ALFRED HITCHCOCK

[Mr. Arkadin]

[youtube][/youtube]

Has anyone ever seen the great American Masters documentary about Selznick and Hitchcock?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181577/

Yeah, I've got it recorded on VHS somewhere. Was Selznick a good influence? I could go either way on that one. Selzinck would often demand certain things or subjects and Hitch would deliberately shoot the film in segments so that it could only be edited one way--Hitch's way. In that sense, you could say he learned how to use others ideas and make them his own. Are the characters deeper than his earlier efforts? That's debatable, because he wasn't making films like Rebecca or Suspicion at that time, which are more melodrama than thriller. There's also the fact that American acting is more overt and not as subtle as in the UK and Europe. I'm sure they both influenced one another and the proof is we have a lot of great films from their collaboration.

[RedRiver]

Certainly Hitch made some great films after the Selznick period. Is there a Selznick touch in PSYCHO? It's hard to see one. THE BIRDS defies comparison to anything. REAR WINDOW is a little more Hollywood. Big stars. Nail biting tension. NORTH BY NORTHWEST is the director's most mainstream adventure.

Neither REBECCA nor SUSPICION are among my favorites. SPELLBOUND intrigues me, but it has it's limitations. For me, the Selznick influence probably didn't help. Hitchcock was better served by his European background, and the prococative themes he found there.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Suspicion was not produced by Selznick, I was just relating the fact that Hitchcock was not really making that type of picture beforehand. To my knowledge they collaborated on:

Rebecca (1940)
Spellbound (1945)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)

I like all of these films, especially The Paradine Case, which a lot of people seem to hate. They fought tooth and nail over Rebecca and Spellbound, but Notorious was completely Hitchcock's film (and it shows). I don't know how much control was exerted over The Paradine Case. Hitch supposedly hated this film and you can feel his distance in the slow moving plot, which holds a lot of interesting visuals and little talk. Unlike Spellbound, where I felt Peck was miscast, he is fascinating here with a great foil in Alida Valli. Coburn and Laughton also add quite a bit to this cruel, somber film, which remains cold and unloved, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

[CineMaven]

It took me a couple of tries, but I do like "THE PARADINE CASE." I liked how Hitchcock subverted the court system. Love the enigmatic Valli, the lovesick Jourdan, could do without ice-queen Todd.

I think Hitch needed to breakaway from Selznick in order to tell his stories his way.

[JackFavell]

I believe Selznick was helpful to Hitch in many ways, however, I do think Hitch was on his way to those more character driven movies already before Rebecca came along.

When I think of Hitch's 1930's films, I agree that Sabotage breaks through with extraordinary insight into human nature but each movie after that is like a stair step up in that regard. Hitch furthered his mastery of character and sympathy with The Thirty Nine Steps and The Lady Vanishes, but these two are essentially comic romances, filmed from the outside in, so to speak. We sympathize with Donat or Lockwood, but are not quite inside their heads exactly, yet.

It seems to me that the shift in Rebecca could be due to Selznick's influence directly, but I think a great deal of the difference is because of the basic way the story is written. It's a first person narrative, giving Hitch the opportunity to really experiment with placing the audience in the main character's shoes - he has to! The story is written that way. Selznick seems to have been one to feel ultra personal about his projects, and maybe Hitch picked this up from him.

I's (the second Mrs. DeWinter's) thoughts get all tangled up with her emotions and she doesn't know what is happening to her. Hitch puts us right there inside her, feeling what she does. Granted, Selznick's money and ability to create those lavish sets and hire the best cast really work well for Hitch. Selznick's monetary influence is very clear - He was to free up Hitch so he had the time and money to work out far more intricate camera set ups - Hitch experimented with those set ups as a direct way of eliciting emotion and shock. Selznick I am sure had definite ideas about the plotting and mise en scene, but I think the quality that we are talking about (Hitch's new found emotional depth) was found most in the book, which fired Hitch's imagination.

When I think of Sabotage, The Thirty Nine Steps, or The Lady Vanishes, I think of people talking, sitting side by side, with an occasional zoom or turn of the camera focusing on an object, a window, or a person's face. There are all the standard shots that any director uses, over the shoulder, lots of two shots, etc. There's no place for the camera to go. Basically, these movies make me realize they were made on the cheap.

When I think of Rebecca, I think of swirling camera work, a constantly moving camera - gliding up stairs, coming around corners, especially when they get to Manderley. There are suddenly establishing shots of the different places, backgrounds that deserve a second look and Hitch always loved that rich European flavor, the upper class setting that fueled his imagination. I am not sure that he ever before had the largesse to create those Riviera type settings that inspired him. He's just like us, an armchair traveler, who, if he had the money, would indulge his senses fully in all the trappings of society, whether it be Monaco, or Manderley. So he plays into our own greed for beautiful things.

