By 1966, the French critics and their American disciples had already gone some way towards cementing Alfred Hitchcock's standing as a formidable artist. The publication of Hitchcock/Truffaut, based on interviews between the great man and François Truffaut from that year, further elevated his status.
Nonetheless, Kent Jones’s tribute to the volume emerges with Hitchcock’s reputation in a very different place. No heavy lifting is required. Few potential viewers for such a project will need persuading that Hitch is a modern great. By definition, most of the theories discussed will be already familiar to aficionados. So what’s the film for?
If nothing else, it works as an essential complement to the book. Obviously, the documentary cannot hope to include more than a small fraction of the analysis, but layering the conversations beneath clips from the pictures offers new dimensions.
A number of directors pop up to discuss the films and their own experiences of first encountering Hitchcock/ Truffaut. It's illegal to start such a project without Martin Scorsese and, happily, the familiarity of that talking head does nothing to dull its passionate articulacy. He is particularly strong on the religious implications of Hitchcock's camera placement. There is rather more of David Fincher (lucid, but unenlightening) than strictly necessary and rather less of Richard Linklater (warm and amazed) than we might have liked.
The most telling contributions are, however, from Hitchcock himself. Initially suspicious of the French director’s pretentions, he gradually reveals a breathtakingly acute ability to reduce his film-making into theory and axiom. He does so in a mischievous tone that reminds us of the contradictions in his personality. Here was a man who could terrorise his collaborators while remaining endlessly good company.
If Hitchcock/Truffaut has a flaw it is the lack of contrary voices. This is not to suggest that Jones should have sought out some random contrarian Hitchophobe, but a few balancing words from a mild sceptic might have been nice. Essential stuff for all that.
