Alfred Hitchock

[Chris Grieb]

Alfred Hitchcock would be 112 today. He was one of our greatest movie directors.

I would suggest watching Rear Window, Vertigo, or North by Northwest. Any of his movies are great but I think these are the best.

[Ross Barlow]

*Vertigo* has exceptional resonance with me, since my lifetime choice of sport is climbing. I only saw this movie for the first time after many of my most radical solo climbing days were behind me. When I watch the movie, I vividly remember a few times when I was personally hanging on for dear life and scared shitless.

*North By Northwest* was played in the recent Bangkok Classic Films Festival here. It is one of my own favorites also.

One of my Hitchcock favorites is *Psycho*. I cannot step into a shower without thinking about it.

Re: *Vertigo*. Fear of heights can be cured, for the most part. When I was solely a fair-weather rock climber, I had to re-master my fear of heights each spring as I started the climbing season. Starting in the early spring, I went around the back way to the top of an overhanging and high cliff, which was an incredibly scary drop. I crawled on my belly out to the cliff-face, looked over the drop, shuttered in horror, then I crawled backwards on my belly to safer ground. One week later, I would crawl out in a bit of a higher posture, on my hands and knees, over the same ground with the same reaction: a shudder and a careful retreat. But by the next week, I could walk casually out to the edge standing upright, look over without reaction, and calmly do an about-face (with a void at my heels) to walk back. It was acclimation by degrees. When I took up ice climbing and climbed year-round, there was no longer any problem.

A woman I once knew was terrified to even stand up on a chair or table when I first met her. Within a few months, she was doing hard 700 foot-high cliff climbs, albeit with the security of a safety-rope attached above to the leader. If she could be cured, anyone can.

Yet I still feel the horror of those scenes in *Vertigo*, since Hitchcock makes it real every time I view it. I feel like it is me hanging there and like it is me feeling the fear. Hitchcock was a master.

Story-boarding is commonplace for filmmakers these days, but Hitchcock did it on a regular basis. (I am not sure who first did this technique.) I recall reading that Alfred and his wife pre-planned every shot and camera angle along with the complete dialogue. Then, Alfred stated (in my own paraphrase), 90% of the picture is done, and now all they had to do was shoot the movie. He was a director who knew exactly what he wanted.

-Ross Barlow.

[Chris Grieb]

Ross;

Your point about storyboarding is very true about Hitchock.

Miss Rand once quoted Fritz Lang saying about one of his movies that there was nothing accidental in it. I think Hitchock could have said the same thing.

Psycho is very good but I am less of a fan of if than the others I mentioned.

[Dragonfly]

I'm a fan of Hitchcock movies in general (I've most of them on DVD). However, in my opinion Vertigo is vastly overrated, I think it's one of his worst movies. There is so much wrong with it that I could write a whole article about it, but I'll mention just a few points. First the plot is terribly contrived. Of course a movie isn't necessarily bad if it needs some suspension of disbelief, but there are limits. The way the murder was planned is just too improbable, it's in fact completely crazy. Then there is the mystery how Stewart is saved when he's hanging on the roof while the other man is killed; it's just omitted. It's also embarrassing to see Stewart trailing the woman, that's so terribly amateurishly done (and Stewart is supposed to be an expert in that kind of thing!). She parks her car in a narrow alley, simply blocking the way for Stewart, to buy some flowers. Apparently she doesn't see his car, just behind hers, that has to wait for her. The first part of the film is also incredibly slow and boring, with endless car drives in which nothing happens. Then the fall from the tower: the timing is here completely wrong. While Hitchcock in other films often stretches the time to increase suspense, the woman in this case falls much too soon. Even if that with some fantasy could be explained by the plot, it would never be bought by Stewart: the woman could never have reached the top in time! Now the plot has been revealed to us, but the film is only halfway. Then he discovers the woman in the hotel, and suddenly she has gone up in smoke and the woman at the reception has never seen her. It's all very mysterious, but the mystery is never explained! The written (and simultaneously spoken) confession, that is later destroyed, is also a poor plot device, it's just a variant of the voice-over that tells us what happened. And then the end: just when the situation becomes really interesting (Stewart has just discovered what really has happened) the film ends with a really horrible deus ex machina, which is an enormous deception. The movie has no rhythm, most of the time it's dragging, it has many plot holes and ad hoc solutions. Oh, then I forgot the ridiculous dream sequence, that was literally a cartoon. The trick with the moving and zooming camera to suggest the vertigo may have been effective at the time, but now it just looks silly. Really, Hitchcock has made better movies than this one.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Dragonfly

