Alfred Hitchcock: Classic or Dud?

i think 'the birds' is great, and agree with morbs about the supporting performances being excellent. plus it's the only hitch i've ever found genuinely scary --- the last scene with hedren coming up the stairs espec.

also tbi i don't find the premise 'silly' at all -- i mean, hell, it could happen! if anything it strikes me as more plausible than the setup of 'vertigo.'

The Birds is also very much a companion piece to Psycho, in themes and obv the shower scene's resemblance to some of the Tippi-attacked scenes.

I thought growing awareness of his reputation among cineasts triggered Hitch's about-face. When were his interviews with Truffaut?

around the time of Torn Curtain, I think.

That's kind of a weird quote from Thomson. Hitch didn't talk with the screenwriter about subtext, so therefore there isn't any?

the truffaut interviews were in 62 or 63

don't trust thomson much these days

"In truth, of course, it was a strange sadomasochistic transference between actress and director."

in truth. of course.

Yeah, the Thomson bk is a big mess - there's a horribly under-researched chapter on films that were directly inspired by Psycho that ends with the Red Riding trilogy and doesn't mention Mario Bava, ffs - and liable to enrage you, history mayne. Funnily enough, by far the best chapter is on Hitchcock's critical reception post-Psycho, that takes in the Cahiers crowd and the Truffaut interviews (mainly recorded in August 1962, just after Hitchcock had finished the Birds, published 1966), VF Perkins and Movie, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael (the Birds is 'a bad picture at every level'), and Penelope Houston's similarly anti-auteurist essay 'The Figure in the Carpet', published in Sight and Sound, and (in truth, of course) Robin Wood.

that penelope houston essay is rly good iirc. i 'used it in class' the other week

but if you only get one book about psycho...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Hard-Look-Psycho-Silver/dp/1844573583/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301991166&sr=8-3

DT reviewed it the first time it came out

Cool, don't know that partic durg text so have added it to my wish list

avoid at all costs: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psycho-Shower-History-Cinemas-Famous/dp/0826427693/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301994329&sr=1-1

Evan Hunter, source of THE TRUTH on Hitchcock.

The H/T book was published in '67, I'm pretty sure they discussed the oven scene from TC.

There were some follow-up interviews conducted after the 1962 session

i love how dirty the jokes get in his 70s movies

"Evan Hunter, source of THE TRUTH on Hitchcock"

Yes - I just like how they discarded the very simple possibility that Hitchcock couldn't be interested in discussing a possible subtext of the movie with Hunter.

but if you only get one book about psycho...

http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Vertigo_%281958%29

Despite all the reading of Vertigo as Hitchcock's "confession," on seeing it for maybe the twelfth time I prefer to see him as Gavin Elster rather than Scottie.

btw never saw this 'foreign censorship ending' to Vertigo til lately (obv SPOILER):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imbLXT2K--M

Watched Dial M for the first time via Netflix Instant the other night. Was kinda "meh" about it. It can't avoid looking and feeling stagebound, obvs, but at least he got some interesting camera angles in at times. Liked the wordless, economical setup at the beginning, Milland was appropriately sleazy and not-as-clever-as-he-thinks-he is, Anthony Dawson was so unappealing and unctuous you would've been crazy not to be thrilled when Kelly killed him.

the Siren's quest to help the National Film Preservation Foundation stream the unearthed Hitch silent The White Shadow (he was AD and writer):

http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2012/02/for-love-of-film-iii-last-night-i.html

sounds like the kind of project Kickstarter was designed for - likely to get more publicity (thus donations) via that route, too

http://i.imgur.com/y8gkL.jpg

how is that not don rickles

That's what she said.

Final day of the Hitchcock Blogathon

it's his 113th birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLiLsncyi0

I guess he'll be having a big party and then leaving the Shire forever. :(

also, there's a new (well, recent) edition of this book I didn't know existed:

http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/%22Writing_with_Hitchcock%22_-_by_Steven_DeRosa

Didn't look at this, so didn't realize it was his birthday till they mentioned it on the radio. Happy birthday, Alfred--we argue about your retired-detective film like every single day.

and damn, Marnie is so much better than Strangers on a Train.

I used to think that too. The last viewing wasn't as kind.

MORBS OTM

feh

Marnie is like the Ruth Roman bits in SOAT giving precedence.

also Shadow of a Doubt is almost as great as he thought it was.

(again, the worst bit is Macdonald Carey courting Teresa Wright)

humph. Too many of the performances in SOAD look indifferently directed: overstatement etc.

strangers on a train might be my favorite hitchcock, though, so...

would like to see marnie again, though. it's been a while.

actors usta be BIG, Alfred.

it's the Hitch pictures that got smaller

Family Plot is a better comedy than The Trouble with Harry, too.

That is OTM, but so is Psycho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxMslIwsCZU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opZJwGkNRMs

This looks fun and false as hell.

Which one?

I don't quite understand why these films, why now, 32 years postmortem? ALl the people who are interested in the lore have read a ton of it, can't see them interested in 2 hours of dramatization.

The audience for these films fetishize acting as caricature.

First I've heard of either of these. I dunno, I haven't really immersed myself in all that much Hitchcock lore, but they look enjoyable to me on a My Week With Marilyn or Notorious Bettie Page level.

yeah, My Week With Marilyn, ugh, but at least the T&A biopic factor is there (and Lohan as Liz Taylor) whereas it's just support here w/ Scarlett as Janet Leigh.

The Psycho censorship transgressions/battles are way more interesting than the Hitchcocks' marital dysfunctions.

the toby jones one looks fun, hopkins one looks like hot steaming shit

My Week with Marilyn was meh. Biopics in miniature form are still biopics.

Though they at least solve the problem of absent or laughably forced narrative thrust.