Hitchcock
the occasion of the Alfred Hitchcock retrospective
at the French Cinematheque, My Cinematograph ABC has made a hitchockien.
A pparition
From The Lodger in 1927, Alfred Hitchcock appears in each of his films. The British filmmaker was amused by her brief cameo that sometimes able to detect with a discerning eye. Most surprising is undoubtedly one of
Lifeboat where we see a picture of Hitchcock in the page of a newspaper read by one of the castaways. His appearances were often held in the first third of the film because the director thought they would have distracted the public if it had occurred later in history.
Find on this link a summary of all representations.
B Ad Guy
More successful is the villain, will be the most successful film . This credo hitchcokien proved correct in many films from the master. Even in its most extreme cruelty, the evil is always to be elegant and refined, Joseph Cotten in the Shadow of a Doubt to James Mason in North by Northwest through Claude Rains in Notorious . In the last part of his work, the wicked will have profiles of true psychopaths, clinical cases dealt with Hitchcock's usual irony.
Joseph Cotten in The doubt.
C ulpabilité
The transfer of guilt is one of the most recurring themes of Hitchcock's work. Although they are not free of defects, how many "heroes" have had the time of a movie, prove their innocence when they were accused of a crime they did not commit. Kaplan took the ghostly, the character of Cary Grant, a flighty and superficial advertising, is chased by mysterious spy in North by Northwest including The 39 Steps was the tape test. in Stage Fright, Marlene Dietrich kills her husband and her lover did acknowledge that not only reveal the innocent as we thought. The priest The Law of Silence, held by the seal of confession, can not identify the real killer and seems to do anything to jeopardize it. The habitual criminal Frenzy of is accused of sex crimes perpetrated by his best friend not to mention Henry Fonda is the aptly named Wrong Man.
Montgomery Clift took doubts in the law of silence.
D etail
We recognize the great filmmakers in their obsession to detail. In Hitchcock, she is omnipresent. In great manipulator, he knew perfectly integrate individual elements to bounce action and make a situation more ambiguous. He called it "fill the tapestry" . In The Law of Silence where Montgomery Clift left the courtroom, you see, in the middle of the crowd, a pretty disgusting fat woman eating an apple with a malevolent gaze expresses the curiosity of the public. In Vertigo (Vertigo) , the medallion on the neck of Madeleine, Judy made it clear to James Stewart, Madeleine and Judy are the same person. In the Shadow of a Doubt , black smoke coming out of the chimney locomotive on arrival of Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) announces the arrival of a malevolent character. And the amount of detail can tell a character: at the beginning of Rear Window, the camera glides over the face of James Stewart in sweat, then on a table which shows the broken camera on a stack of magazines and on the wall, pictures of cars that turn. In one plane, we learn that the character is, what is his business and what happened to him.
E eroticism
Hitchcock's films contain a great deal of eroticism more or less visible. In Notorious , filmmaker, cleverly evading the censorship, is the last kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman for long minutes while in motion. Films are movies, some pictures will become purely sexual: the last shot of North by Northwest where the train goes through the tunnel insinuates sexual act of two lovers. But the most shocking erotic dimension is undoubtedly in Vertigo. Hitchcock summed up beautifully: "All efforts of James Stewart to recreate the woman, cinematically, are shown as if trying to undress her instead of clothing. "
Subsequently, sexuality, less suggested, burst into Psycho, Marnie No and Frenzy where she takes a turn for deviant and pathological. Sex and death are inextricably intertwined as the formula subtly Truffaut "All the love scenes are filmed like murder scenes and all scenes are filmed like murder scenes of love.."
The endless kiss Notorious
James Stewart Kim Novak in discovering Vertigo
F omen
Many biographers have glossed over the prétentue sexual frustration of Hitchcock and his report very ambiguous with actresses. Married to Alma Reville, who was his most formidable critic and that she had a great influence, Hitchcock filmed different types of women: the young ladies who will discover the loss of innocence (Teresa Wright in Shadow of doubt), the leaders said in temperament (Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat ) Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly, the two images of women Hitchcock sometimes seductive, sometimes fragile and female subject (Tippie Hendren in The Birds and No Spring for Marnie ). For anedocte, Hitchcock had thought Grace Kelly Vertigo. print since her marriage to Prince Rainier, the actress had to decline. Hitchcock chooses to heart cons Kim Novak. The film's story and turning merge then strangely requires a director to replace an actress to imitate the actress initially chosen.
