Hitchcock forgotten - for Store Hadji

[ChristopherBanks]

Just transposing this from the other mammoth thread...

When and where did Welles make the comment about Hitchcock's work being forgotten by the mid 21st century? What was the basis for this comment?

I did rewatch "The Birds" again recently, mainly because I'd just been to see "Signs" (pretty shite, BTW) and saw so many bits that had been ripped off from it. I don't think it has aged particularly well, I was disappointed - mind you, I think I was about 9 when I last saw it.

[jaime marzol]

...............

i liked the birds, loved, loved, loved rear window, which is in my top 10 list. loved north by northwest. loved frenzy, love reading hitch interviews, and watching any of his films that come on. lifeboat is excellent. the 39 steps, very dated, but exxcellent. the dated part didn't bother me. the lady vanishes is also dated but i liked it a lot.

bad rear projection? horrible rear projection. it was just a part of how they had to do it to be able to continue using the big boy's tools. talk about awfull rear projection, look at another of my favorite pictures, stagecoach. they are terrible, but it's still a great picture.

it's one of those things you have to look past to enjoy the other tasty moments that await you. lifeboat. an entire movie on a small boat and it never got vissually boring.

i'm watching north by north west, and that scene come on with grant drunk, driving the car, and that god aaaaawfull job of rear projection. i was able to justify it in my mind to be able to move on, "grant was drunk, he had tunnel vision. i've been that drunk before and had tunnel vision that looked just like that. aaah, that hitch is a genius!"

i do enjoy his films because they are visually challanging.

[jaime marzol]

...............

i do think hitch was extremely envious of welles. poor welles, who never had a job, or money. hitch having a charmed life, and being envious of welles is such a statement on just plain human dissatisfaction.

some people don't handle success well. herrmann was a composer and desperately wanted to be a conductor, he was at the top of his heap, and was an angry man his entire life, bad mouthing friends, being a real snot.

[Welles Fan]

I think I liked The Birds when I first saw it as a kid, because it scared me. These days, it does nothing for me. Most of the great Hitchcock thrillers have underlying themes which make them interesting- Farley Granger is falsely accused of killing his wife in Strangers on a Train, but subconsciously, he wanted her dead; likewise Jon Finch in Frenzy, wanting to be free of a wife who is conveniently murdered; James Stewart in Rear Window thinks he sees his neghbor do away with his nagging wife: does he imagine it because he wants to rid (amazingly) of the nagging Grace Kelly? The "innocent heroes" share some of the guilt of the villains in Hitchcock's richest films.

So what is The Birds supposed to be about? All I get is that it is about birds going apeshit and terrorizing a placid community. Is it about how our humdrum lives can be torn about by the unexpected? Is it an allegory about a world suddenly confronted with a 9-11 type event? I really don't know. I do think that since it is, to an extent, a special effects film, the "cheezy" effects are more jarring than in his other thrillers.

As to the "cheezy effects"-I guess since I (and I suspect many here) was brought up on films from the 30's-60's, I learned that my suspension of disbelief had to kick in to enjoy lots of movies. To this day, I never tire of the 1940 version of The Thief of Bagdad with Sabu. Sure, some of the effects, notably Rex Ingram as the Genie, are hopelessly dated, but I dout the story will ever be served better than it was then (and Disney's Alladdin was highly indepted to it).

I have learned through time to ignore the back projection in Hitch's films as no more an annoyance than fake scenery in a play. Hitch obviously felt that the routine shots that employed back projection were not all that important.

[ChristopherBanks]

Rear projection doesn't bother me in the main, either. It does get jarring in a picture like "The Man Who Knew Too Much", however, when one scene walking outside in a street is cobbled together from part-location, part-projection.

I do think the later stuff gets an unfair bad rap..."Frenzy" is great, and I have an incredible soft spot for "Family Plot", although I think I could possibly be the only person in the world in that fan club.

[Peter Tonguette]

IIRC, Welles says he admires Hitchcock's work in "This Is Orson Welles." He says his favorite film of Hitchcock's American period is "Shadow of a Doubt," though he goes on to say something to the effect that, despite Hitchcock's obvious command of film grammar, he doesn't know if he "likes people" that much.

