Is Alfred Hitchcock the best British film director of all? While Michael Powell was vilified after Peeping Tom, and David Lean fell in love with his own importance, Hitch never lost his bearings. That self-deprecating chink of black humour is evident to the very end.
Like Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch, Hitch survived the invention of sound and the switch from Europe to Hollywood. He made Britain’s first “talkie”, Blackmail (1929). After smash hits such as Rebecca (1940) and Psycho (1960), he became a national icon in America, presenting his own hit TV show. His name on posters started looming as large as the titles.
The irony is that Hitchcock seemed unaware of his influence on film grammar. He was a PostModernist who travelled from German Expressionism to gaudy American Gothic. His true genius was to borrow ripping yarns from John Buchan, Patricia Highsmith and Daphne Du Maurier and make them his own.
Hitchcock could never be accused of high art. His obsession with buxom blondes in peril coupled with memories of the creepy backstreets of Leytonstone was all the art he ever needed. He is not as complicated as you might think, which for my money is an excellent reason for calling him the greatest.
The Times‘ film critics select their 50 Hitchcock moments. Predictably, the shower scene in Psycho tops the list. At number 5, Cary Grant’s crop-dusting scene from North by Northwest [above, as reenacted by Vincent Gallo in Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream].
First posted: Thursday, September 4th, 2008.
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