Hitchcock/Truffaut

The only section missing in the film is a discussion of the MUSIC in Hitchcock films especially the work and career of BERNARD HERMANN! Neither director touched on the scores for VERTIGO, PSYCHO, or THE BRIDE WORE BLACK. Others like WAXMAN and TIOMPKIN were also neglected! Soundtracks are an integral part of both director's work! Shame on you! Also there was no discussion of the score for TORN CURTAIN! Why no Hermann score and a substitute for one by by John Barry? You can write an entire book on film noir music or THE SOUNDS OF DARKNESS. Think about PSYCHO and the "shower scene" without music. It loses its chilling effect. What about James Stewart hanging from a roof gutter in VERTIGO? And that haunting "love theme" in VERTIGO, when Stewart is following Kim Novak in his car and the crescendo of waves breaking against the shore when they finally embrace? I can cite many more moments where music was crucial to a scene in Hitchcock's work, too many to enumerate here. I just had wished the directors and filmmakers would have discussed this important phase of both director's work.

Dr. Ronald Schwartz at www.noir1937@aol.com Manhattan

Not the usual kind of biographical stuff about the celebrity's childhood and how he "rose to prominence" before he "fell from grace." In other words it's not an episode of "Biography." The object of attention is the book, "Cinema According to Hitchcock" by an admirer and fellow director Francois Truffaut, published in 1966.

The film is roughly (but only roughly) chronological and the biographical material is limited but covers both Hitchcock and his interviewer. What makes it more interesting than it might be is that Truffaut was about half Hitchcock's age. They came from different traditions -- Hitch from the silents, when everything needed to be spelled out visually, and Truffaut from the French "New Wave" cinema of the early 1960s, when the rules were thrown out the window.

Despite their different styles, they never clash. Truffaut is too good natured for that, and Hitch too distantly polite in his British way. Only once, in the book, not in the film, is there any sign of friction, when Truffaut suggests a different way Hitch might have handled a scene and he replies, "It seems you want me to write for an art house audience." Lots of excerpts from Hitch's movies and several from Truffaut's as well. A good deal of attention is paid to cinematic techniques -- the position of the camera, the lighting, the pattern of the images themselves. Some of the talking heads, and Hitchcock himself, come up with implications that to me seem questionable. I can't manage to convince myself that, while waiting for Kim Novack to emerge fully transformed from the bathroom, Jimmy Stewart is "getting an erection." In fact, I can't imagine Jimmy Stewart getting an erection at all.

I suspect the program might disappoint some viewers who don't want to listen to the interlocutors making polite jokes. (Twice, Hitch is about to tell an anecdote and asks for the recorder to be turned off.) Nothing in the movie is critical of either Truffaut or Hitchock, who became an alcoholic during his last years.

There are photos from the interview and excerpts from the recording, as well as a description of the surprising friendship that developed between the two. I thought it was all fascinating.

This documentary "Hitchcock/Truffaut" is interesting and informative for the way it details the way the master of suspense worked on his films as Hitch was an icon and inspiration to many as you and many others know his movies left a lasting impact! However many may not know that a 1966 book was published called "Hitchcock/Truffaut" it was a book on cinema and how that the work of Alfred had influenced French director and writer Truffaut. As during this film you the viewer get to hear the actual audio recordings of the interview for the book and see clips from many of Hitch's films and it gives in detail Alfred's background to the days even when he started in advertising. And it talks about how Alfred saw the world as a one world view director as often calling his actors and actresses cattle, clearly Alfred was demanding as discussed is how he shot his films with an emphasis on space and geography. And anyone who's watched a lot of Hitchcock movies know that his camera work was top notch the way he did scenes at angles the documentary talks of this also. Aside from the clips and talk of the impact of his movies other well known directors talk about how Alfred influenced their work as in the film Wes Anderson, David Fincher, and Richard Linklater to name a few give their take on Hitch. Overall good informative documentary that was an interesting look at the master of suspense.

A welcome tribute to one of the all-time great titans of cinema, Hitchcock/Truffaut is an insightful, informative & illuminating documentary that borrows its narrative from a series of interviews which were conducted by French filmmaker Francois Truffaut in an attempt to dissect & discern the style, themes, motifs & visual storytelling that define an Alfred Hitchcock film.

Directed by Kent Jones, the film provides an interesting glimpse into the mind of the Master of Suspense and his approach to storytelling. Before getting to the good bits, it offers a brief overview of both filmmakers, their early years in the film industry, and the events that led to the interviews which in turn resulted in the seminal book of the same name. And it's gripping at all times.

What's also interesting to see is how even Hitchcock was derided by the film snobs of his time who deemed his films too entertaining to be considered works of art and it's very satisfying to find Truffaut dismiss their limited perspective & definition of art as rubbish. The film also observes their contrasting filmmaking methods as Truffaut invites improvisation while Hitchcock demands absolute authority.

Also offering reflections on the legacy & influence of Alfred Hitchcock's body of work are contemporary filmmakers like David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Richard Linklater & Wes Anderson, each commenting on how Hitchcock films broke barriers, set new benchmarks, are visually accessible to all demographics, and why most of them are still effective. It doesn't cover all his films but Vertigo & Psycho are discussed in depth.

