Hitchcock \ Truffaut

HITCHCOCK:
Why do these

Hitchcock films stand up well?

They don't look

old fashioned.

Well, I don't know

the answer.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HITCHCOCK:
That's true, yes.

FINCHER:
My dad

was a big movie buff,

and it was one of the books

that was in his library.

From the time I was

about seven years old,

he knew I wanted

to make movies,

so he recommended it to me.

And I remember

picking over it,

and I must've read it...

Sections of it.

Like, there's the Oskar Homolka

sequence from Sabotage.

Where it sort of lays out

all of the cutting pattern.

It's not even a book anymore,

it's like a stack of papers

because it was a...

You know, I had a paperback

and it's just...

You know, it's got

a rubber band around it.

NARRATOR:

In 1966, Frangois Truffaut

published one of the few

indispensable books on movies.

A series of conversations with

Alfred Hitchcock about his career,

title by title.

It was a window into the world of

cinema that I hadn't had before,

because it was a director simultaneously

talking about his own work,

but doing so in a way that

was utterly unpretentious

and had no pomposity.

PAUL SCHRADER:

There was starting to be

these kind of erudite

conversations about the art form.

But Truffaut was the first

one where you really

felt that, you know, they're

talking about the craft of it.

That was incredibly

fascinating to me

that these two people

from very different worlds

who were both

doing the same job,

how they would

talk about things.

(ASSAYAS SPEAKING FRENCH)

I think it

conclusively changed

people's opinions

about Hitchcock

and so Hitchcock began to be

taken much more seriously.

SCORSESE:
At that time,

the general consensus

and climate was

a bullying, as usual,

by the establishment as

to what serious cinema is.

So it was

really revolutionary.

Based on what the

Truffaut-Hitchcock book was,

we became radicalized

as moviemakers.

It was almost as if

somebody had taken

a weight off our

shoulders and said,

"Yes, we can embrace

this, we could go."

NARRATOR:
In 1962,

Hitchcock was 63 years old,

(ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS

THEME PLAYING)

a household name in television, and

a virtual franchise unto himself.

He had already been known for many

years as the "master of suspense,"

and he had scared the wits out of

audiences all over the world with Psycho,

and in the process, upended

our idea of what a movie was.

And in this house, the most dire,

horrible event took place.

Let's go inside.

NARRATOR:
He had just completed

his 40th feature, The Birds.

(INAUDIBLE)

Truffaut, half Hitchcock's age,

had made only three features,

but he was already an internationally

renowned and acclaimed filmmaker.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

Truffaut wrote

Hitchcock a letter.

He proposed a series of

in-depth discussions

of Hitchcock's entire body

of work in movies.

For Truffaut,

the book on Hitchcock

was every bit as important

as one of his own films,

and it required just as much

time and preparation.

(m FRENCH)

The meeting was documented by the

great photographer Philippe Halsman.

Hitchcock and Truffaut.

They were from different generations

and different cultures,

and they had different approaches

to their work.

But both men lived for,

and through, the cinema.

HITCHCOCK:
My mind

is strictly visual.

Hitchcock was born

with the movies.

HITCHCOCK:
There's no such

thing as a face,

it's nonexistent until

the light hits it.

There was no such

thing as a line,

it's just light and shade.

The function of pure cinema,

as we well know,

is the placing of two or three

pieces of film together

to create a single idea.

(WOMAN TRANSLATING

INTO FRENCH)

NARRATOR:
Hitchcock

was trained as an engineer,

then moved into advertising.

HITCHCOCK:
Through that,

I went into the designing

of what were,

in those days of silent

films, the art title.

And then art direction, script

writing, and production duties.

HITCHCOCK:
They said, "How would

you like to direct a picture?"

And I said, "I've never

thought about it."

I was 23.

My wife was

to be my assistant.

We're not married yet,

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

but we're not

living in sin either.

(BOTH LAUGH)

NARRATOR:
Hitchcock

had many close collaborators,

but none of them

was closer than Alma Reville.

She was credited on some films,

uncredited on many others,

but Hitchcock consulted his wife

on every movie he ever made.

HITCHCOCK:
The Lodger was the first

time I'd exercised any style.

FINCHER:
He is making

floors out of glass

so that he can show people walking

in circles in the apartment above.

He's playing with

all those things

that make cinema fun

and magic, the tricks of it.

He was also conceptual

with the way he approached

many of these films.

This movie, I have an idea for a

way that I've never worked before.

This is somebody whose mind

is racing, filled with ideas

and that's why, you know,

we refer to him all the time.

Do you realize the squad van

will be here any moment?

No, really! Oh, my God,

I'm terribly frightened.

Why? Have you been

a bad woman or something?

Well, not just bad, but...

But you've slept with men?

Oh, no!

WOMAN; Knife.

He directed

the first British talkie.

And if you use a penknife!

Or a pocketknife!

MAN:
Alice, cut us a bit

of bread, will you?

WOMAN:
I mean, in Chelsea

you mustn't use a knife!

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