Books in Brief: Hitchcock

Hitchcock, by Francois Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, $10.00). Truffaut spoke no English, Hitchcock no French, and so betwixt them both this 42-page-long interview comes out sounding a bit like a UNESCO pamphlet. Truffaut’s thesis that Hitchcock belongs “among such artists of anxiety as Kafka, Dostoyevsky, and Poe” rather than with John Buchan, Saki, and Daphne du Maurier isn’t hard to accept in these days of auteur criticism—it’s very smooth going. Too smooth in fact: Truffaut’s critical sense offers no resistance to the luxury of his convictions even by way of dramatizing them. Consequently, Hitchcock the commercial entrepreneur, the confidence trickster, the star-maker all tend to elude him, and a token example of Hitchcock wit has him splashing happily in a sea of philosophical aperçus: A. H.: “I wanted to have in [in North by Northwest] a long dialogue scene between Cary Grant and one of the factory workers as they walk along the assembly line . . . Behind them a car is being assembled, piece by piece. Finally the car that we’ve seen being put together from a simple nut and bolt is complete, with gas and oil, and all ready to drive off the line. The two men look at it and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ Then they open the door to the car and out drops a corpse!” F.T.: “That’s a great idea! . . . That’s a perfect example of absolute nothingness!” Ah, the French. A valuable book nonetheless, with many fine photographs and stills.

AC

About the Author

A. Croce

Featured Tags

Hitchcock, by Francois Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, $10.00). Truffaut spoke no English, Hitchcock no French, and so betwixt them both this 42-page-long interview comes out sounding a bit like a UNESCO pamphlet. Truffaut’s thesis that Hitchcock belongs “among such artists of anxiety as Kafka, Dostoyevsky, and Poe” rather than with John Buchan, Saki, and Daphne du Maurier isn’t hard to accept in these days of auteur criticism—it’s very smooth going. Too smooth in fact: Truffaut’s critical sense offers no resistance to the luxury of his convictions even by way of dramatizing them. Consequently, Hitchcock the commercial entrepreneur, the confidence trickster, the star-maker all tend to elude him, and a token example of Hitchcock wit has him splashing happily in a sea of philosophical aperçus: A. H.: “I wanted to have in [in North by Northwest] a long dialogue scene between Cary Grant and one of the factory workers as they walk along the assembly line . . . Behind them a car is being assembled, piece by piece. Finally the car that we’ve seen being put together from a simple nut and bolt is complete, with gas and oil, and all ready to drive off the line. The two men look at it and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ Then they open the door to the car and out drops a corpse!” F.T.: “That’s a great idea! . . . That’s a perfect example of absolute nothingness!” Ah, the French. A valuable book nonetheless, with many fine photographs and stills.