Reddit reviews Hitchcock (Revised Edition)
We found 29 Reddit comments about Hitchcock (Revised Edition). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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Reddit reviews Hitchcock (Revised Edition)We found 29 Reddit comments about Hitchcock (Revised Edition). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
In the Blink of an Eye (Walter Murch)
Shot by Shot (Steven D. Katz)
Making Movies (Sidney Lumet)
Hitchcock/Truffaut (Francois Truffaut)
Something Like An Autobiography (Akira Kurosawa)
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Those are all must reads, in my opinion. But this is just off the top of my head. I'm not next to my bookshelf at the moment, so this is the best I can do right now! =)
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EDIT: Back with round two.
Seductive Cinema (James Card)
Orson Welles's Last Movie: The Making of the Other Side of the Wind (Josh Carp)
A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (Donald Richie)
All the Emperor's Men: Kurosawa's Pearl Harbor (Hiroshi Tasogawa)
Making Documentary Films and Videos (Barry Hampe)
The Haunted Screen (Lotte Eisner)
Great book!
http://www.amazon.com/Hitchcock-Revised-Francois-Truffaut/dp/0671604295/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1425519415&sr=8-4&keywords=hitchcock
Theres a 15 part documentary on Hulu called The Story of Film: An Odyssey. It's excellent, and it will give you a very broad understanding of the history of film.
As for lists, one good way to start is to watch all of the movies on the [AFI 100] (http://www.afi.com/100Years/movies.aspx). That will give you a very broad picture of the history of American movies. Just set aside one day a week and watch one movie on the list every week.
Don't just watch them. Try to find out WHY each movie is revered as it is. After watching it, then read as much as you can about it. Read Roger Ebert's review, read it's entry on Filmsite.org, and start trying to contextualize each movie in its place in cinema history.
That will take you two years, but you'll have a much deeper appreciation than you do now.
After that, I suggest watching the BFI Sight and Sound Top 50. That will give you a more broad understanding of foreign film as well.
As for books I assign these to my class:
Film Art: An Introduction
This is the textbook that the department assigns. Its pretty broad and a decent overview.
Hitchcock In the 1960's Francois Truffaut interviewed Alfred Hitchcock and covered his entire filmography in detail. Fantastic, indispensable read.
What Is Cinema?
Andre Bazin was a french film critic, and the originator of Auteur theory. This is one of the original film theory books.
The American Cinema
Andrew Sarris is the American analog of Bazin. This is also a fundamental Film Theory book.
That should give you a solid start.
Also, since it hasn't been mentioned, I've been encouraged to read the interviews between Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut. I haven't had a chance to read them entirely yet, but the bits I have read have been really insightful.
https://www.amazon.com/Hitchcock-Revised-Francois-Truffaut/dp/0671604295
Everything you ever wanted to know about Hitchcock, there is also a documentary based on these interviews on HBO.
https://www.amazon.com/Hitchcock-Revised-Francois-Truffaut/dp/0671604295/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484863216&sr=8-1&keywords=hitchcock+truffaut
As /u/MrFoxLovesBoobafina has mentioned he was influenced by silent film directors, also read a lot of books which gave him the basis for most of his script ideas.
There are a lot of great books on film out there. Don't listen to other possible saying watch YouTube or wrote your own screenplay. Well, do those things too, but learn some wisdom from some of the masters while you're at it.
You are going to want to read the following:
Hitchcock by Truffaut (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671604295). One of the greatest directors of all time, interviewed by another of the greatest.
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1879505622/ref=aw_d_detail?pd=1), one of the greatest editors ever. A pretty great director too.
On Directing Film by David Mamet (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0140127224). A great book on directing by one of the great writer/directors.
Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452271878). He wrote this after El Mariachi, before he went on to big budgets. It's one of the most inspiring books you'll ever read-- you'll want to make a film tomorrow. Basically, how to make a movie wit nothing but enthusiasm.
Just a warning for some of the things I will be suggesting. Remember that even documentaries, video essays, and non-fiction books do not tell the whole story. At the end of the day they fall under the same pratfall of fiction filming. The whole point is to tell a story so sometimes things are stretched into and out of proportion. Always try to do your own research as well and don't take all documentaries and interviews as gospel.
On Filmmaking and Film Culture
On Specific Movies or People
Books on Film and Filmmakers
Beyond Cinema
Everything is a Remix will make you rethink originality and creativity and that copying or lifting is not inherently bad and lazy.
PBS Digital Studios is actually generating a lot of great content specifically Idea Channel, OffBook, Game/Show, ShanksFX, amongst others.
I will stop here for now and hope this is a great list to start with.
Hitchcock/Truffaut. This book is the bible for me when it comes to understanding both directors. Its a series of interviews between Truffaut and Hitchcock about every film Hitchcock made up until 1962, and they dissect everything. Truffaut fanboys out over most of the films, but there are some cases where he points out flaws. Hitchcock most of the times agrees with a lot of the faults Truffaut finds in his films.
Eisenstein at 100. If you want a scholarly in depth look at Eisensteins films.