What I am basically saying is that there are MANY more shots in Rebecca than there are in any of his English films. Go to you tube and check out small clips of the movies, you'll see that Rebecca is just chock full, switching here and there from one view to another, each more breathtaking than the last. Hitch must have felt like a kid in a candy store! Compare to the bareness of the earlier films, which rely almost solely on dialogue to create pace.

[MissGoddess]

You must have eaten your CineWheaties because you have been on a streak, Wendy! Now I have to watch *Rebecca* just for the camera work. I've always been so engrossed in the story and the overall lushness of its beauty that I haven't ever even tried to focus on it technically. Inspiring writing!

[JackFavell]

Thanks, I have been eating healthier lately.

These posts have really got me thinking again, which is wonderful.

I just see Rebecca as so fluid compared to the earlier movies - the camera rarely stops moving, it never sits still, and when it does, he is cutting back and forth. When his camera stops, say, on the first meeting with Mrs, Danvers, he gives us a position that is slightly low, to make us feel uncomfortably small while looking at her. The lighting is also amazing, with tons of showy gobos used to show, oh, reflected water on Joan Fontaine's back, or the pattern of soft leaves over the corner of a set. The whole thing gives a richness to the movie that Hitch simply thrives in. The sheer number of rooms shown at Manderley allows for Hitch to create more and more set-ups, more movement, literally walking us through doors, and down hallways, circling around Joan Fontaine in such a way as to create more drama and focus on how small 'I' seems. I think Hitch never really went back to making movies shot as an outsider, he found the voice of his character through those lush, big settings where his camera could move and in those numerous subjective set ups. He was then able to translate that subjectivity to smaller and smaller settings again, which was a great deal of fun for him to work out.

[MissGoddess]

Wendy,
It has been maybe two or three months since I last watched Rebecca, but you totally brought forth some scenes exactly as I remember. What you say about the way Hitch brilliantly depicts Mrs. DeWinter as this vulnerable little thing dwarfed by her new life, it's as if all her insecurities are manifest through camera and mis-en-scene, but not in an exagerrated way, no, the Germanic Expressionism has given way to a much subtler more integrated style. I love how you mention the dappled sunlight streaming through Manderly's ancient panes...all the light seems filtered somehow for the interiors, just as you'd imagine a dim old mansion like that.

I'm even crazy about the miniature set in the opening. Manderly looms so large in my imagination from the book that nothing "real" could compare. Somehow, the fancifulness of the miniature---with that brilliant cloud-shadow effect, straight out of the novel---seems closer to DuMaurier's conception than if they'd gone and filmed exteriors at Chatsworth or some other real stately home.

You are so right about the spot-on "subjectivity" of this movie and I like your observation that this is something Hitchcock absorbed readily. It's a wonderful classic, deserving of its Best Picture honor, and a credit to everyone involved in it. Including old Ben...I just love Leonard Carey's performance. The whole cast----when I read the novel, I hear their voices as the characters, just like when reading Gone with the Wind.

[JackFavell]

I agree about the miniature at the beginning! It's like some fantastic fairy tale castle... which is really what Rebecca is - a fairy tale gone horribly wrong. I think it's Hitch working out his own wish for better things, a better more beautiful life - He's rationalizing, showing us (and himself) that we should be glad we don't always get everything we wish for.

But I'd settle for a big old country house.

[mongoII]

Since I'm also a Hitchcock fan, I will list some of my favorite films here:

"STRANGERS ON A TRAIN"
"PSYCHO"
"REAR WINDOW"
"LIFEBOAT"
"NOTORIOUS"
"TORN CURTAIN"
"FRENZY"
"SHADOW OF A DOUBT"
"SABOTEUR" (1942)
"THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH" (1956)

[MissGoddess]

Thanks for sharing your list, Mongo. Another fan of Lifeboat, I'm glad to see that.

[JackFavell]

Mongo, your list has a lot of my favorites on it! My top favorites are

Shadow of a Doubt
Strangers on a Train
Lifeboat
Saboteur
Psycho
Sabotage
Rebecca (after watching this one over again, it's moving back up my list)
The Thirty Nine Steps
Vertigo
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
The Lady Vanishes
The Trouble with Harry
Stage Fright

[RedRiver]

39 STEPS
YOUNG AND INNOCENT
SABOTEUR

I'm an easily defined Hitchcock fan. I like the adventures!

[JackFavell]

I like them too, Red. My favorites are the ones where human nature turns out to be essentially good, despite some evidence to the contrary, as in Saboteur.

Oh dang, I forgot Foreign Correspondent!