Hitchcock \ Truffaut Page #5

remaking her. Yes, we get it.

Everyone's talking

about the fetishism of it.

I don't like it.

Yeah, we'll take it.

Fine, it's good.

But it's this extraordinary

sense of loss

that he's trying

to fill that void.

Um, maybe it reaches out to

everyone, because of that.

You know.

We could bring our own

sense of melancholy

or loss to it.

Judy.Judy,

I'll tell you this.

These past few days have been the first

happy days I've known in a year.

I know.

It's about desire,

but we all understand that.

We all understand

the idea of desire.

That's part of

what makes us us.

GRAY:
I think Kim Novak

coming out of the bathroom

is the single greatest moment

in the history of movies.

At that moment, everything

that Hitchcock was about,

everything that

cinema is about,

comes together in the most

beautiful way, which is...

Yes, it's a fantasy, but the

fantasy is real to him.

That kiss is

so extraordinary.

That's the one moment where he

gets some kind of fulfillment.

And then after that,

it's time to go.

There was where you

made your mistake, Judy.

You shouldn't keep

souvenirs of a killing.

You shouldn't have been...

You shouldn't have

been that sentimental.

SCORSESE:
It's a world that

he creates that reflects,

I think, what

it is to be alive.

And what it is

to live in fear.

A good fear.

A natural fear.

But fear just the same.

Of just the human condition

of who we are.

It's more than a story.

It's more than a story.

It really is like living

a lifetime with him.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HYYCHCOCK:

It was a break-even.

(TRUFFAUT CONTINUES SPEAKING)

HYYCHCOCK:

I suppose so, yes.

It's tricky. You know,

people will learn

the wrong lessons

from failures

just as they sometimes learn the

wrong lessons from success.

And the thing that I find so

depressing about Hollywood is

how often people really feel

the first three months of

anyone's response

to your film... That's it.

Carve that into marble.

That was the response.

It's not true.

It wasn't true for Vertigo.

HYYCHCOCK:
There is sometimes

a tendency among filmmakers...

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

...to forget the audience.

I, personally, am

interested in the audience.

I mean that one's film should

be designed for 2,000 seats,

and not one seat.

This, to me, is the

power of the cinema.

It is the greatest known mass

medium there is in the world.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

(ASSAYAS SPEAKING FRENCH)

(ASSAYAS CONTINUES SPEAKING)

(SHRIEKS)

(MUMBUNG)

(DESPLECHIN SPEAKING FRENCH)

NARRATOR:
Directors

of Hitchcock's generation,

the ones who came up

under the studio system,

were all mindful

of their audience.

But in Hitchcock's case,

it ran deeper than that.

His films are made in a dialogue

with the public that's close, almost intimate.

HITCHCOCK:
It doesn't matter

where the film goes.

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

If you've designed

it correctly,

the Japanese

audience should scream

at the same time

as the Indian audience.

SCORSESE:
Could you still

play an audience

the way Hitchcock can?

They do.

But it's a different audience,

and it's different playing.

See, the audience has been raised

on films which are very loud,

uh, which have a climax

every two seconds.

Now, we are so

pummeled by stories

and visual hyperbole

that it's a very different

world in trying to

move the needle in terms of

getting humans to

accept your theses.

Hitchcock's coming

out of a world

where everything

was a proscenium,

and everything

was structured,

and he was able to take

that structure and bend it

and twist it

and exaggerate it

to a greater

or lesser effect.

By the time

you get to Psycho,

people are

watching television.

And Ed Gein is informing what's

happening in the movies.

We're starting to borrow

from the real world.

(TRUFFAUT SPEAKING FRENCH)

HITCHCOCK:
I believe so,

yes, in Wisconsin somewhere.

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

HYYCHCOCK:
Psycho, in order

to get the audience effects...

(WOMAN CONTINUES SPEAKING)

...on the audience,

I would say that

this is pretty well

as cinematic as

a lot of pictures.

(TRUFFAUT MUMBLES

IN AGREEMENT)

HITCHCOCK:
It was a very

interesting construction.

I tried for a long time

to play the audience.

Let's say we were

playing them like an organ.

Why don't you call

your boss and tell him

you're taking the rest

of the afternoon off?

SCORSESE:
The scene with

John Gavin and Janet Leigh

in the beginning...

The element there is the bra.

Okay-

But it's shot very simply,

but ominously.

There's something

ominous about it.

The scenes in the office are

kind of all right, you know.

With that Texan...

I'm buying this house for

my baby's wedding present.

$40,000 cash.

SCORSESE:
For his style,

the blandness of the scenes

and the blandness

of the framing,

um,

is just really

a kind of a bridge

to get you to the

next major moment.

I think his instinct is right

in telling stories like that.

I never carry more than

I can afford to lose.

How benign can we make these

images that just connect the dots?

I don't even want it in the

office over the weekend.

Put it in the safe deposit

box in the bank and...

HYYCHCOCK:
It cost

only $800,000 dollars...

(WOMAN SPEAKING FRENCH)

...and I used a complete

television unit to do it.

He was flirting with you.

I guess he must have

noticed my wedding ring.

HITCHCOCK:
It was necessary

to make the robbery,

and what happened to the girl,

purposely on the long side,

to get an audience

absorbed with her plight.

MAN:
Come in.

HYYCHCOCK:

Where I slowed up

was when I came to the scenes

that indicated time and trouble.

Hitchcock really does

love to surprise people

and to take you in

unusual directions.

He sort of thrived on that

and he was very proud of that.

That's what his cinema

is kind of based on.

The beginning of Psycho... It's

one of the great misdirections.

FINCHER:
He is playing

with your expectations of

where you're supposed

to be in a movie,

where you're supposed to

be in a Hitchcock movie,

where you're supposed to

be in a Universal movie.

You can argue the value

of Janet Leigh's performance.

You can say, "Well,

that's a little flat,

"it's a little this,

that's a little Kabuki."

Maybe all of those things

are leading you to believe

as an audience member

there's a bigger

cumulative effect.

She's servicing

an expectation.

SCORSESE:
The best scenes for me are

the ones he must have spent time on,

the driving shots.

You had to have

spent time on those,

particularly the points

of view somehow.

And the framing of Janet Leigh

in the center of the frame

with the top of the steering wheel

in the bottom of the frame.

'Cause you can make a choice, you

can go above the steering wheel.

You know, or you

can go further out.

But then maybe you won't

see her eyes as well.

So that's like

the perfect size.

In quite a hurry?

Yes, I didn't intend

to sleep so long.

I almost had an

accident last night.

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