Hitchcock/Truffaut by Francois Truffaut – my note on Les Quattre Cents Coups is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/03/les-quatre-cents-coups-aka-400-blows-by.html along with thousands of other reviews - 9 out of 10

 

Hitchcock/Truffaut by Francois Truffaut – my note on Les Quattre Cents Coups is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/03/les-quatre-cents-coups-aka-400-blows-by.html along with thousands of other reviews

 

9 out of 10

 

Listening to the audio version of this dialogue between two of the giants of world cinema should be a must for students of the art, and cinephiles, however much standards have changed and the criticism addressed mainly towards Hitchcock https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/notorious-written-by-ben-hecht-directed.html is pertinent at times, specifically in one of the best books on cinema, Adventures in the Screen Trade

 

William Goldman has won two Oscars, one for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and the other for All The President’s Men, and in Adventures in The Screen Trade he writes a masterpiece about films, and one of the subjects is the auteur, a fashion which had the director as the Almighty of the movie making, and we have that refuted

Alfred Hitchcock was for some time the epitome of the film maker, and William Goldman writes that, in fact when the buzz reached a climax, the films of the talented Hitchcock became less overwhelming, and then a film is the product of team work, producers, writers, actors, directors are just as important, and there are other ingredients as well

 

Hitchcock and Truffaut use a translator in their dialogue, and they touch on all the films of the British film maker, and then the French admirer explains how he has been influenced, in the making of The 400 Blows for instance, he is also asking about other motion pictures, such as The Night of The Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton

We find that Hitchcock has worked with mediocre actors at first, he has been known to call thespians ‘cattle’, and he explains that to Truffaut, by saying that earlier, those who worked on films treated this form of art with disdain, so much so that they would hurry to finish filming, so that they would get to the theater

 

Nevertheless, Alfred Hitchcock does show almost cruelty towards some of those who have worked with him, Eva Marie Saint is a case in point, she is mentioned when North By Northwest is discussed, and the one they could call misogynistic for this considers the work with her, the large amounts of money spent a ‘waste’, I think he says ‘such a waste’

The director insists on how he had taught her all she did in North By Northwest, from her bending whit the cigarette, not looking at it, but in the eyes of Cary Grant, then she goes on to make Exodus, and he sees that as a bad showing, the director of Exodus took her for the scene in the train in North By Northwest

 

In connection with North By Northwest, he shares a humorous aspect, he wanted to film within a nostril and have Cary Grant sneeze inside, then he says that he had in mind filming near an assembly line, while the car is being made, as a part of this journey through America…William Goldman spoke with awe about the ending of North by Northwest

Alferd Hitchcock prefers English, and Swedish women to the Southern ones for the mystery they have, in his view, he appears to (or it is clear) dismiss Marylyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, for the same reason, he wants to allure to be hidden, he does not like it when it is all out there, he had trouble with other actresses, one was crying when looking at the takes and compared herself with Marlene Dietrich, another got pregnant, when he was about to work with her, and then Vertigo did not have a female star he liked much

 

Hitchcock was refused by Gary Cooper, and then the latter admitted later that he had made a mistake, he did not work well with Raymond Chandler https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-big-sleep-by-raymond-chandler-10.html and a piece of the exchange between them is like Hitchcock saying ‘why don’t we do it this way, and then Chandler protesting then you write it’

The great film maker is modest, genuine, he admits mistakes, when he worked with Ingrid Bergman, she was the biggest star, and he was vain, he wanted to go to the opening and say ‘I have worked with her’, something along those lines, and the result was a flop, besides, they had big salaries, on for her, and he did not want to direct someone who was paid more, so he took a packet

 

We get details and symbolism, the former we get to read how Claude Rains was short, and they had to put him on a box, or else he would only reach Bergman’s belly (I made the last one up, as in where he would reach, but was shorter) just like we find in Making Movies https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/making-movies-by-sydney-lumet.html by Sydney Lumet that he had challenges with putting the very tall Sean O’Connery and Al Pacino in the same frame, because of that same difference in height

Rear window is discussed, with the different stories within, the idea that Stewart is like at the movies inside, the couple that have a dog, instead of a child, the technical aspects in the making of Birds, which had lot of special effects, a new electronic sound method, how the director had some sound of drums to make the actors react to something, while they had to show emotions to ’nothing’, they sent a real gull plunging

 

Because his films have a strong oneiric element, Truffaut asks about dreams (if it is not an idiotic question, he says) and if Hitchcock dreams a lot, and then the answer is the dreams he has are practical. In one he is looking for a yellow taxi, but all the cars around are from 1916, so he says to himself this is a dream with 1916, so there is no yellow taxi coming, and then he moves on, he has a great sense of humor, he wanted to adapt Malice Aforethought https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/11/malice-aforethought-by-anthony-berkeley.html which opens with "It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter" all this confessed by the narrator, and the killer…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”