This documentary on Alfred Hitchcock suggests from the start that the films he created where ones that no other director had the courage to create. It also suggests that "he put his own deepest fears on the sliver screens" which is what made his films so popular. There is a point within this documentary where Hitchcock is asked why he always creates mysteries and murders and such and he simply replies with "Well life is a big mystery isn't it? it always has been." which gives almost a rear window view (no pun intended) of what he was thinking about when creating his pieces of cinema, it gives a view of what his, almost, inspiration was.
Hitchcock grew up near London and because of his background ended up as almost a complete outsider to the world everyone else was in. A particular question that stands out in this documentary is when Hitchcock is asked if he has ever been scared by anything and his response is that he was scared of a policeman when he was younger as he went to hand in this slip and got locked in a cell for about five minuets. Hitchcock then goes on to explain that he feels as if fears are almost imprinted in on us, no matter what happens. He says physiatrists will tell you when you have a fear that once you revisit that place everything will be fine after that, but Hitchcock doesn't seem to believe that at all considering he then says he is still scared of policemen.
From this documentary I have learnt that I can rather relate to Hitchcock as it is explained that he was the type of boy to sit back and observe and listen than to rather get into anything. Hitchcock Worked previously in a different job (engineering) until he heard an American movie company where coming to where he was, so he applied to create their titles.
Hitchcock taught himself the things he learned about the trade. He then had to make his way through the ranks to create the films that he did. Luckily he met the right people. One particularly being the man who took over the company that he was already working in, who recognised Hitchcock as a potential film maker.
Britain's first talkie was a film that had already been made as a silent film. Blackmail. This made Hitchcock a well known film maker, which led to him being able to marry the woman that he did. He counted on her for his work and always took her advise, always went with her judgment from the very beginning of their relationship. Even though this is the case, Hitchcock often felt grief for the passing of silent cinema as he felt it was the purest form of cinema there was and has been.
One thing that really sticks to my mind from this documentary is that it is believed that even if Hitchcock was alive to this day, he would still focus on movies about people, probably ignoring the use of effects. Perhaps this is why his films where so gripping and why he is the most popular director of all time because his films where about people, they could be related to, creating a connection with it's audiences. Hitchcock wanted to scare women more than he wanted to men as he said "80% of the people in the cinema are women" because of course even if it was half and half men would ask what the women would like to go and see.
Hitchcock became too large on the scale to even be contained by the England producers, he wanted to go all out, create large films, and of course it was thought that at this time the only way that this could be achieved was by moving out to Hollywood as America where seen as the only place to go to go large. This made him move up in the industry rather quickly.
Hitchcock worked with a high producer on Rebecca and they did not often see eye to eye on several things. Hitchcock saw films as things to be filmed and to have snippets taken form them to create an emotional piece of work, however the man he was working with was not accustomed to this. Yet Hitchcock knew he had to try and make it work somehow.
Hitchcock felt as if he knew so much about film that he would not need to follow a plan and described himself as a sort of "conductor" when filming.
What he filmed was almost pieces of film to be connected rather than to be edited.
An important factor of Hitchcock is that he would often see the film he was creating in his mind before he had even filmed it. Which would then mean that he would often find filming rather dull and boring.
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out" Shows that Hitchcock really did make films about people and that is what he focused on. However Hitchcock also played everything against reality, to create socking scenes that no one would expect.