The appearance of threatening Grace Kelly in Rear Window
G loire
Its success will culminate in 1954 with the failure of No Marnie ten years later. The filmmaker will struggle thereafter to renew itself, seemingly overcome by the new public expectations that moving away before the new generations rediscover and make it a triumph that is not ready to fade.
H Umour
"Does this not be fun to have him assassinated in this way?" . This will master demonstrates the constant humor that runs through his fifty-three feature films. He himself said that the content of his films was serious but the look was humorous. This transforms some humor comedy spy intrigues in which North by Northwest is the summit of its kind. It defuses the tragic situations in many of his English period films: Sabotage, a woman disappears, the 39 steps ... The humor is really gruesome in Who killed Harry? and Frenzy assasssin where the poor must find the body of his victim in a truck full of potatoes! Behind the humor lurks Hitchcock was particularly fond of irony. In the early birds , Tippie Hendren buys a nice pair of canaries, named the "inseparable". She does not know yet that she will soon be confronted with a volatile any other species!
The sequence of the auction in North by Northwest
I ntrigue
Hitchcock achieved a majority of adaptations: Daphne du Maurier, Boileau-Narcejac, Patricia Highsmith are among the authors who have seen their works become pictures thanks to the talent of the master. Stories where the plot is essential Hitchcock manhandling at will with almost disconcerting ease. If it is not always vraissemblable, the plot is constantly credible because the filmmaker some thoroughly interested motivations of his characters. The rebondissemnents are legion and the McGuffin (the goal) is essential because it justifies the vicissitudes of the Hitchcock film well considered unimportant. Seeing evolution film going against the grain of the plot, he told Truffaut that he would build in the future more likely a film about a situation than a story. He also declared about Psychosis: "In psychosis, the subject matter to me, the characters I care little, what matters to me is that the assembly of pieces of film , photography, soundtrack, and all that is purely technical could make the audience scream. This is not an interpretation that has shocked the public. It was not a popular novel that has captivated the public. What has shocked the public, was the pure film. "
J eSuite
Catholic, Hitchcock made his classes at the Jesuit St Ignatius College in London. The filmmaker said later that it was during his stint with the Jesuits that fear has become stronger in him. Rather average student, he had an engineering school before working as a draftsman in the advertising department of the Henley Telegraph company. He then joined the U.S. company Famous Players-Lasky, where he was responsible for drawing the intertitles for silent films. Then he became an assistant director before starting his filmmaking career.
K ilo
Hitchcock has long suffered from its embompoint that teenage put him away. He would laugh when run an ad for a slimming cure. Later, he even return to his advantage by drawing its silhouette will become a label.
L ondon Born in London in 1899, Hitchcock turned to England twenty to three feature films before his departure for Hollywood in 1939. But the director has always retained a loyalty to his hometown. He returned during the second world war where he made two short propaganda films (
Bon Voyage and A venture Madagascar). Hitchcock wrote the two scenarios at the Claridge Hotel which has recently inspired the documentary Belgian Johann Grimonprez (see critical
Double Take). He came back to the British capital filming
Under Capricorn in 1949, Le Grand Alibi
year Next
The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956 and Frenzy in 1972 where the entire action takes place in London. Honored for his entire career, Hitchcock knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1978.
M ise directed
When evoked Psycho, Hitchcock spoke of "spectator direction." What other filmmaker has managed to manipulate this world through his camera work alone. In the sequence The most intense Sabotage , he films Sylvia Sidney, who has just lost his brother because of the criminal activity of her husband. She dines in front of him, but serves a plate looks more and more insistently the knife beside her. The husband does not notice the attitude of his wife until he understands that she wants to kill him. Thus, the use of the camera and editing create suspense. The characters in Hitchcock, are themselves a director. James Stewart in Rear Window , keep people in their outcome. The story is told through his eyes, the voyeur and replaces the filmmaker. The same James Stewart, in Vertigo , recreated a missing person and believing in the resurrection.
Killing Sabotage (in Russian!)
