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Friday, September 15, 2017
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
The "Master of Suspense" was an English film director and producer.
(August 13, 1899 - April 29, 1980) Hitchcock pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He has a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England's best director. He received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honors. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 and became a U.S. Citizen in 1955. He directed more than 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades.
Alfred Hitchcock's talent can be best appreciated by watching his movies. "Notorious" (1946) is the most elegant of his visual style. It contains some of the most effective camera shots in his work and they all lead to the great final passages in which two men find out how very wrong they both were. Ingrid Bergman plays a women whose reputation encourages U.S. agents to recruit her to spy on Nazis in postwar Rio. And this nearly gets her killed, when the man she loves mistrusts her. His misunderstanding is at the center of a plot in which all of the pieces come together with perfect precision, so that two people walk down a staircase to freedom, and a third person climbs steps to his doom.
Hitchcock was known for his attention to details. He drew storyboards of every scene before shooting, Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we are finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. I have a strongly visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write this out in the greatest detail in the script, and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it all by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not look at the score."
In "Rear Window" . . .
The "peeping tom" character is played by Jimmy Stewart. He has been laid up with a broken leg and is in a cast that runs all the way to hip. He never leaves his apartment and has only two regular visitors; Thelma Ritter, his nurse, and Grace Kelly, his girlfriend, who despairs of ever getting him to commit himself to a relationship as he is a proud, independent bachelor.
Personally, I love to gaze at the detailed set that was built for this movie. The viewer can see three levels deep, if you look closely, as the set captures the everyday people going about their daily activities in the neighborhood. Really draws you into their world. Great attention to detail! This film is one that you will want to watch again and again.
Hitchcock/Truffaut
In 1962, film critic and French New-Wave director Francois Truffaut sat down with Alfred Hitchcock to record a week-long interview about Hitchcock's entire body of work. These sessions beget a book, "Hitchcock/Truffaut," a book to show Americans they were underestimating the richness of Hitchcock's work. Despite his fifth directing Oscar nod for "Psycho," Hitchcock was mainly seen as a director for the unwashed masses of general audiences. Truffaut aimed to fix that.
In 2015, Kent Jones brings us "Hitchcock/Truffaut," the movie version of this essential book. He includes many of our favorite directors such as Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, and Brian De Palma who share with us how they have been influenced by Hitchcock's work. This documentary is an entertaining and informative gift to movie lovers constructed with care, humor and insight.
Vertigo. . .
(1958) crime, drama, film noir, mystery, romance, thriller
"did he train you" Did he rehearse you? did he tell you what to do and what to say? This cry comes from a wounded heart at the end of "Vertigo."
- A man has fallen in love with a woman who does not exist!
The story: James Stewart plays Scottie Ferguson, a private investigator, who is hired by his old friend, Gavin Elster to follow his wife Madeline Elster (Kim Novak.)
Gavin claims that Madeline is becoming so obsessed with the painting of a dead woman named Carlotta, that Carlotta's ghost might be inhabiting Madeline. What follows is a mysterious story of obsession and mistaken identity, as Scottie Ferguson becomes obsessed and falls in love with Madeline as the dead women.
Jimmy Stewart's character is not well. He suffers from fear of heights along with back problems. He falls obsessively in love with the image of a women. When he cannot have her, he finds another women and tries to mold her, groom her, train her, change her makeup and her hair until she looks like the women he desires.
As I was studying Hitchcock, I ran across a brief article from "IndieWire" that is worth checking out. Here is the link to a excerpt from Andy Warhol's interview with Alfred Hitchcock.
They talk about death, murder, corpse-disposal and psychosis. In other words, you know, just a little light banter. Here is the link:
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