Alfred Hitchcock
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Watch: An Exclusive Clip from Mark Cousins’s Forthcoming My Name is Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock, the director as well as self-analyzing critical observer, is evoked in the latest documentary from Mark Cousins, titled, appropriately, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock. During the pandemic lockdown, Cousins was invited by producer John Archer to make a film about the great director timed to the 100th anniversary of his debut film. Cousins set about watching all of Hitchcock’s films in chronological order, reading various critical book as well as works by his daughter and The Birds actress Tippi Hedren, all the while filling up notebooks of thoughts, reflections and details. That research and viewing produced a script, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 24, 2024 -
King Creole, To Catch a Thief and Gunsmoke: The Complete Series: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations
The conventional wisdom among cineastes is that Elvis Presley’s best movie was the Don Siegel Western Flaming Star (1960), mainly thanks to the fact that it was one of the few times the singer worked with an important auteur. While I bow to no one in my admiration of Siegel in general and Flaming Star in particular, it’s less a great Elvis movie than a great movie that has Elvis in it; for a terrific film by a terrific director that’s also a supercharged vehicle for what Presley did best, one need look no further than 1958’s King Creole, which […]
by Jim Hemphill on May 15, 2020 -
“It’s a Pretty Unambiguous Condemnation of a New Age Answer to Life’s Problems”: Writer/Director Todd Haynes on Safe
With Todd Haynes’s classic Safe now streaming on Criterion Channel (and seeming utterly prescient in its concerns), we’re reposting our Summer, 1995 cover story: Larry Gross’s interview with Haynes. — Editor Todd Haynes, director of Sundance Grand Prize Winner Poison and the underground classic Superstar, was inspired to make his latest feature, Safe, by his visceral response to New Age recovery therapists who tell the physically ill that they have made themselves sick, that they are responsible for their own suffering. Carol White, played superbly by Julianne Moore, is an archetypally banal homemaker in the San Fernando Valley who one […]
by Larry Gross on Apr 2, 2020 -
Highpoint, The Lodger and Zaza: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
One of the most flat-out entertaining action-comedies of the 1980s — and one of the most inexplicably obscure — is now available on Blu-ray thanks to the good people at indie label Code Red. Highpoint (1982) stars Richard Harris as an unemployed accountant who finds himself at the center of a wild adventure involving the CIA, organized crime and a wealthy family whose members include a brother who has faked his own death (Christopher Plummer) and a sister with whom Harris falls in love (Beverly D’Angelo). The increasingly elaborate plot is gleefully silly and spectacularly amusing, anchored by Harris’ witty […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jun 16, 2017 -
Watch: “Hitchcock & De Palma Split Screen Bloodbath”
Brian De Palma has been accused by detractors of being nothing more than a shameless Hitchcock imitator. Peet Gelderblom’s video essay puts that to the test, using De Palma’s beloved split screen to compare and contrast shots from both director’s films. Hitchcock is on the left, De Palma on the right.
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 8, 2016 -
Watch: “François Truffaut On Roberto Rossellini & Alfred Hitchcock”
Kent Jones’ 2015 documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut airs tonight, August 8, on HBO at 9 p.m. EST. Inspired by François Truffaut’s book of the same title from 1966, the film delves into the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Here is a clip from the AFI Harold Lloyd Master Seminar where Truffaut discusses how Hitchcock and Roberto Rossellini influenced his own work.
by Marc Nemcik on Aug 8, 2016 -
Watch: How Alfred Hitchcock Blocks a Scene
In this video, The Nerdwriter meticulously breaks down how the blocking and staging of a key expository scene from Vertigo, showing how choreography and camera placement serve as visual language for the themes that’ll dominate the movie. If you haven’t seen Vertigo, a) what’s up with that? b) spoilers galore.
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 28, 2016 -
“I Don’t Want to Make Audiovisual Historical Aids”: Kent Jones on Hitchcock/Truffaut
The formal title of Hitchcock/Truffaut (alternately Hitchcock and The Cinema According to Alfred Hitchcock) is a vexed question mooted by its famous title design: Hitchcock’s name on one side, François Truffaut’s on the other. First published in 1966 and revised before Truffaut’s death, it’s one of the most commonly name-checked starter texts for anyone looking to learn more about film. In a series of extensive, probing and relatively unguarded conversations, Truffaut guides Hitchcock through his work film-by-film. Illustrated by numerous stills (including one- and two-page layouts showing every shot choice from particularly famous/intense sequences, breaking them down in a lucid, teachable way), the book allows a director in total command […]
by Vadim Rizov on Dec 4, 2015 -
Hitchcock, Chaplin, Lions and Sexism: Tippi Hedren at the Viennale
When I meet Tippi Hedren in Vienna, we’re with a handful of other journalists for nearly an hour-long roundtable interview. There are less than ten of us, but after a series of interruptions, digressions, poking, and prodding, the pack feels more like an encroaching swarm. But Hedren is no stranger to this kind of journalistic interrogation. The recent Viennale programmed a tribute to her and invited Hedren from her home on the Shambala Preserve in California for her first visit to the capital of Austria. The animal rights activist also worked with both Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin, so Hedren’s presence at […]
by Taylor Hess on Nov 18, 2015 -
Watch: “Alfred Hitchcock’s Close-Ups”
Jorge Luengo Ruiz’s straightforwardly titled supercut breaks down Hitchcock’s close-ups (from Rebecca to Family Plot; the British films await their own supercut) by category: hands, money, letters, paintings. Brisk work.
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 27, 2015
