This is a fascinating look at Alfred Hitchcock stemming from Francois Truffaut's legendary interviews with him, as well as their correspondence and deep friendship afterwards. The book that Truffaut would write about it became a groundbreaking reference book for filmmakers in 1966, and really opened the world's eyes to the artistry in Hitchcock's films. Despite his fame, Hitchcock was known as more as a popular director, and did not get enough credit for his genius. Truffaut, 33 years younger and acclaimed for his first few films which were viewed as 'artistic', idolized the man, and helped change that. The documentary includes Hitchcock and Truffaut's thoughts about clips from his great films, as well as a few snippets of Truffaut's own brilliant work. Just as importantly, it includes commentary from Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdonavich, David Fincher, and many other American and French directors who were interviewed, providing real insight. Interesting to anyone who loves the art of cinema, and very interesting to those who love Hitchcock.

Another year, another Hitchcock documentary. I suppose I was expecting more from HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT before of all the high brow praise surrounding it, and the link to an early 1960s interview between the master and French director Francois Truffaut promised plenty. However, despite the title, the interview isn't really mentioned all that much and limited to only a few audio snippets linked along the way. I suppose they featured it predominantly to make this stand out from all the other Hitchcock documentaries over the years.Instead this documentary is the usual praise-fest in which various familiar faces show up and talk about how much of a genius Hitchcock was. Martin Scorsese features heavily alongside other notables like Wes Anderson and David Fincher. Most of the film looks at VERTIGO and PSYCHO and there are many clips utilised from both films. I've always loved PSYCHO but consider VERTIGO to be a bit overrated although it seems these pretentious high brow intellectuals love to analyse it to craft their own theories. Not my cup of tea really - I'm just a kind of 'sit back and enjoy' kind of guy and that's the reason I love Hitchcock, he knew how to entertain.

The Greatest Story Hitchcock Ever Told HITCHCOCK/Truffaut; Document, UK. 2015. director Kent Jones. 78 minutes. Viewed on Saturday afternoon in the little tent at Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival June 2016. Makes you want to read and devour the celebrated Truffaut book on Hitch ASAP. Fantastic film. Great shots of Hitchcock film posters. Sharply selected excerpts from Hitchcock films. Opens with a stark still shot of actress Sylvia Sidney in "Sabotage", 1936, and takes off from there on a whirlwind tour of the director's career and obliquely some, but not too much, of his personal life.Comments by Scorcese, Schrader, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovitch, Olivier Assayas, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, David Fincher and even young Jean-Luc Godard, among others. All indicating how they were influenced by Hitchcock one way or another. Kiyoshi speaks in Japanese, the French directors in French. Subtitles in Finnish (natch)...Many shots of Hitchcock as a young man in London, not yet as rocky-poly as he became later. Actually, not a bad looking if slightly portly young man on a roll. The importance of his wife in the background. Throughout his career he consulted with her regularly on all of his films although she was only credited officially in a few of the early ones. He is invited to Hollywood. Has no interest in Tinseltown but is itching to get into a fully equipped Hollywoid studio.One of the high points of the film is an extensive discussion of the making of PSYCHO, it's social impact in 1960 (people were literally screaming in the theaters!) and a detailed analysis of the construction of the infamously famous shower scene in which ultra sexy Janet Leigh is stabbed to death by ultra-psycho Anthony Perkins. This discussion of the making of that flabbergastingly powerful scene by the master himself could be excerpted and show on its own as a complete independent master class in filmmaking. Mr. Jones's magnificent 78 minute film about the making of a book is, in fact, a Master Class in documentary filmmaking, and on its own justified this trip to the upper reaches of Finland. Hats off -- Bravo! -- I want to own this film so I can watch it over and over endlessly.Among other things it reminds me of my own relationship to Hitchcock over the years. As a youth I saw many of his films routinely when they came out at my neighborhood theater but only thought of them as great entertainment, not as Great Art. It was only when I was a student of linguistics at UCLA that I met many students from the film department who worshiped him as a true artist and a creative genius that my views began to change.At the Pacific Film Archive in 1975 I saw every film in a complete Hitchcock retrospective arranged by Tom Luddy who later founded the Telluride film festival. It was at this time that I truly began to understand the difference between film as entertainment and film as art and how the two can merge without contradiction simultaneously satisfying the intellect as well as the need for fun and distraction.Truffaut himself is, of course, a major character in this film with live and still footage of Hitchcock as well. Many stills are shown from the three day interview in Hitchcock's office at Universal studios in 1962 which served as the basis for the book --with Truffaut, Hitchcock and a woman interpreter -- Truffaut didn't know English nor did Hitchcock know French. Yet the master recognized Truffaut as an upcoming talent and a worthy interviewer. The Point is made that they were of different generations but each was cognizant of film as art and respected the other. Although at the time of the interviews, 1962, Truffaut had only made three films, he was already recognized as a major new director of international importance. In a late ceremonial speech at the Hollywood Oscars Truffaut, underlining the respect in which Hitchcock was held in France as opposed to the cretin like lack of respect in America, Truffaut states a bit bluntly: "In America you call him "Hitch" ~~ in France we call him Monsieur Hitchcock!" --To the very end Monsieur Hitchcock wavered between seeing himself as primarily entertainer or primarily artist but there is no doubt that he was most interested in connecting with and manipulating the emotions of the audience. So, in a sense he was above all a master of mass psychology --another point subtly and effectively made in this exceptional study of an exceptional film career.Hitchcock dies on April 29, 1980 at age 81, and most surprisingly Truffaut less than four years later, on October 21, 1984, at the untimely age of 52 of a brain tumor. Hitch's career was over but Truffaut still had untold amounts of offerings in store. His book on Hitchcock and this film about the book and the man behind the book are now part of his deathless contribution to the history of Cinema.

Not the usual kind of biographical stuff about the celebrity's childhood and how he "rose to prominence" before he "fell from grace." In other words it's not an episode of "Biography." The object of attention is the book, "Cinema According to Hitchcock" by an admirer and fellow director Francois Truffaut, published in 1966.The film is roughly (but only roughly) chronological and the biographical material is limited but covers both Hitchcock and his interviewer. What makes it more interesting than it might be is that Truffaut was about half Hitchcock's age. They came from different traditions -- Hitch from the silents, when everything needed to be spelled out visually, and Truffaut from the French "New Wave" cinema of the early 1960s, when the rules were thrown out the window.Despite their different styles, they never clash. Truffaut is too good natured for that, and Hitch too distantly polite in his British way. Only once, in the book, not in the film, is there any sign of friction, when Truffaut suggests a different way Hitch might have handled a scene and he replies, "It seems you want me to write for an art house audience." Lots of excerpts from Hitch's movies and several from Truffaut's as well. A good deal of attention is paid to cinematic techniques -- the position of the camera, the lighting, the pattern of the images themselves. Some of the talking heads, and Hitchcock himself, come up with implications that to me seem questionable. I can't manage to convince myself that, while waiting for Kim Novack to emerge fully transformed from the bathroom, Jimmy Stewart is "getting an erection." In fact, I can't imagine Jimmy Stewart getting an erection at all.I suspect the program might disappoint some viewers who don't want to listen to the interlocutors making polite jokes. (Twice, Hitch is about to tell an anecdote and asks for the recorder to be turned off.) Nothing in the movie is critical of either Truffaut or Hitchock, who became an alcoholic during his last years.There are photos from the interview and excerpts from the recording, as well as a description of the surprising friendship that developed between the two. I thought it was all fascinating.