Waiting on the Weather. Written by the script doctor for Akira Kurosawa. Has a forward by Donald Richie who has done a few commentary tracks on Kurosawa films.
Phallic Frenzy. Analysis of Ken Russell films.
Accidental Genius. Analysis on John Cassavetes films.
These are five of my favourites. Most of my other ones are more film history and other biographies.
Los Gusanos by John Sayles
Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut
Have you looked at HitchcockTruffaut? It's a book-length interview between François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock. They spend the entire book making very specific points about classic films and the techniques and theories of filmmaking. It's a wonderful resource.
If you like Hitchcock, Hitchock/Truffaut, which is a collection of interviews between Alfred Hitchcock and French new-wave director (and Hitchcock apprentice) Francois Truffaut
Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut
Hitchcock/Truffaut.
To get insight into the genius of Hitchcock the best way is to read the superb Hitchcock/Truffaut in which Trauffaut through a long intervew with Hitchcock brings great insight into Hitchcock and movie making in general.
I myself feel as David O. Selznick left maybe to much of a imprint on this movie for into to compare to the greatest Hitchcock movies(for me the best is "The Wrong Man") but it's still a great movie so read the book and see it again and maybe by seeing it in the perspective of it being made in 1940, a year before Citizen Kane, and with the help of Truffaut you will se why it's so highly rated.
If you don't want to read the full book. Here are the audio outtakes of the interview regarding Rebecca and other things Les Debuts Americains Rebecca.
Hitchcock/Truffaut - He really seemed to enjoy talking shop with another director
Is it this book? Hitchcock (Revised Edition)
Surprisingly, Jojo author Hirohiko Araki's book "Manga in Theory and Practice" is actually available in English. In it, he himself admits to being inspired by a Hitchcock reference.
Hitchcock/Truffaut. The way it delves into effective storytelling through filmmaking has really helped inform my writing as of late. Great examples of showing and building tension as opposed to talking about it.
Thank you for your kind comments and thank you for a thoughtful post.
I'm not so enthralled by old-school Westerns either. I found Stagecoach and The Searchers fairly entertaining but not much else from that era. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is one of my all-time favorite movies though.
My main point about Ford is that he really had a breakthrough in location shooting, almost making the location a character in the film, and certain types of shots that are so often seen in Westerns. There's more to it than that (the story of The Searchers is pretty great), but that's the main gist of my argument about Ford. Those are the elements that were influential.
>Would you also ascribe Albert Einstein's scientific discoveries to the US because he spent the last years of his life there (well, considering he was chased out of Germany at least that's not unthinkable)?
No, I wouldn't because he made his big discoveries in Europe. Chaplin, OTOH, made the bulk of his artistic output in Hollywood. I'm not alone in thinking this way, the American Film Institute claims Chaplin's films as American. You're right though, I'd say it is a gray area. Even still I think it highlights how Hollywood was a magnet for foreign talent.
>I too see Europe as one creative entity in these matters,
Yeah, I'm only lumping them together because of the initial "us vs. them" mentality of my initial response. There are some pretty distinct strains of European cinema: German Expressionism, Italian Neo-Realism, the French New Wave, the films of Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini.
>[The Wizard of Oz] just looked like a very low budget kid's show
Low budget? It was one of the most expensive movies of all-time up to that point. I think only Gone With the Wind had a bigger budget. Anyway, it played on American TV every year at Thanksgiving holiday for some 30-40 years. It was influential for many reasons, one of them being that it was ubiquitous.
>Funny you mention they used Hitchcock as an early example as I've never heard him mentioned as an auteur. Mostly because he's done such a wide variety of movies and a lot of them aren't good at all. Now that you mention it it makes sense though, the films I've seen do indeed seem to carry a similar artistic vision (though, might I say, it feels more technical than artistic to me).
If you take anything away from this conservation please re-consider Hitchcock. His career spanned some 50 years and he made a ton of films. Yes, there are clunkers but on the whole he is awesome. Most of his work in the 30's, 40's and 50's are just outstanding. It's too long to list in this comment but ask me and I'll gladly respond with the must-see Hitchcock films. I will point out that Vertigo has been mentioned as one of the ultimate examples of the auteur theory at work. Also, my absolute favorite book about film is a in-depth, film by film, interview by Francois Truffaut of Hitchcock. Link
>Yes. Actually the story about how spaghetti westerns came to be is my favourite in all of cinema history because it's so absurd (geographically speaking); westerns from the US influencing japanese samurai films, that are later remade (Yojimbo that is) into italian western.
Yeah, all that and they were filmed in Spain.
I would recommend almost everything in this thread, but I'd like to suggest Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut. It is one of the greatest interviews with one of the greatest filmmakers, any aspiring filmmaker MUST read this.
By 'essay' do you mean just another essay for a class, or are we talking big research paper? Because if so, be thorough:
Also, get this book of his correspondence with Francois Truffaut. The Donald Spoto book is also useful.
My problem is that everyone is at a different level, so the right book for me is wrong for everyone else.
