In 1962, filmmakers Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut sat down for a lengthy series of conversations about the former’s pictures, which they examined one by one, sometimes shot by shot. The book that collected those interviews, originally published in 1966 in France as Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock and later printed in English under the title Hitchcock/Truffaut, become one of the most sacred texts in all of cinema; any film buff worth their salt has a copy on their shelf, dog-eared and highlighted. And now one of the foremost movie buffs in the country has turned that book into a film.
Kent Jones (who’s worked as a writer for Film Comment, programmer for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and archivist for Martin Scorsese’s Cappa Productions), who has previously directed documentaries on Elia Kazan and Val Lewton, helms the new documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut. It tells the story of the book, via interview recordings and stills; the story of its impact, via new interviews with filmmakers influenced by it (including Scorsese, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, and Richard Linklater); and, in a way, the story told in the book, of the inescapable influence and masterful craftsmanship of Mr. Hitchcock.
Hitchcock/Truffaut was, predictably enough, praised to high heavens by film critics when it premiered at Cannes last spring. Now there’s a trailer for the rest of us:
Hitchcock/Truffaut opens December 2nd in limited release.
[via The Film Stage]