Overall, Hitchcock/Truffaut is going to appease all who enjoy films about filmmakers and is an absorbing documentary that presents two friends & auteurs discussing all-things cinema without any pretence. And that makes it essential viewing for anyone who aspires to be a filmmaker. My main gripe with it is that it's just 80 mins long, for such short runtime for a filmography as extensive & legendary as Alfred Hitchcock's is simply not enough nor acceptable.

HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT (2015) offers a documentary treatment of the relationship between the veteran English-born Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock and the much younger French filmmaker Francois Truffaut and the ambitious series of interviews conducted by Truffaut in 1962 at the Beverly Hills Hotel that resulted in Truffaut's pioneering book, "Hitchcock/Truffaut." (Truffaut asked questions in French, with Helen Scott supplying the translation.) We hear a number of excerpts from the audio recordings of the interviews, usually accompanied by clips from the Hitchcock films under discussion. To supplement all this, director Kent Jones has added archival footage of both Hitchcock and Truffaut and photos of them at work, as well as other archival interviews, including one with Truffaut where he talks about these interviews. In addition, we get new interviews with a number of other Hollywood directors, some of whom were Young Turks when Hitchcock was in the final stages of his career, e.g. Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich and Paul Schrader, who are all now older than Hitchcock was at the time of the interviews, and some of whom are flourishing today, e.g. David Fincher, Richard Linklater, James Gray and Wes Anderson. There is a lot of rich material here that should engage film students, Hitchcock fans, and film buffs in general.

In many ways, the film plays like excerpts from a master class on Hitchcock's career. Often we hear Hitchcock's voice describing how he approached a particular scene as the film shows us the scene he's talking about. For instance, we see the overhead long shot from THE BIRDS showing the burning of the gas station and the spreading of the fire to the rest of the town while Hitchcock explains his decision to shoot it that way. He describes the trouble he had convincing Montgomery Clift to look up from the crowd in a scene in I CONFESS in order to justify a cut to something happening above the crowd. We see the famous shower murder in PSYCHO while he is heard describing in detail his approach to composing the scene. Some of the interviewees devote this kind of attention as well, as when Scorsese describes the components of the scene in THE WRONG MAN when the wrongfully accused Henry Fonda first adjusts to his prison cell and we see the scene unfold. The most screen time is devoted to VERTIGO and PSYCHO. Not only do we get Hitchcock's revelations about his working methods and aesthetic decisions on these films, but we get expert commentators such as Scorsese, Bogdanovich, Fincher and Gray.

Of the interviewees, the most screen time is given to Scorsese (Jones's mentor) and Fincher, but they all offer significant insights and clearly speak not only from respect and admiration, but a great love for Hitchcock. We also hear from three foreign filmmakers, the French directors Olivier Assayas and Arnaud Desplechin, and, from Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. They speak in their own languages, with English subtitles.

Having said all this, I am troubled by certain omissions and questions I had that were never answered in the film. For one thing, we are never told whether Hitchcock knew any French at all. He appears to understand Truffaut's questions at times in the audio recordings and answers in English without waiting for a translation. Numerous letters that he wrote to Truffaut are shown and two of them, including the very first one, are in French. Did he write it in French or did he have someone translate it? I needed this spelled out. Which also begs the question of why there's no discussion of Helen Scott and what her background was and why she undertook this task. Truffaut refers to her in a filmed interview as "my collaborator," but that's the only mention she gets in the entire film.

Also, Peter Bogdanovich had a friendship with Hitchcock beginning back then and even interviewed the master himself around the same time. Why was this parallel relationship not mentioned? Bogdanovich is in the film and probably talked about it, but only a hint of it remains in his brief clips. And speaking of young directors who worshiped Hitchcock, why is there no discussion of Hitchcock's influence on these filmmakers? Truffaut himself was influenced by Hitchcock (see THE SOFT SKIN and THE BRIDE WORE BLACK), but this is not explored in any detail. Paul Schrader is interviewed and he even wrote the screenplay for Brian De Palma's OBSESSION (1976), a film that owes a great deal to VERTIGO, yet there's no mention of this film nor of De Palma himself, whose films were frequently cited for the debts they owed to Hitchcock. Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (also 1976 and also written by Schrader) has more than a few Hitchcockian touches yet neither Scorsese nor Schrader bring it up. And both OBSESSION and TAXI DRIVER featured the very last scores by Hitchcock's frequent composer, Bernard Herrmann. Truffaut used Herrmann for two scores himself (THE BRIDE WORE BLACK and FAHRENHEIT 451).

Which brings up the film's most egregious omission. Herrmann scored six of the films excerpted in this documentary, with music playing an especially prominent role in the clips from VERTIGO and PSYCHO, yet no one refers to the music or mentions Herrmann by name. I have to assume that his name came up in the interviews, so I wonder why no mention of him made the final cut.

I was also bothered by the fact that film clips went unidentified. I can understand that they didn't want to disrupt the flow of the film by having text constantly pop up, but I can't be the only one who couldn't identify the various silent Hitchcock films excerpted. Also, while varying degrees of attention are paid to numerous Hitchcock films not mentioned in this review so far, e.g. SABOTAGE, SABOTEUR, NOTORIOUS, and MARNIE, I am curious as to why the following masterpieces receive little or no mention: REBECCA, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, and REAR WINDOW.