Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015) – K. Jones

Film critic Kent Jones wrote and directed this documentary about the making of (and reaction to) the famous book of conversations between director Alfred Hitchcock (then 63) and acolyte and French new wave director Francois Truffaut (then 30).  The book runs through Hitch’s entire oeuvre with his frank and seemingly unguarded and unpretentious thoughts about each film (originally up until The Birds, 1963, but later updated to include the later films, including Family Plot, 1976, based on further correspondence between the directors). Although this documentary does involve an array of talking heads (David Fincher, Wes Anderson, Olivier Assayas, James Gray, Paul Schrader, Richard Linkater, Peter Bogdanovich, and of course Martin Scorsese), it is really the clips from Hitch’s work and the discussion of them that is the highlight.  Extended treatment is given to Vertigo and Psycho (and there is an interesting nugget about The Birds) although most films get only a light touch and many none at all.  Occasionally we hear recorded excerpts of the actual tapes (including some rather risqué comments that I don’t remember in the book!). The take home point is that Truffaut’s book helped people to see Hitchcock as an artist who knew how to manipulate audiences with (and even changed) the language of cinema (stemming from his training in the silent days) and also invested many of his personal concerns (and perhaps pathologies) into his films as a true auteur.  Although not in the film, a trivia item on imdB.com argues that Truffaut’s book (released in 1967) resulted in Hitchcock becoming too self-conscious and therefore never making another good film!  (It’s an interesting hypothesis but I reckon Frenzy and Family Plot are not too bad). Although I myself would have enjoyed a deeper analysis of each film (with clips), I guess I always have the book to turn to, sitting proudly on my cinema shelf.  Still a fun watch if you are a Hitchcock fan!