Talk:Alfred Hitchcock
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- I hate to be a spoilsport, but I don't consider this article to be very well-written at all, let alone good enough to be a "featured article". See my comments below. I made those comments several months ago, and no one has responded, nor have any of the concerns I raised really been addressed or corrected in the article. I still stand by those comments and criticisms. This article is in desperate need of overhaul. There are so many things wrong with it I feel like I don't even know where to start without practically rewriting the whole thing from scratch (keeping small portions intact, though). Since it's been several months since I made my original criticisms, and since virtually nothing has been done to address any of the criticisms, I'm tempted to do this. Revolver 19:31, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- UPDATE: I hate to be a spoilsport again, but despite minor and occasional improvements, I still feel the majority of my criticisms below remain unaddressed and the article is far below "featured article" quality. Really, I would give it about a C+ in freshman high school English class. I've given almost a FULL YEAR for something to be done about this, so again I'm tempted to delete and/or completely rewrite entire sections, or be glad to see someone else do this. Really, we can do a lot better. Revolver 02:08, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Curious if every single movie Hitchcock made needs to be linked to a review/remark. Many of his silent movies aren't listed, but so what? (Noticed this with other articles too. "Fantastic" magazine with 13 links? Nah, it's just hooked to an empty link 13 times in two articles...) Wikipedia could get bogged down in minutia if every single actor, actress, key grip and best boy needs to given a "full share."
No one is suggesting every key grip or best boy gets their own separate link. But I don't think having an article written for most (or even every) Hitchcock movie is going overboard, considering he is arguably the most prodigous and influential director in film history, and there is more written on Hitchcock than on any other director (at least 200 in print in English alone). Even many of his lesser well-known films and overlooked films are now receiving a good deal of popular and critical attention (e.g. Rich and Strange, Young and Innocent, Rope, The Trouble With Harry, Family Plot).
Egospark ----------
In Alfred Hitchcock's Rope we say it was "shot on a single set" but in this article we say "a film shot entirely from one place, and one point of view" and then go on to say things that imply differently. It's been a long time since I saw it, so maybe someone can clear this up. Ortolan88
PS -- Near useless information that may make it into the wikipedia someday: the part of the composer in Rear Window is played by Ross Bagdasarian, nephew of William Saroyan and better known as David Seville, creator of the Chipmunks.
- I wish I had a good source for that Bergman quote. I am almost certain it came from a review of Frenzy by John Simon in the New Leader. There was some ghastly food in Frenzy, prepared by the policeman's wife, who had taken up gourmet cooking, and that, plus the nude body in the potatoes, was probably what evoked the quote. Ortolan88
- The wife in Frenzy cooked some of the least appetizing food I've ever scene; and of course the potato truck scene, with the onset of rigor mortis, was something to write home about. ;-) But I wonder if what provoked the quote might have been the necktie business with the man saying "lovely. lovely. lovely." --KQ
The Truffaut book is full of inaccuracies. IIRC, one of them was that the woman in Rebecca (not Rebecca, the servant) was never seen moving, but was always suddenly there beside Rebecca. Completely ridiculous. Another of them had to do with how Hitch wanted the doorknobs high on the door to make Rebecca look small, when, if it did do that, then of course it made everyone else look small also. I can't find my notes from class, else I'd add a short bit giving the reader a caveat. Koyaanis Qatsi
The article says:
- In To Catch a Thief, glamorous blonde Grace Kelly is a cat burglar.
I don't think this is correct. Grace Kelly plays Frances Stevens, the American heiress. She talks about committing thefts, but doesn't actualy do one, and when she's confronted with a real theft, she's horified and angry. The cat burglar is played by Brigitte Auber.
SOME BRUTALLY HONEST COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS:
Here are some thoughts that came to my mind reading the Hitchcock article. They may sound harsh at times, I'm just being honest. I'd like to contribute to and/or edit this article, but there were so many things I saw that I might want to change or completely overhaul, that I thought it would be best to raise things in the talk page first.
1. The article as a whole seems rather disjointed. There doesn't seem to be any real logic as to why one section follows another. All of the "period" parts could be drawn together together into a single overview of his film career. The other parts need to be reorganized by theme or motive. Instead of several short, small pieces, organize into a handful of overarching aspects (e.g. biography/history, collaborators and actors, artistic themes, criticism, and impact and influence on film).
2. A lot of the bits in this article are just anecdotes, jokes, and urban legends. These are fine, I guess, but after a while it gives the impression of a fanzine. Moreover, many of the anecdotes and jokes are KNOWN not to be true, and simply presenting them as anecdotes is the equivalent of spreading gossip in an article that is supposed to be factually accurate or faithful.
