themselves as actors.” But that film was never made. 14 - Notorious (1946), a discussion of films about film-making, The Paradine Case (1947). The public persona was a way of protecting himself. Nobody can. Truffaut does have moments where he mentions his own films but he tries to limit the dependency on relating to his own films due to the fact that Hitchcock had not seen any of Truffaut’s films at the time. Truffaut seduced Hitchcock into doing 30 hours of interviews, which included chats about Kim Novak in Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo. Truffaut, for all that he was profoundly influenced by this father figure, gave actors more leeway.

At one point he sends a telegram to Truffaut saying he wished he could do anything he wanted to do. 13 - Lifeboat (1944), return to London during the War to make propaganda films, Spellbound (1945). “They were dismissive about their art, at least publicly. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)- After World War II, Conflict with Authority On the Waterfront (1954), Representations of Conflict with Authority in Ben Hur (1959), Conflict with Authority Manifested in Imitation of Life (1959), Cold War, Film, and Rising Against Authority in the Early 1960’s, Dangerous Women: Noir and the Femme Fatale, Well Dressed and Well Armed: Villains in Noir, British Film Noir and The Third Man (1949), Italian Neorealism Influence on Film Noir, The 39 Steps to the Nouvelle Vague: Hitchock’s Influence on the French New Wave, Overview: History of Cahiers, auteur theory, and the new wave, British Cinema Vanishes: Hitchcock’s Final Years in the UK, Hypnotized by Hollywood: Hitchcock and Selznick Spellbound for Each Other, South by Southwest: Hitchcock in the New Hollywood, Beating the Master: Film as Responsive Criticism, http://www.cine-phile.com/hitchcock-talks-about-vertigo/. The answer is no, he can’t.

“When I asked David Fincher if he’d read it, he said, ‘Only, like, 200 times.’”, There are only two moments when Hitchcock clams up. The interviews resulted in a book Hitchcock/Truffaut, that became a must for every film buff. Did you have any other films that are particular touchstones for you? 21 - The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1957), dreams. Now their talks have been turned into the revealing film Hitchcock/Truffaut, Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 20.00 GMT. For the first time, it reflected on itself as art rather than dismissing itself as mere entertainment. In general, the transcriptions made by the Hitchcock Wiki attempt to match the English parts of the interview, with the following caveats: Interview: Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut (Aug/1962) - transcriptions, Lost in Translation? 1 - Hitchcock's childhood through to his early years in the film industry. 2 - The Lodger (1925) and a discussion about silent era. “He’s waiting for the woman to come out nude ready for him,” Hitchcock adds. Four years later, the interviews were published. Change ).

Hitchcock stays quiet for a moment contemplating and then responds with “it was purely a documentation of the original case…it was designed in exactly the same matter as everything occurred” and that “being so faithful to the original story caused deficiency to the structure”. Hitchcock asks Truffaut to turn off the tape so he can go off record. Arnaud Desplechin talks about it as the “lost secret.” Truffaut said the same thing. For 50 years, these conversations have existed in book form. ( Log Out /  Even though Hitchcock at the time may not have been familiar with Truffaut’s work, Truffaut had definitely seen all of Hitchcock’s films at the time starting with The Pleasure Garden, which he made back in 1925.

That rape-murder scene is almost unbearable to watch. We’re talking about a moment when all those guys from that generation were struggling. For me, Hitchcock is the guy who easily came out on top. Hitchcock didn’t care what Clift thought: he needed him to look up at that precise moment or everything leading up to and from that glance would not make sense. It’s a point taken up by Fincher, who wonders how Hitchcock would have got on directing such actors as De Niro, Pacino and Hoffman. More on Hitchock: Holocaust documentary whose horrors remained unseen reaches cinemas – after 70 years. The film premieres August 8th on HBO at 9pm ET/PT. and dubiously transcribed words are appended with "[? Over the years I’ve come to love Saboteur (1942) more and more.

He goes so deep into the emotion of this guy who cannot share what he knows with anyone. Welcome to the site of the virtual Museum of Film History, to be curated by the students of ENG 3122-048A: Film History II 1930-1965, Spring 2012 at the University of Florida.

As a filmmaker myself, its hard for me to tell someone “yes I failed with this movie” or “yes I didnt do this right”. What does that historic conversation have to say to a new generation?

The film recalls his on-set spat during I Confess with Montgomery Clift over a split-second moment in which the actor was required to look up at a building as he crossed the street. Do you have any thoughts on the third act of Hitchcock’s career? Go to: http://www.cine-phile.com/hitchcock-talks-about-vertigo/. Jones, who programs the New York Film Festival, took some time to share his views on Alfred Hitchcock and his secrets as a filmmaker. When Truffaut expressed a question or concern on an idea Hitchcock had in his films, Hitchcock would respond with that his intentions were and see if Truffaut thought that was the right way to do things. “While he was sitting waiting, he was getting an erection.” Then Hitchcock tells Truffaut to turn the tape off so he can tell a story. Later, Jones reveals, Hitchcock worried that he was too rigid in his commitment to narrative rigour. Because, Hitchcock explains, he lit it from inside with a little lightbulb. Truffaut learned a great deal of information on film theory and techniques from one of his mentors. While some could see that Hitchcock would be a guy that doesn’t take lightly to criticism, Hitchcock usually agreed with Truffaut that he did miss on some moments in his films. Was that a conscious misdirection on Hitchcock’s part? This is a great moment because you see the complete honesty that both Truffaut and Hitchcock are giving each other in these interviews. While Truffaut is known as a lover of Hitchcock’s cinema, Truffaut does not kiss Hitchcock’s ass on all of his films. Hitchcock and Truffaut were from different cinematic cultures.

Brian De Palma has one assessment in which he says directors do their best work in their forties and fifties, and then in their sixties they start losing energy. 24 - The Birds (1963), the dramatic use of sound, control of perspective: from the objective to the subjective. Frenzy (1972) is a great movie. First, as Truffaut suggests, quite sensibly, that the lack of realism and plausibility in Hitchcock’s movies (think of the scene in North by Northwest when Cary Grant emerges unscathed from a fireball caused by the crop-dusting plane that’s been pursuing him crashing into a fuel truck) is because his pictures yield to a deeper logic, the logic of dreams. In Hitchcock/Truffaut, director Kent Jones (My Voyage to Italy, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows) explores the landmark series of interviews between French New Wave director François Truffaut and the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. These conversations were later published and helped position Hitchcock as a film artist and inspired a new generation of filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Richard Linklater, David Fincher and Wes Anderson—each of whom appear in the film to discuss Hitchcock’s artistry and the impact of the book. Kent Jones’s engaging new documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut teems with such moments: the 30-year-old tyro French director asking his hero to explain how he made his films, and the 63-year-old responding in detail, often revealing the lubricious impulses behind such masterpieces as Psycho, The Birds and Marnie. The trait of a great filmmaker is when you know you’ve put everything into your film and know that you did something wrong. HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT CLASSIC INTERVIEWS Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock, and translator Helen Scott. 17 - Stage Fright (1950) through to Strangers on a Train (1951).

25 -Hitchcock discusses the opening scene of Psycho, his preferred reading material and his favourite type of woman character. ( Log Out /  Hitchcock had made the first of his pictures in the silent era and went on to work in Hollywood.

[This is a re-post of my Hitchcock/Truffaut review from the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. 22 - North by Northwest (1958), grooming actresses, mastery of timing, the enjoyment of fear in Psycho. Your user agent does not support the HTML5 Audio element. Truffaut and Hitchcock began their interviews on 13 August, Hitchcock’s 63rd birthday.