A seat at the table with Francois and Alfred
Hitchcock/Truffaut (PG, 80 mins) Directed by Kent Jones
While lacking the adversarial nature of Frost/Nixon or the Gore Vidal/William Buckley face-offs in Best of Enemies, Kent Jones’ visual portrait of the 1962 conversations between the Masters of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock and acclaimed young French director Francois Truffaut is no less compelling.
The pair spent a week at Hitch’s Universal Studios home discussing their shared beloved artform. Four years later, their chats were turned into a book, Cinema According to Hitchcock, viewed by many as a seminal text for all aspiring filmmakers.
Indeed, the likes of David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Peter Bogdanovich are wheeled out here to share their enthusiasm for both the book and the two auteurs.
To director Jones’ (who has previously made documentaries on Italian cinema and Elia Kazan) credit though, this is no pointyheaded deep analysis of cinematic intricacies. Instead, it’s a rigorous and entertaining look at how Hitchcock managed to deliver his own delicate and dark obsessions in a package that thrilled audiences. ‘‘For the first time, he made cinema dangerous,’’ says Zodiac and Panic Room director Fincher.
Fans of Hitchcock will love the discussions on the psychology of Vertigo and the audience manipulation inherent in Psycho, while others will lap up his pronouncements that ‘‘actors are cattle’’ and ‘‘logic is dull’’.
With a visual style that includes home movies, stills taken during their conversations and film scenes, Hitchcock/Truffaut is entertaining and enlightening. - James Croot