Hitchcock/Truffaut
classified 12APlease note: This was screened in March 2016
Like a glorious love letter to cinema, this excellent and thought-provoking documentary offers a terrific retrospective on the importance of the game-changing interview that took place between legendary director Alfred Hitchcock and French New Wave luminary François Truffaut (that in turn became an iconic film text - amongst cinéphiles at least).
In 1962, a 30 year old François Truffaut asked Alfred Hitchcock about doing an in-depth, career-spanning interview that he promised would change the way everyone saw the director’s work. Surprising as it may sound today, way back when he wrapped on his thriller The Birds, Hitchcock wasn’t taken all that seriously by American critics of the day. Touched by Truffaut’s flattery, Hitchcock granted his young admirer an eight-day interview - conducted on the lot of Hollywood’s Universal studio - in which they went through Hitchcock’s career film by film and discussed the art of cinema. The result of their encounter was a book - the now mythical Hitchcock/Truffaut – which became a key cinematic text for new directors and remains, to this day, one of the most influential cinema publications ever written.
Making extensive use of the original taped conversation between the pair and featuring footage that spans Hitchcock’s entire career, this is an illustrated journey into the greatest cinema lesson of all time. Accompanied by fascinating and eloquent insights from such leading filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson, this fascinating documentary provides both a compelling entry point for new converts to these two masters of cinema as well as a sense of the passion and conviction that both men had for their art.