Hitchcock-Truffaut Episode 1: Youth, Influences, First jobs

In this episode: Youth, influences, first jobs Introduction: (interview starts at 2.47) In April 1962, François Truffaut wrote a long letter to Alfred Hitchcock. “Dear Mr. Hitchcock, along discussions with foreign journalists, especially in New York, I discovered that people often have a somehow superficial idea of your work. Moreover, the propaganda we did in ‘Cahiers du Cinema’ was great for France but not adapted for America, because too intellectual. Since I’m directing movies, my admiration for your work never decreased, at the contrary it increased and changed. I saw around 5 to 6 time every of your movies, and more and more with a making-process point of view. Lots of directors have love for Cinema but you have love for film, and that’s what I want to discuss with you. I’d really appreciate a week-long recorded interview, for a 30ish hour long recording, in order to write not articles but a full book, published in the same time in New York and Paris, and after that possibly worldwide” In Los Angeles, Hitchcock is directing his 48th picture, “The Birds”. He telegraphed to Truffaut to book the meeting on the 13th of August 1962, day of his 63th Birthday, in his Universal’s Office. Truffaut who don’t speak English at the time, came with Helen Scott, an American friend. He told Hitchcock “She can translate so fast that we will have the feeling to speak without mediator” For one week, Truffaut had a discussion with Hitchcock on his career, movie by movie, starting with the British era at the beginning of the 20ies, covering the entire work of the director ending with “The Birds” The book about their meeting was published first in 1966, and then republished lots of times. It might still be the most famous book about Cinema nowadays. Corrected a last time by Truffaut in 1983, one year before his death. Luckily, those recording were found in a cardboard box, in half-an-hour tapes. Also those recording where done in 1962 with good technical conditions, so we can enjoy them nowadays. Listening to their voices, laughs, digressions and collusion, we share their intimacy with the complicity of Helen Scott. So many friendly moments we will discover along the episodes. In this first episode, Hitchcock brings up his youth in London, his years in Jesuit school, his formation as an engineer and his first job as a designer for Cinema. Topics: - Hitchcock locked up in jail when he was 5 - Hitchcock’s youth, engineer formation - Cinema influences from 1910-1920, Griffith, Chaplin, and Murnau - First job as title designer (for silent pictures, importance of the titles to change and sometimes save movies) - Starting as an assistant director, and writing his first script at 23. - Met his future wife who was editor for that picture. Enjoy