ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
User avatar
Rita Hayworth
Posts: 10068
Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by Rita Hayworth »

RedRiver wrote:39 STEPS
YOUNG AND INNOCENT
SABOTEUR

I'm an easily defined Hitchcock fan. I like the adventures!
I also like these three too. Forgot about them too. Thanks Red River for sharing this list to us.
User avatar
movieman1957
Administrator
Posts: 5522
Joined: April 15th, 2007, 3:50 pm
Location: MD

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by movieman1957 »

Here is a story and picture of Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock.

http://news.moviefone.com/2012/04/19/an ... 37336.html
Chris

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
User avatar
MissGoddess
Posts: 5072
Joined: April 17th, 2007, 10:01 am
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by MissGoddess »

that's cool...i'm looking forward to it.
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
-- Will Rogers
User avatar
CineMaven
Posts: 3815
Joined: September 24th, 2007, 9:54 am
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by CineMaven »

Hopkins as Hitchcock?? Oooh, I'm there. And interesting casting with Johannson and Biel. I'll add that to my list. Smart move NOT to re-do "Psycho."
"You build my gallows high, baby."

http://www.megramsey.com
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by JackFavell »

I have to admit, as schlocky as biopics can be, I am thrilled that there is a resurgence of interest in classic film and film icons. It's got to be nothing but good for classic film when something like this is released, regardless of the quality of the picture. it leads people to the real thing. I just hope they get it right, and don't make him too much saint or sinner.

You can bet that anything with Anthony Hopkins is going to be at least interesting, they'll be putting money and talent out there for it, and I like Scarlett Johansson, who has professed a love of classic film in the past. I think Biel as Vera Miles might be good casting, there is something of the look there, but we'll have to wait and see. She and Johannson are starting to look similar, with all the lip enhancements and makeup tricks in Hollywood.


I realized recently in a discussion on the topic, that most of the best performances in biopics for me were more vocally reminiscent of the star or person portrayed, than whether or not they looked like the subject.
User avatar
JackFavell
Posts: 11926
Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by JackFavell »

It's OK to like the ones others consider the best! :D
User avatar
MissGoddess
Posts: 5072
Joined: April 17th, 2007, 10:01 am
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by MissGoddess »

For those who can get to London, the British Film Institute is going to hold an Alfred Hitchcock Festival in which all 58 of his existing films will be screened over the summer at various venues. I'm pea green with envy! Here is an article with details:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17743123

Hitch in London and Ford in Dublin. In my dreams.
:(
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
-- Will Rogers
User avatar
Rita Hayworth
Posts: 10068
Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by Rita Hayworth »

MissGoddess wrote:For those who can get to London, the British Film Institute is going to hold an Alfred Hitchcock Festival in which all 58 of his existing films will be screened over the summer at various venues. I'm pea green with envy! Here is an article with details:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17743123

Hitch in London and Ford in Dublin. In my dreams.
:(
I would go in a heartbeat ... MissGoddess ... I always wanted to go Hitchcock Film Festival too!
Can't afford it ... in two years yes ...

:( too :!:
User avatar
charliechaplinfan
Posts: 9040
Joined: January 15th, 2008, 9:49 am

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I'm so close but even I won't be able to go. One day the kids will be grown up and won't need me around so much, that's when I'm going to do these festivals. For now I'll have to content myself with his movies.

Has anyone mentioned I Confess and The Wrong Man I know they are considered to be amongst his best but I don'tthink of them as lesser movies, perhaps smaller budgets but the emphasis seems to be more on the actors with the famous Hitchcock women taking more of a back seat.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
User avatar
MissGoddess
Posts: 5072
Joined: April 17th, 2007, 10:01 am
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by MissGoddess »

Kingme, I know well the feeling. I really wanted to go to Ireland, especially now I see Maureen O'Hara will be there but a trip to Europe is way out of the question at this time.

