JANUARY 5, 2016
— PALM SPRINGS, CA
In 1973, I was a lowly film-school student at Columbia University, anxious to be taught by one of America’s greatest film critics, Andrew Sarris, who was the primary American proponent of the “auteur theory” — the idea that the director was the real author of the film. That theory was generated in the offices of Cahiers du Cinema, an influential French film magazine, whose contributors included such future filmmaking greats as Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut.
Truffaut, in particular, was a huge champion of the artistry in the work of Alfred Hitchcock, who in the States was largely dismissed as an entertainer and celebrity as the host of TV’s “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Truffaut began corresponding with Hitchcock, establishing a relationship which in 1962, resulted in a week-long series of interviews over cigars with the director at Universal Studios in Hollywood. The final product was the 1966 printing of “Hitchcock Truffaut,” a hugely influential book that I considered one of my Bibles in my time in film school.
What was remarkable about “Hitchcock Truffaut” was not only the frankness of the conversation, but the willingness to break down individual Hitchcock sequences shot-by-shot. It was film-school-in-a-book. Bringing “Hitchcock Truffaut” to the screen was a more challenging matter, since there was little film footage of the week-long interview. However, director Kent Jones got around this problem with the extensive audio recordings of the interviews, so that when Hitchcock or Truffaut mention a particular scene, Jones is able to show the scenes about which they are analyzing so that we can see the decisions that went into choosing particular shots.
Sorry, I know this is real film geek stuff, but “Hitchcock Truffaut” is one of the few films I’ve ever seen that makes film geek stuff relatable to a wide audience. After seeing this documentary, you will never be able to watch “Notorious,” “Rear Window,” “Vertigo” or “Psycho” in quite the same way. In fact, you may even look more closely at the directorial decisions that went into “The Hateful Eight” or “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in a different way. It has that effect.
For a movie called “Hitchcock Truffaut,” I wish there was a little more Truffaut in this. Granted, at the time of the interview, Truffaut was a rising star with just three films under his belt, but I would love to have heard Truffaut talk about how Hitchcock influenced his own work. But the footage you have is the footage you have.
Still, “Hitchcock Truffaut” is making its way across the country, and if it’s playing in your city, please make an effort to catch it. If it has come and gone, the film is produced by the HBO Documentary unit, so it should be appearing sometime in 2016 on the pay cable channel. It is SO worth your time.
GRADE: B+