But "The 39 Steps," "Notorious," "Rear Window," "Vertigo," "North by Northwest," and, to echo Christopher, the criminally underrated "Family Plot"... Hitchcock was a Great Filmmaker.

Peter

[Welles Fan]

Peter, I like your list, though I'd add Strangers on a Train to it.

Probably Psycho, too.

I have not seen Family Plot for many years, but I do remember enjoying it as a sort of comedic, Trouble With Harry-type film. I did not care much for The Birds and Marnie, and scarcely consider Topaz to be a Hitchcock film at all. I think Frenzy was a marvelous return to his old form, and Family Plot a quite entertaining comedy/mystery to go out on.

[ChristopherBanks]

I was really keen to get "Shadow of a Doubt" because of Joseph Cotten, but then was incredibly disappointed by it. I didn't really feel that sorry for the family, Teresa Wright's sudden romantic attachment to the detective just didn't work for me, and topped off with an irritating bombastic score.

I don't really like "Notorious" either, which seems to be considered a classic by everyone else in the world. If we're going to talk excessive rear projection, I think this one takes the cake. What I found most annoying (besides once again, the score, by RKO hackmeister Roy Webb) was the fact that the story had such scale, but was done so cheaply that I felt cheated. I don't think there's a single location shot involving the actors.

It's very difficult to get involved in a suspense story when it's so obvious that nearly half of it involves the actors standing in front of a screen.

[Harvey Chartrand]

I think Hitchcock is a damn sight more remembered than John Ford. I read Juan Cobos's 1965 interview with Welles in Cahiers du Cinéma and the Great One predicted that Ford would endure and Hitchcock would date rather quickly and disappear off the cultural radar screen.
Instead, it is John Ford who is becoming forgotten.
Hitchcock's greatest film is I Confess, with Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden and Gilles Pelletier. Brilliant in every respect, from Robert Burks' brooding b&w cinematography to Dimitri Tiomkin's moving score.
Hitchcock's TV series continue to be broadcast all over the world, and his portly presence is being introduced to new generations on a number of specialty cable and satellite TV networks. Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine is still published and will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Hitchcock's genius for self-promotion is working to this day, and his profile is higher than ever 22 years after he went to meet his maker. Whereas Ford is becoming a footnote in cinematic history. I mean, John Ford — what's up with that? Hell, I thought Delmer Daves' 3:10 to Yuma was better than anything Ford ever directed. Ditto William Wyler's The Big Country.

As for Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon, he gave Kubrick what he wanted. I usually can't stand O'Neal, but he was right for that role (not bad in The Driver, either). In Barry Lyndon, the actors behaved in the peculiar and stoic fashion of people of that era — the 18th century. Kubrick insisted that every cast member shed all traces of 20th century mannerisms. I think that is one reason why audiences find Barry Lyndon so alienating. They just can't relate to the peculiar social customs and behavior. Barry Lyndon is a brilliant film that demands a lot from its audience, as do most of Welles' films as a director. You definitely have to meet Barry Lyndon halfway.

[Welles Fan]

I mean, John Ford — what's up with that? Hell, I thought Delmer Daves' 3:10 to Yuma was better than anything Ford ever directed. Ditto William Wyler's The Big Country.

I hate to disagree, but I'm 180º from you on this. I enjoy 310 to Yuma (and a lot of Delmer Daves and Glenn Ford), but I don't consider it to be in the league of My Darling Clementine, The Searchers, or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Not to mention The Grapes of Wrath and The Quiet MAn (not westerns, but great Ford films among many other great films). If The Big Country did not have the western music score to end all western music scores, it would IMO be known like the 1937 I, Claudius as the epic that never was. At 166 minutes, there's a lot of running time and very little western there (even though I don't think it a great western, I do enjoy bits of it).

I think part of the problem is that Ford basically was at his apex in 1956 with The Searchers, and lost his touch shortly after that. Hitchcock still had some of his very best work still ahead of him at this time. Ford became irrelevant at the time Hitch was hitting his stride.

Also strange is how Hitchcock was thought of as merely a showman in his own day but is now regarded as a genius.

[jaime marzol]

ford is my second favorite director after welles. he has sort of dissappeared, and hitch still floats around. there is even a hitchcock thing at universal in orlando. they recreate the stabbing scene for a group of google eyed tourists, then you walk aroung a sort of hitch museum with the minatures from many of his films. they sell you hitch postcards, hitch books, hitch t-shirts. you name it, they have it. even a hitch clapboard.

i'm still waiting for the john ford ride and exhibit. they will drag a google eyed tourist under the stagecoach.