Allison, I'm a fan of both movies. I Confess has risen in my admiration quite a bit recently, especially when I see how much care and subtlety there is in the direction. It is not as "showy" and seems a film Hitch wanted to do for personal and artistic reasons. Same with The Wrong Man. Both of these movies lack his customary humor and glamour and this can probably account for why they aren't mentioned as often. The Wrong Man is very much downbeat, getting progressively more harrowing so I admit I have to be in the mood for that, but I think Fonda and Vera Miles are just great in it. I feel as though I myself were caught up "in the system" and it was grinding me to pieces. Scary. I think I'd rather deal with an old woman in the basement.
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
-- Will Rogers
User avatar
MissGoddess
Posts: 5072
Joined: April 17th, 2007, 10:01 am
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by MissGoddess »

Director Guillermo del Toro is teaching a series of master classes on Hitch at the Toronto Film Festival this month, and below is an interesting interview by Toronto.com's Pete Howell with del Toro:

http://www.toronto.com/article/726099-- ... ock-howell


Guillermo del Toro takes the pad of paper and black Sharpie offered him and starts sketching a freehand picture of Alfred Hitchcock.

“It’s simple,” he says, deftly marking lines and curves as Hitch’s familiar round profile rises from the page.

“It’s just nine lines, or eight, depending on how much hair you want to give him.”

Simple for del Toro, maybe. The burly Mexican filmmaker is a trained artist, as well as being the director and/or writer of such popular fascinations as Pan’s Labyrinth, the two Hellboy films and the upcoming Pacific Rim and The Hobbit.

Hitchcock comes easy to him: del Toro, 47, admires the late British director so much, he wrote a book at age 23 analyzing all 53 of the rotund horror master’s feature films. The book, titled Hitchcock, had a cover drawing by del Toro that depicted him as a bird perched on Hitchcock’s cigar.

In his increasingly scant spare time — he’s just finished a year’s worth of filming in Toronto of Pacific Rim, the robots vs. monsters blockbuster due in summer 2013 — del Toro loves to teach and talk about Hitchcock.

This dark urge brings him to TIFF Bell Lightbox, beginning next week, with four Hitchcock films to screen over four nights: Notorious (May 7), Frenzy (May 8th), Shadow of a Doubt (May 15) and North by Northwest (May 16). Billed as Hitchcock master classes, del Toro will spend an hour introducing each film, followed by a screening and then an hour of Q&A. Details are at tiff.net.

If sketching Hitchcock in nine strokes seem bold, try boiling down the man’s oeuvre in just four films, which del Toro admits wasn’t so easy. Why didn’t he choose, say, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds or The Man Who Knew Too Much?

“I tried choosing movies that were very popular but not necessarily the most analyzed,” says del Toro.

“What I was going for was to try to encompass in a few nights the very boldly different flavours you get from Hitchcock.”

What does del Toro think modern movie audiences can learn from Hitchcock, who died at age 80 in 1980?

“Everything!” he says, without hesitation.

“There are scenes in his movies that seem simple, that are not as flamboyant as the big ones, but when you study the craft as a filmmaker, you realize how difficult they are.

“In Notorious, for example, there is that moment at the end with the staircase which I find incredibly thrilling and incredibly difficult: the one with the mother, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. It’s three tight shots, with people talking, and it’s like trying to explain a brush stroke from a painter’s point of view.”

It’s difficult at first to see a connection between the four films del Toro has chosen for his master classes. They’re drawn from the middle-to-late period of Hitchcock’s nearly 60-year career.

There are two serial-killer horrors (Shadow of aDoubt, Frenzy) and two spy thrillers (Notorious, North by Northwest). The latter two both star Cary Grant, arguably Hitchcock’s favourite actor, and the same two, respectively, feature two of his most famous blondes: Ingrid Bergman and Eva Marie Saint.

Shadow of a Doubt and Notorious respectively star two of Hitch’s most intriguing and sympathetic villains: Joseph Cotton and Claude Rains.

The grouping makes more sense when del Toro explains his rationale.