Given that caveat, I'd recommend Hitchcock/Truffaut. Truffaut was brilliant in his questions, and he seems to have understood Hitchcock as a director. And when Truffaut didn't understand something, he asked, and when he disagreed, he told Hitchcock, who treated the disagreement with respect.
I recommend the book because Hitchcock explains his thinking and his technique. While no one should copy another, having that insight to Hitchcock can be very valuable in directing, cinematography, blocking, and more.
I understand Truffaut filmed the interviews and released a movie, but I haven't seen it.
Hitchcock-Truffaut is one of the best books on film theory you can find. An interview between two legendary directors.
Hitchcock by Truffaut
Try and read the following:
Theory of Film by Seigfried Kracauer
Film Language: The Semotics of Cinema
Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky
Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut
If you're just starting out, it helps to read what other people have said. Learn what insights they got from the film, and try to rewatch the film and see how those came about.
Truffaut's interviews with Hitchcock.
> when it comes to discussions about French New Wave, Melville rarely is mentioned
Hmm, okay...
I wasn't being hyperbolic about Hitchcock. He was an enormous influence on the New Wave directors and Truffaut, among others, considered him a godfather of sorts, as Godard did Melville. Read Hitchcock/Truffaut for more clarification.
No problem at all! In this case, I mostly learned it by reading a lot of essays and interviews and books, in this case especially ones on Kubrick and on cinematography. I don't remember specifically what stuff in particular, unfortunately. The best advice for watching EWS (or any film) in its intended format is to find a screening of it that's in 35mm--depending on where you're located, good bets are museums like MOMA in NYC, a local university, or arthouses and repertory theatres that might have a Kubrick retrospective or something.
As far as becoming well-versed in film, the first step is to watch everything you can get your hands on, even if you think it will be awful, and pay as much attention to the choices that are being made, how a camera is moving, what is in the frame and what isn't, lighting, color, dialogue, etc., even if you have no idea really what to be paying attention for. Anything you can think of or see onscreen, think about why that choice is being made and what the purpose of that choice is. And then after viewing something, look up some reviews of it (to find good critics, a good start is to go to Rotten Tomatoes, narrow down a movie's reviews to Top Critics, and then read the full reviews from there), positive and negative, and try to match what they're talking about to what you just saw and see if you can recognize what they're mentioning. And if you can't, just store the type of thing they're talking about and remember to think about it during the next movie you watch, and the next, and so on. Practicing this will build up your knowledge quite quickly, and it will become second nature to pick up on all kinds of things, and once that becomes habit and you don't have to pay as much attention consciously, you'll pick up on more and more subtle nuances. (If you want to have a starting point for films, you can go with a list like this, a list of 1000 movies that are "the best of all time" as a result of aggregating several different polls. Obviously, you never want to put too much stock in other people's opinions of what the best is, and it seems intimidatingly long, but like I said, it's just if you want a reference point. And they link to the polls they use, so if you want a smaller list to work with you, you can try one of those. This is helpful because again you'll discover what you like, so you might find one movie on that list by a director you love and then go off and watch everything else she ever did. And then you come back to the list. So it's not really about completing the list, just using it as another starting point for discovery.) Also, I recommend you keep at least a brief log of everything you watch, along with some notes about it--this will help you keep track of directors/screenwriters/cinematographers you like, as well as help you understand what you like and don't like about films better.
Once you start to feel comfortable with some of the basics, you can start seeking out books that discuss the film-making experience. With both movies and books, you'll discover your tastes as you go along, so it's best to start casting a broad net and reading books that cover a lot of topics, and then you might find that cinematography interests you most and then start reading books that are more specifically about that, and subscribing to specialty magazines like American Cinematographer, or you might find it all appealing and want to read books on all aspects of filmmaking.
That probably seems like a ton of info and fairly intimidating, but I basically started from nothing and basically just taught myself whatever I know by this method, no film school or anything certainly. Not saying I'm an expert on this stuff by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been able to become knowledgeable enough.
Some specific recommendations that I found immensely helpful that hopefully might be helpful to you too:
Current film critics: Dana Stevens (Slate), Stephanie Zacharek (Village Voice), Karina Longworth (freelance), Manohla Dargis (NYT), Wesley Morris (Grantland), A.O. Scott (NYT)
Kubrick:
The Stanley Kubrick Archives - A great book that also features Kubrick's drawings, personal notes, continuity photos, and interviews with him
Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made - A book on SK's uncompleted Napoleon film
The Kubrick Site - A really amazing online resource with a lot of links to essays and articles
Film magazines: Sight and Sound, Film Comment, American Cinematographer, Filmmaker, Little White Lies, Screen International
Books (if you only ever read one book on film, I'd make it Hitchcock/Truffaut--I learned more from it than from any other single source):
Hitchcock/Truffaut
What is Cinema?
Pictures at a Revolution
Negative Space
A Cinema of Loneliness
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
The Age of Movies
Making Movies
I learned quite a bit from the Guardian's eyewitness app It combines the best photojournalism with in depth captions to understand why the photo works.
A classic book of cinema is Truffaut on Hitchcock. Definitely recommend checking it out.