The elegance and virtuosity of staging dazzle in the prologue of 'Strangers on a Train : tracking shots on the feet in one direction and then in the other plans on track to meet and diverge. The visual ideas that mark all his films still fascinate: the long tracking shot of Notorious brings us to the coveted key to the murder, which is reflected in the glass eye of the victim in Strangers on a Train , disturbing the glass of milk Suspicion a spotlight on the hidden Inside, the first appearance "threatening" Grace Kelly in Rear Window and the murder of the girl in Frenzy filmed off the field while only a few meters on the street is full of people ignoring the horror that is being played. Hitchcock synthesizes its own perversity of the director fully and explicitly the effect "Kuleshov" "We take a close up of James Stewart. He looks out the window and he sees such a small dog in a basket, we go back to Stewart, he smiled. Now, instead of the little dog that goes in the basket, it shows a naked girl who squirms at his open window. It places the same close-up of James Stewart and smiling, Maitenes, it's an old bastard! "
Kuleshov Effect of Rear Window
murder outside the scope of Frenzy
N ew wave
In the early 50s that the young Turks of Cahiers du Cinema keenly interested in Hitchcock. Film by film, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, who are not yet the filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague, dissect film Hitchcock in the first serious work dedicated to the master, released in 1957. Because at that time, Hitchcock is first seen as a entertainer with his tips but not the huge filmmaker he is today. According to Rohmer and Chabrol, " it is important to consider the work of Hitchcock exactly the same way as a painter or a poet esoteric. If the key to the system is not always on the door if the doors themselves are cleverly disguised, that is not reason enough to shout that there is nothing inside. " Subsequently, François Truffaut, in his famous book of interviews *, give the floor to the filmmaker who will discuss with unusual outspokenness its successes and its failures, its relationship to cinema, his work with actors ... A document of inestimable value.
O 'Selznick
In 1939, the powerful producer David O'Selznick, just basking in the triumph of Gone with the Wind , moved to Hitchcock to make a film about the Titanic. Arriving in Hollywood, Hitchcock is given finally adapting the novel by Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca . The film marks the beginning of his American career ending at the death of the filmmaker in 1980. Entrena adversarial relationships with the tyrannical producer, Hitchcock still run two more films with him, The house of Dr. Edwards and The Paradine Case. After these two minor films, he will fly out on his own by becoming his own producer.
Revealing Rebecca
P ublic
Hitchcock turned his films to the public, he knew perfectly anticipate his reactions and play with his fears. About the death scene of Arbogast in Psycho , Hitchcock, sick the day of filming, had entrusted the filming of the stairs rise of Saul Bass, designer of famous Hollywood. When he saw the footage, the filmmaker was not satisfied because the cutting of the rise of the stairs, a map of the detective's hand sliding down the ramp and traveling through the bars of the stairs showing feet Arbogast aside, gave the viewer a feeling of guilt that was not the purpose of this scene. Hitchcock returned to the way that we can see in the excerpt below.
The man was one of very few filmmakers have become known to the general public not only through his films but also through its advertising image. In 1954, he launched the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents e where his silhouette appears on the start of each broadcast in which he tells the story of the episode to come into being Directed farfetched. Hitchcock is probably the only filmmaker of the twentieth century star. His reputation and his power was such that it could require the viewer to arrive on time for the projection of Psycho under penalty of being denied access to the room.
trailer Psycho by Hitchcock
Q uerelle
composer Bernard Herrmann was the most famous films of Alfred Hitchcock. Their collaboration began in 1955 on the set of The Man Who Knew Too in which we see as conductor Herrmann. Their artistic alliance will be broken during post-production Torn Curtain in 1966. Hitchcock, dissatisfied da partition proposed by Herrmann, break sharply with its composer. An attitude to say the least rider who did not do justice to the talent of Herrmann, who had managed to find a unique musical language of images giving the filmmaker a dimension both romesque, scary and tragic.
Concert The Man Who Knew Too
R emak
How many filmmakers have claimed Hitchcock? It is undoubtedly the one that most consciememnt or unconsciously influenced the filmmakers (
see the interview with Jean-François Rauger ). Some, particularly those from the New Wave tried to copy the master including his most faithful disciple, François Truffaut. But
The Bride Wore Black comparison is difficult as controlling Hitchcock is sorely lacking. Chabrol, in turn, was inspired more indirectly with some notable successes (
The Butcher, the beast dies ).
Italian filmmakers 60-70 years have taken some codes Hitchcock including Mario Bava and Dario Argento. Brian De Palma is undoubtedly the one who went furthest in the replay, resuming his own the same subjects (Vertigo
becomes
Obsession /
Psycho becomes
Instincts ). His staging, more mannered, and give intriguing objects jubilant less than a degree of fascination with Hitchcock's films. Finally, some dare even shot by shot remake. Evoking
Psycho , fans of Gus Van Sant speak of a conceptual object that calls the Hitchcock movie in perspective. It can reasonably be seen as a useless attempt to modernize business while this mediocre remake seems ultimately much more dated than his illustrious model.
