Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

François Truffaut: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• François Truffaut : This is something one finds often in your work, the expansion of time.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes, that's what film is for - to either contract time or extend it, whatever you wish.

  François Truffaut : Yes, that's very interesting.

• Alfred Hitchcock : [First lines]  Why do these Hitchcock films stand out well, they don't look old fashioned? Well, I don't know the answer.

  François Truffaut : I think its because they're so rigorous. They're not tied to a particular time either...

  Alfred Hitchcock : That's true.

  François Truffaut : Because they are made only in relation to you, yourself.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes.

• François Truffaut : When I went to New York to present my films, film critics often asked me who my favorite directors were. And when I said Hitchcock, they were astonished.

• François Truffaut : I went to Hollywood with an interpreter, my collaborator, Helen Scott. We stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel and every day we went to Universal Studios and sat down with lavalier microphones around our necks and we talked all day about cinema, even during lunchtime.

• François Truffaut : Your type of picture, people get enjoyment but pretend that they haven't been fooled and then, begrudgingly, their pleasure later on.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes.

  François Truffaut : When I say pleasure I don't mean amusement...

  Alfred Hitchcock : They're obviously, they're going to sit there and say "show me" and they expect to anticipate, "I know what's coming next". I have to say, "Do you?"

• François Truffaut : I really feel the sense of guilt in your work. Everyone always has something to feel guilty about.

• François Truffaut : Do you dream often?

  Alfred Hitchcock : Not a lot, no.

  François Truffaut : Are dreams important to your work?

  Alfred Hitchcock : Daydreams, probably.

• François Truffaut : Your films seem to fall into the domain of dreams of danger and solitude.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Well, that's probably me, within myself.

• François Truffaut : [Last lines]  In most of your films, you've shown characters divided by a secret that they refuse to reveal to one another. The atmosphere becomes more and more oppressive until finally, they decide to open up and thus liberate themselves. Does that ring true to you?

  Alfred Hitchcock : It's true. Yes.

  François Truffaut : In the end, you are mostly interested within the framework of the crime story, in filming moral dilemmas.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Sure, that's true.

  François Truffaut : So, that's my conclusion.

• François Truffaut : In your films, I always get the powerful scent of original sin.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes

• François Truffaut : Your logic, which has never satisfied your critics, is in a sense the logic of dreams.

  Alfred Hitchcock : I think it occurs because I'm never satisfied with the ordinary. I can't do well with the ordinary.

• François Truffaut : "Vertigo" is one of your most poetic films. It's more poetic than dramatic. The film has a dreamlike quality, a slowness, something contemplative that your other films don't have, which are often built on rapid movement, on speed.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes. Here you are dealing with the point of view of an emotional man.

  François Truffaut : What interested you most about the story?

  Alfred Hitchcock : I was intrigued with the efforts to create a woman, after another, in the image of a dead woman.

• François Truffaut : "Vertigo" is a film for which you have a great tenderness.

  Alfred Hitchcock : Yes, I-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.

• François Truffaut : [Discussing "Vertigo"]  What bothers you about the film?

  Alfred Hitchcock : 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?