3. The article gives a lot of the standard facts but doesn't really go into much depth as to why Hitchcock is so important as a FILMmaker, i.e. there is very little mention of the enormous impact of German expressionism on his filmmaking, and how he took this style of filmmaking and developed it into a worldwide form. Nor is there any real discussion of how he continually used point-of-view shots, and esp. alternating point-of-view shots, to allow the viewer to identify with a character. There is also a TON of stuff out there on Hitchcock criticism, maybe this could form a separate article, say Hitchcock criticism.
4. Hitchcock didn't really plan every single second of every movie before shooting; although he did plan probably more than any other direction, the notion that he storyboarded every single shot before filming is a myth. (See "Hitchcock at Work") Also, despite the "cattle" line, he was well-liked personally by many actors, actresses, and others who worked with him. In fact, when Donald Spoto's "biography" of Hitch came out painting him in a bad light (forever morose, depressed, sexually deviant, miscreant), numerous actor friends came forward to express their disagreement.
5. Truffaut's interview is essential reading, but hardly the "most intriguing insight" into his work. Modern criticism and analysis has given a far richer and more probing interpretation. Truffaut's interview was important mainly for its mere existence -- just the idea that the popular films of Hitch were worth "serious scrutiny" or worthy of being judged as "art" was very revolutionary. But for serious criticism, much better is available now. ("Hitchcock at Work", "The Hitchcock Murders", "Hitchcock's Films Revisited", etc.)
6. We need some mention of ALMA!!! Revolver
- In my opinion, the body of the article should not name any film that is not considered major, either for its merit or for technical innovation. Take Paradine Case for instance -- it gets listed and then we learn who it starred and that it was never well-regarded. And result is it's hard to find Notorious, one of H's best films. So why not leave Paradine for the list at bottom, then? 68.1.174.46 14:48, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Note to Koyaanis Qatsi (andybody else who's interested). The part of Rebecca in the film of the same name was played by ... NOBODY. She never appears in the movie AT ALL, not even in a flashback. Rebecca was the name of the previous wife of Max de Winter (played by Laurence Olivier), and it is her memory and the loyalty still shown to her by the housekeeper Mrs Danvers (played by Dame Judith Anderson) that Max's new wife (played by Joan Fontaine) has such a struggle with. Cheers JackofOz 02:34, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
devout Catholic
The citation for this is James Bemis, "Alfred Hitchcock: Spiritual Director?" in The Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture, Vol. 12, No. 4, Fall 2003, p. 72. The citation given in the article is "Patricia Hitchcock interview with American Movie Classics cable channel, June 13, 2000." Patricia Hitchcock is his daughter. I am not sure of the best location for this piece of information. However, it is important to mention his faith, as it no doubt guided his choices; also, it is an important addition to merely stating that he grew up in an Irish Catholic household. Many people grow up in a Catholic household without maintaining themselves in that faith. Trc | [msg] 08:46, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I don't dispute the factual accuracy of what you added; as far as I know, his belief and devotion to being Catholic is a well-established fact. I'm just not sure the 3rd or 4th sentence is the best place for it. It's not that I don't think it's important; just that it doesn't accomplish much to just say this, without explaining a bit how that affected his filmmaking. But, definitely there should be more coverage of this in the article. Revolver 19:24, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
In Psycho, Norman selects room one because there's a hole in the wall.
- So there can only be one reason why a writer or director makes a choice like that? Point noted. Likewise, Huck and Jim are on the river because that's the fastest mode of travel, so there can't be anything symbolic about the river. 68.1.174.46 14:44, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Re-writing of early career symopsis
The efforts of the gentleman who re-wrote the section on the early history of Hitchcock's career is appreciated; but personally I feel that this section is now too much of a laundry list; it's less of a piece of "writing" than it is a checklist that sounds like "He made this, then this, then this and this and this." I'd like to revert the previous part of this section, which I will include here, though since there have been several edits since then I'd like to get some opinions on the change -- either in favor of, or against.
Previous text:
Pre-war British career
As a major talent in a new industry with plenty of opportunity, he rose quickly. His first important film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog was released in 1927. In it, an attractive blonde is murdered, and the new lodger in a nearby apartment falls under heavy suspicion. He is, in fact, innocent of the crime.
Downhill (1927) portrayed another innocent man accused, this time a young man accused of a theft at his school and thrown out of his house as a result. The man later has an affair with an older woman, and in the morning, as she wakes in their bed of passion, he sees her aged face, while people outside carry a coffin past their window. Hitchcock would repeatedly return in his films to the notion that sex and death are linked.
Hitchcock developed his unique style of storytelling during the 1930s, reaching the peak of his British filmmaking career with The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). By this time, he had caught the attention of Hollywood, and was invited to make films in America.
Hollywood
David O. Selznick pursued Hitchcock to make some Hollywood films. With Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American film, and he worked in America for the rest of his career. Rebecca evokes the fears of a naive young bride who enters a great English country home and must grapple with the legacy of the dead woman who was her husband's first wife. The droll touches of humor are still there in his American work, but suspense became his trademark.