Hitchcock \ Truffaut Page #4

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HITCHCOCK:
Not a lot, no.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING)

WOMAN:
One senses in your work

the importance of dreams.

HYYCHCOCK:

Daydreams, probably.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING)

HYYCHCOCK:
Well, that's

probably me within myself.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING)

Look.

HYYCHCOCK:

I think it occurs

because I am never satisfied

with the ordinary.

I can't do well

with the ordinary.

SCHRADER:
Hitchcock keeps referring

to these, sort of, fetish objects.

Keys and handcuffs

and ropes and stuff,

which are kind of

dream objects

which have a kind of

Freudian weight to them.

(ASSAYAS SPEAKING FRENCH)

(DESPLECHIN SPEAKING FRENCH)

HITCHCOCK:
Silent pictures are

the pure motion picture form.

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

There was no need to

abandon the technique

of the pure motion picture

the way it was abandoned

when the sound came in.

The craft was of course developed

in silent cinema first.

So the whole idea was,

"How do I tell the story

without any dialogue?"

This is a brilliant way to train

someone to think visually,

and part of the reason

the films have

that incredible

dream-like feeling.

(DESPLECHIN SPEAKING FRENCH)

UNKLATER". So many Hitchcock

films would work silently.

You could watch a Hitchcock film

without any dialogue or music

and I think you'd still get a

really high percentage of it.

(DESPLECHIN SPEAKING FRENCH)

SCORSESE:
They're meant

to achieve a realism,

but it's more of a...

How should I put this?

Spirit of realism. (CHUCKLING)

It isn't objective.

(DESPLECHIN SPEAKING FRENCH)

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HYYCHCOCK:
Yes, but you are

dealing with the point of view

of an emotional man.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING)

HYYCHCOCK:
I was intrigued with

the effort to create a woman...

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

...after another in

the image of a dead woman.

FINCHER:
If you think that you can

hide what your interests are,

what your prurient

interests are,

what your noble

interests are,

what your

fascinations are...

If you think you can

hide that in your work

as a film director,

you're nuts, you know.

And I think that he was one

of the first guys who said,

"I'm gonna go with it."

(CHUCKLES) "I'm just going to...

"I'm gonna be...

I gotta be me."

And in the case

of his best work,

there is a more direct

umbilicus to his subconscious.

Certainly I think

that is true of Vertigo.

HYYCHCOCK:
The sex

psychological side is that...

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

...you have a man

creating a sex image,

but he can't

go to bed with her

until he's got her back to the

thing he wants to go to bed with.

It should be back from your

face and pinned at the neck.

I told her that.

I told you that.

We tried it.

HYYCHCOCK:

Or metaphorically indulged

in a form of necrophilia.

That's what it really was.

Please, Judy.

HYYCHCOCK:
The thing you see

that I liked and felt most

when she came back from

having her hair made blond

and it wasn't up.

This means she has stripped, but

won't take her knickers off.

(TRUFFAUT CHUCKLES)

You see.

She says all right, and she goes

into the bath and he is waiting.

He's waiting for the

woman to undress,

and come out nude, ready for him-

(VVCDIVIAN CONTINUES SPEAKING)

(DOOR OPENS)

HYYCHCOCK:
And while he was looking at

that door, he was getting an erection.

We will now tell a story.

Shut the machine off.

What I love about Vertigo

is just, it's so perverted.

It's just so perverted.

Here, Judy, drink this straight down.

Just like medicine.

Why are you doing this?

What good will it do?

I've always felt that the most

interesting view of Vertigo

would be her story.

The color of your hair.

Judy, please,

it can't matter to you!

FINCHER:
And it's almost more honest

than the guy's point of view.

If...

If I let you change me,

will that do it?

FINCHER:
I guess taking

Scottie's point of view was...

Will you love me?

FINCHER:
...Hitchcock's

point of view.

Yes.

Fine.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HYYCHCOCK:
Yes,

I enjoyed it, yes.

You know, I had Vera Miles

tested and costumed.

We were ready to go with her.

She went pregnant,

and that was

going to be the part

that I was going

to bring her out.

She was under contract to me.

But I lost interest.

I couldn't get the rhythm going

again with her. Silly girl.

SCHRADER:
I don't think

he would have been able

to take Vera Miles

into that Judy place.

Into that real,

kind of, a slutty place.

And so I think that he surmounted

his restriction in that way.

I saw the film

fairly early in my life

as a film person and I

saw it through Marty.

SCORSESE:
It became

a lost film, so to speak.

I can tell you that all the

filmmakers in the '70s

were trying to find

copies of it.

Some people had 16s.

So it became a picture

we were looking for.

SCHRADER:
It was a kind of

forbidden document,

a kind of sacred document that only

certain insiders had privilege to.

Which is kind of

hard to imagine

in today's world of indiscriminate

access to virtually everything.

So, the number of people who had

seen Vertigo weren't that many.

Hitchcock wasn't

talking about it that much

because it wasn't

very successful.

(HEAVY BREATHING)

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HYYCHCOCK:

The hole in the story.

The husband who pushed

his wife off the tower.

How did he know that Stewart wasn't

going to run up those stairs?

GRAY:
In the case of Vertigo,

the machinations

of the plot...

Well, they do work,

they function,

and they function

rather brilliantly,

but the subtext

seems to be bubbling up

almost to the point

where it's text.

SCORSESE:
I can't really say

that I believe the plot.

And I don't take any

of the story seriously.

I mean, as a

"realistic story."

So the plot is just a line

that you could hang things on.

And the things that

he hangs on there

are all aspects of,

you know, cinema poetry.

And that's a film

that I can't really tell

where things start and end.

I don't care.

And when he's following her

in the streets in the car,

what is he looking for?

What is he looking for?

GRAY:
The frustration

is on his face.

And you're like, "Where is

this going?" And you realize,

"No, that's totally connected

to who he is in the film."

SCORSESE:
The city itself

is a character...

The architecture itself.

The mystery of

old San Francisco.

That painting...

We cannot see Kim Novak's face

looking at that painting.

How important

her gaze must be.

But no, it's not,

because it's all a ruse.

The connection that Kim Novak

has with that painting

is bullshit. Right?

The only gaze that matters

is Jimmy Stewart's

gaze watching

the curl in the hair and how it's

similar to the painting on the wall.

I'm sure he didn't shoot

coverage from the front.

Someone like me, I would do that.

We're not that good.

We don't understand the power of

the image, the way that he did.

I don't want anything.

I wanna get out of here.

Judy, do this for me!

SCORSESE:
This whole business of

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