[Harvey Chartrand]

That's strange, Jaime. I'll make a point of visiting that Hitchcock pavilion someday. I am reminded that François Truffaut once referred to "l'univers hitchcockien" as "a Disneyland for grown-ups."

The Museum of Modern Art in Montreal had a terrific show last year on Alfred Hitchcock and the art that influenced him (and how Hitchcock influenced art). The exhibition included a full-scale reproduction of Janet Leigh's motel room from Psycho, complete with the nude figure of a woman standing behind the shower curtain. Very weird feeling to see the room in colour.

[ChristopherBanks]

...............

i do think hitch was extremely envious of welles. poor welles, who never had a job, or money. hitch having a charmed life, and being envious of welles is such a statement on just plain human dissatisfaction.

Comparatively, Hitch did have it easy.

But it wasn't all plain sailing - when he started to go off the boil box office-wise in the sixties, Universal refused proposals for a number of interesting films he wanted to make, all of which added up to the making of the much-reviled "Topaz", a film Hitch really had no interest in making.

[LA]

Starting with the Hitchcock stuff:

Rear projection has never bothered me either.

I agree with Peter's list, and Welles Fan's additions. To be honest, I've liked every Hitchcock film I've yet seen, with the possible exception of Topaz , but I liked the final shot of that, showing a newspaper being left on a bench: after all the characters have done, their actions have become yesterday's news. This may be the kind of thing Welles means when he says he's not sure if Hitchcock likes people very much, but that kind of sly humour, poking fun at characters, and his way of showing the flaws in them, is one of the reasons I like Hitchcock's stuff.

There are one or two Hitchcock films that don't get the attention they deserve, IMHO, Rope and The Wrong Man particularly, the latter being very uncharactistic, but interesting.

I think The Birds and Marnie would be seen in a different light if Hitchcock hadn't already been known for his particular brand of thriller: those two seem very like the trademarked "Hitch" style at moments, but they have an unusual, dreamlike quality all their own (particularly Marnie ). Was this intentional? I don't know, maybe I'm justifying their flaws, but they worked for me.

Interesting use of colour in The Birds , loved the ending. Marnie has that interesting, dreamlike atmosphere which occured in a slightly more traditional way in The Birds , and the nastiness and irrationality by turns of the main characters could be thought of as a breaking-through of what Hitchcock had been showing recurrently in his films for as long as he'd been making them: in his universe, everyone is guilty (this again may be what Welles detected).

Overall, one of the things I like most about Hitchcock is the sense of each film being able to reflect on the others. For example, Hitchcock was and is seen as a director whose style relied heavily on the editing: Rope shows that that style could work in the absense of true editing. North By Northwest is all the more interesting when you realise that that trademarked Hitchcock style (light, tongue-in-cheek humour and "incidents") was about to take an extended holiday: that feel wouldn't really return until Family Plot , everything between, with the exception of Topaz , is in one way or another an experiment in tone compared to the traditional Hitch style. Or am I reading too much planning into a series of commercial miscalculations? I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

Now, onto Ford...

Re: Ford, I can see that he might not appeal to some people, I don't like every Ford film I've seen. The one I can immediately remember not having liked is They Were Expendable . Too sentimental about unsympathetic characters (or rather, about characters I found unsympathetic), too padded. I'm sure it may be someone's favorite Ford though.

But I wasn't aware John Ford had been forgotten, mind you. Who hasn't heard of him? If we're talking about forgotten filmmakers, or filmmakers in danger of being forgotten, I would nominate Howard Hawks. The difficulty is perhaps Hawks' own down-to-earthness.

[Van Davis]

I feel Hitchcock and Welles had alot in common when it came to the role women played in their films. To me the Birds is not about birds at all but rather the deconstructing breakdown of a solid woman. In most Hitchcock films women start off pristine and polished but end up being undone by their own hand. Welles shared this theme to some extent with Hitchcock; Kane and The Lady from Shanghai are good examples. My favorite Hitchcock film is Rebecca followed closely by the Birds and Spellbound.