“I wanted to show Hitchcock as a spectacle master, a ringmaster of a big spectacle movie. So that’s North by Northwest, which it’s easy to see now as the precursor of the James Bond films — and did you know that Hitchcock turned down the chance to direct Dr. No?

“North by Northwest has a completely different flavour than Shadow of a Doubt, which is the intimate Hitchcock, the Jungian Hitchcock. He has a trilogy of what I call the ‘shadow’ movies: Suspicion, Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt. These three are very intimate, claustrophobic movies.

“Then I’ve included the most elegant of his movies, Notorious, and the most brutal and inelegant of his movies, which is Frenzy. So I thought these four movies would make a good sampler.”

Of the four, Frenzy is the one most likely to raise eyebrows. Released in 1972, it’s Hitchcock’s second-last film and the one that most anticipates the visceral horror of filmmakers to come. Although popular at time, it’s usually not ranked highly by Hitchcock scholars or fans. Del Toro seeks to change that attitude.

“Hitchcock was a very careful shepherd of the audience and I think he almost became prudish about certain things . . . but he became bolder as he got older, and that’s why Frenzy is such an interesting movie.

“It’s essentially the movie where he doesn’t care anymore, the darkest and sickest of his movies, in many ways. It’s the first one in his career where he shows a woman’s naked breast, and it’s on a corpse. It’s dead flesh! To this day, it’s shocking. It really looks like a forensic photograph.

“Frenzy is one of my favourites of Hitchcock, and precisely because it runs counter to his usual current. At the same time, it’s a supremely confident film.”

If he could, del Toro says he would talk about Hitchcock “every week” at TIFF. He loves Toronto and he’s sorry to be wrapping up Pacific Rim — which he contractually can’t talk about — and heading back to L.A.

Del Toro says you can’t really see Hitchcock’s influence on his own films, which lean more toward the fantastic and surreal. But it’s there: “I take his word as gospel, but I don’t think I ever tried to imitate anything he did. I try to use his words as advice, and his introspection and his wisdom as a guide.”

His dream is to do a 51-week stretch of Hitchcock master classes, teaching and discussing one of the master’s films each week for a year, with just a week taken off for Christmas. (He’d have to find a way to squeeze in the other two features of Hitch’s 53.)

You better believe that it’s going to happen someday.

“Hitchcock is a guy that I would love to continue encountering and articulating for myself, the rest of my life,” del Toro says.

“Not only is he incredibly influential, he’s a guy who is vital to know right now. I would love to continue doing it.”


Toronto Film Festival link:
http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiffb ... 4400001706
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
-- Will Rogers
User avatar
CineMaven
Posts: 3815
Joined: September 24th, 2007, 9:54 am
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by CineMaven »

April, if I had the courage...if I had the werewithal...if I totally through caution to the wind...I would love totake those DelToro classes up in Toronto. I've enjoyed his own films and think he would speak of Hitchcock in an intelligently stimulating and fun way. Darn it. I would have had to plan in advance for a trip like that...and I mean if it took traveling back & forth several times a month just to go to his class...

Where are you finding all this information? I've really truly got to read more.

Congrats to those lucky Canadians who'll get to see the Master's works taught by a very thoughtfull director.

Sigh!
"You build my gallows high, baby."

http://www.megramsey.com
User avatar
MissGoddess
Posts: 5072
Joined: April 17th, 2007, 10:01 am
Contact:

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by MissGoddess »

I have no idea where I first learned about del Toro's classes...I didn't bother to post anything at that time about it, now I wish I had so you would have had time to plan! :D
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
-- Will Rogers
User avatar
charliechaplinfan
Posts: 9040
Joined: January 15th, 2008, 9:49 am

Re: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Post by charliechaplinfan »

The humour is what is missing in The Wrong Man and I Confess, they almost feel like they've been made by a different director, his emphasis is different. I don't think Hitch was to pleased with I Confess, he was a life long Catholic, I wonder if that's what drew him to the original material. They've both stood the test of time just as well as his showier films.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
Post Reply