[John Dailey]

~ I've some real, no changes since I don't know when, 'FAVES' in movies. However, in all, were I so inclined, many a scene or plot-aspect I could picayune as "Oh, man; they could've done THAT better!" But, why do so? Such a purpose is really important if one knew the director/writer and also knew they were planning a re-make (not that any 're-made' their own, that I know of.) Otherwise, if it's 'bad', it's not worth discussing, all said and done, ya know? Unless of course, others praise movie/story 'X' (I'll not put titles here!) and you wish to point out that they're really glossing over important stuff...as Dragon ostensibly had above. Ntl, Hitchcock is really hard to criticize, even in his 'experimental' aspects (photography-style in VERTIGO and THE ROPE, as well as PSYCHO.)

~ There are 'flaws' in all movies (mostly questions, as Dragon points out, that I'd argue could've been answered with just a couple additional scenes...but weren't.)

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ Since we're talking Hitchcock here, let's not forget that he was quite the pioneer (as Rod Serling was) in raising the calibre of TV stories, pushing the envelope of then-censorship re 'bad' people sometimes...'win.'

~ Indeed, the macabre humor he introduced into the mainstream awareness via TV (his stories AND his own on-screen persona) was itself quite a pioneering aspect...especially for a 'movie' director.

LLAP

J:D

PS: Yes, I've also wondered who started this 'storyboarding' style of planning in cinema. Lucas and friend made it into a fine art which I don't think many directors ignore nowadays, but...who was the 1st? Hitchcock's use shows that others must have used it to some degree earlier, but, "Who is...'the StoryBoarder?" :ermm:

Edited August 14, 2007 by John Dailey

[Chris Grieb]

Donald Spoto wrote a book several years called "The Art of Alfred Hitchock". Spoto discusses all of Hitchock's movies. He has a very long discussion of Vertigo.

Hitchock also did a discussion=interview book with the French director Truffaut which anyone interested in two film masters talked about one of master's works should. I don't know if either of these books are available.

Ayn Rand like some of Hitchock although not movies like Psycho.

John; Your point about the TV show was excellent. They are not shown on some of nostalgia networks, I don't know if they are available on dvd.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[John Dailey]

Chris:

~ I've noticed similar re 'nostalgia' networks not showing these classics of AH's. Same for Carridine's KUNG FU and Boone's HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL plus a few other TV 'oldies' (most of which most present-day shows are derivative from, comedies included). I'd guess such are tied up in copyright/royalty contract probs.

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

John;

I suspect may have to do with the shows being in black & white. Does anyone know of a source that discusses this issue.

It is interesting that LA Law is not on any "nostalgia" network and it was in color. I have to assume that Kung Fu was done in color.

[John Dailey]

Chris:

~ Yes, KUNG FU was, 'sfarasIrecall, right from its beginning. Re the others, my 'nostalgia' network is TVLand, and it often showed GUNSMOKE (and the early BONANZA) which were b-n-w; for that matter, they still show I LOVE LUCY (and, SciFi-channel has no prob with the original TZs.) On that score, I wish AMOS 'N' ANDY returned too (definitely 'b-n-w'!).

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

John;

A friend told me there were copyright problems with the Hitchcock programs.

The Amos & Andy shows are on tape. I don't know if they are done on DVD. The politically correct police have stopped them.

I liked HGWT and I like to see it.

Edited August 17, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[John Dailey]

Chris:

~ HG,WT is THE CLASSIC of 'classic' TV shows. Boone was at his best there. Damn...even his show's theme song!

~ I suspect that Hitchcock probably watched it; it WAS unique (a moralistic-mercenary hired-gun who eschewed gunfights?) for a TV-western of yesteryear!

LLAP

J:D