Trailer of Obsession of Brian De Palma
S USPENSION
Hitchcock theorized on difference between surprise and suspense. It appeared two situations: in the first two people have a casual conversation, a bomb under the table but the public does not know. Suddenly, the bomb explodes, people are surprised. The same situation but the public knows there is a bomb and it will explode. The casual conversation suddenly becomes interesting because it participates in the scene. Will they escape the explosion?
The nickname "master of suspense" returned in the current language. An appellation for reducing the work hitchockienne in its thematics, goes far beyond mere thriller
but she is just so much suspense in Hitchcock is one of the engines of creation. Counting the scenes of suspense in his films would lead to dissect each sequence of his films, we will retain only the most memorable. In The Birds
, Tippie Hendren sits in the courtyard of the village school where you can hear the children sing. The camera stays on her for a while then she looks around and sees a raven, she continues to smoke and when she looked again, she sees all crows assembled. The famous scene from North by Northwest
where the plane chased Cary Grant in a cornfield is the choice of decor and cutting-cons the ultimate example of the classic scene suspense. In
The Unsuspected , Hitchcock filmed simultaneously call from the husband to his wife and the attempted murder of the latter and the effect of suspense and double the husband Will he pull it off where his wife will she survive? As for
Psycho is the movie full of suspense.
The sequence of the school in Birds
T echnical
Throughout his career, Hitchcock was innovative not only in its staging but also in the use of tools film. For Rope , he decided to shoot the film in sequence shot ten minutes each (the length of a coil of 300 m) using connections invisible to hide the cuts (a character who passes the lens) . Together they represent a long shot to 1:45! Popular in the early 50s, he uses the terrain in anagliphe Murder was almost perfect. To visually express the giddiness of James Stewart in Vertigo , he invented a system called the "transtrav" which is to operate simultaneously, zoom in and dolly back. A process which will be taken up later by Spielberg in The Jaws and many other films. Psychosis is a total technical experimentation, Hitchcock turning a feature film with his TV crew filming the famous shower scene with seventy camera positions for forty five seconds of images. As for the Birds , The special effects were revolutionary at the time, especially the noise level for the noises of birds ELECTRONICS amplified the fantastic dimension of the film.
effect "transtrav" from Vertigo
U niversal
is from birds in 1962, Hitchcock sign all his films from Universal, where he owned a cottage for many years. The prestigious studio had been used repeatedly decor for his films and the terrifying home of Norman Bates in Psycho be visited today. After Hitchcock gave Universal the ownership of some two hundred hours of programming thriller he produced and supervised the studio will buy the rights to much of his filmography that we can now enjoy thanks to lavish DVD sets.
V iseur
Hitchcock was characteristic of never looking into the eyepiece of the camera. Incongruous when we know the visual sense man's innate.
W agon
The train is a recurring scene of Hitchcock's films. A place where situations of suspense abound. Wanted by the police, Cary Grant took refuge in the wagon Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest . Both characters Strangers on a Train conceals their diabolical pact on the train of the same name. While he tries to kill his niece, Uncle Charlie L Shadow of a Doubt tomb of train and struck another arriving at full speed. The process becomes even the scene of all the action of Lady Vanishes.
trailer for The Lady Vanishes
* All statements are taken from Hitchcock Hitchcock-Truffaut book
- Gallimard.
Filmography The Pleasure Garden (1926)
The Lodger - The Golden Hair (1927)
Downhill (1927)
Mask Leather (1927)
Easy Virtue (1928) Which of the three
(1928)
Champagne (1928)
The Manxman (1929)
Blackmail (1929)
Elstree Calling (1930) Juno and the Peacock
(1930)
Murder (1930) The Skin Game
(1931)
East of Shanghai (1932)
Number 17 (1932) Singing
Danube (1934)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) The Thirty-nine
Steps (1935) Four
espionage (1936) Secret Agent
- Sabotage (1936)
Young and Innocent (1937)
Lady Vanishes (1938)
Jamaica's Tavern (1939)
Rebecca (1940)
Correspondent 17 (1940)
Marital happiness (1941)
Suspicion (1941)
Saboteur - Saboteur (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Lifeboat (1944) The
Spellbound (1945)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Rope (1948)
lovers of Capricorn (1949)
Stage Fright (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
The law of silence (1953)
Murder (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
Who killed Harry? (1955)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
The Wrong Man (1957)
Vertigo - Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Birds (1963)
No Marnie (1964)
Torn Curtain (1966)
Vise (1969)
Frenzy ( 1972)
Family Plot (1976)
Alfred Hitchcock retrospective at the French Cinematheque until 28 February.
Cycle "After Hitchcock" of March 2 to 14.
