Hitchcock and Truffaut

I have just finished a book of conversations between Hitchcock and Frances Truffaut, mentioned by Andy in one of the classes. I found it really interesting to read.

Truffaut is obviously a huge admirer of Hitchcock's work, and as they look at all the films Hitchcock made up to "Torn Curtain", his enthusiasm certainly seems to melt Hitchcock's sometimes gruff exterior. The book is framed as a dialogue, with the words transcribed directly from conversations had between the two film-makers. This lends itself to some entertaining moments where Truffaut irritates Hitchcock, or Hitchcock insults Truffaut or some other aside which (for some reason) amuses me.

I found Hitchcock's view of the New Wave interesting. He denounces neo-realism (or "the Italians") as being unable to tell a story, uninterested in structure and poor at climactic moments and especially the endings of films. He is more ambiguous about the New Wave, possibly with Truffaut (one of their main proponents) being in the room with him. He says he does not understand their dismissal of story structure: his own films are carefully constructed to maximise the impact on the audience. The drifting, apparently aimless style of the New Wave seems to be at odds with Hitchcock's precision. He also has little time for Realism at all: if you want to portray real life, he says, make documentaries. Hitchcock prefers dreamlike settings, nightmarish archetypes and voyeuristic fantasies.

He also made some other interesting points.

It is not necessary for the film to make logical sense. As long as it seems to roughly make sense on a first viewing, all that matters is that the audience are swept up in the emotion and tension of each scene.

The stronger the villain, the stronger the film. A stupid villain produces a stupid film; a weak villain a weak film and a predictable villain provides a predictable film.

An audience prefer to have a star as a protagonist because they already feel they know him (or her) without the character having to be comprehensively set up. Where Hitchcock used Cary Grant and James Stewart, the same would apply today to most big names. Even if it's Johnny Depp playing a role different from any he's ever done before, we still are more likely to warm to him than if it was somebody we had never seen before.

The job of the director is to tell things visually. Don't use dialogue if the images can say it for you. Use dialogue as a mask for what is really going on in a scene. Very rarely have the character say what they mean, especially at moments of emotional stress.

There was a lot more, but time and space constrain me. Well worth a read though!