Alfred Hitchcock: Classic or Dud?

HH had kind of a folksy voice, maybe sounding like one of the people a hard-bitten Capra-asque reporter played by Jean Arthur might meet when she gets off the train at the station in a small midwestern town and tries to ask for directions. The line PB liked to do was what Hawks said when they first thought of gender-swapping Hildy when they were transforming The Front Page into His Girl Friday: “Gee, it works even better when it’s a girl!”

Post-Cindy Sherman, I think the way that these back projection sequences etc can be read has changed significantly from 'back in the day'. It's now possible to see them as part of a displaced Englishman's 'performance' of classic Hollywood cinema, with exotic locations, film stars, production values, technicolour, and, for the time, 'state of the art' special effects. Or to put it another way, Hitchcock World always has two components - am inner psychological world that's dark and hidden, and a flamboyant outer world of surface sensuality that rejects realism as method and philosophy and celebrates effect, style, artificiality.

See: the Archers.

All my dreams last night were matted. I was standing there with another old guy like me in one of them, and I pointed behind us and said "That looks so dumb." "WHERE'S THE HORIZON?" he snapped back at me, and that's all I remember before waking up.

tbf to JCO she seemed to be posting calmly as she usually does after the stupid Hitch controp and wasn't milking it. Another facile bit of movie crit that bugged me (well I heard it from my brother and also read it on here) was that DeNiro looking too ridiculously old in a single scene where he unconvincingly beats someone up detracted from The Irishman as a whole somehow or even made it an unworthwhile movie.

the real detraction is that i dremt the de-ageing process used in the irishman made their faces look like bleached sea anemones but when i rewatched it didn't

Now wondering if Guy Maddin ever uses rear projection.

See: the Archers

lol no: "The Archers", the British film-making partnership of Powell and Pressburger

Lol

Did not know they called themselves "The Archers" - think it's obvious why they aren't known as this in the UK now!

Mentally singing "The Archers" now to the tune of Denim's "The Osmonds."

Did not know they called themselves "The Archers" - think it's obvious why they aren't known as this in the UK now!

But they are! Just for example, Ian Christie wrote a major book about them called 'Arrows of Desire'.

Btw Thelma Schoonmaker turned 83 on Tuesday.

this image (or similar, sometimes B&W) can i believe be found in all powell & pressburger films:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_and_Pressburger#/media/File:Archers-AMOLAD-Logo.jpg

"ian christie wrote a major book" <-- this made me smile a little (not to be unkind but… )

ugh this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Archers-AMOLAD-Logo.jpg

On point.

Heh

Thanks for excerpting, Halfway. That was the bit I was thinking of; I just didn’t remember it properly, in that I thought he made a point of discussing how the film’s noted “flaws” actually worked in its favor (he may make a similar point elsewhere in the essay).

Sorry for the confusion - that quote wasn't from the Wood essay, it was from a blog discussing the scene that he mentions, which I found interesting in its own right. I think your summary is close to what he actually says.

I wonder if it is too late to say a thing or two more about Shadow of a Doubt.

There's a shadow of a doubt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pdscKJp_58

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFNnvQLvs7I

Speaking of rear projections...

Cool.

👍

since Twitterers are so easily riled up, let's just say that Ravel, one of the great composers of the 20th century, also composed one of the absolutely awful, glaringly unmusical, excruciatingly unbearable compositions in musical history--"Bolero."

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 6, 2023

DNFTT

if I was only famous as an 80's soft-porn movie I wouldn't be chatting shit about Maurice!

that didn't make any sense, but neither do opinions - I'm done with 'em!

Everyone has them, just like everyone has, um...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXtBsikiY50

"Bolero" is both awesome and also one of Ravel's lesser compositions

Fair enough.

There is no thread dedicated to Ravel so I'm posting here

I got to see the Dover String Quartet perform the Ravel String Quartet in F Major as part of the Yale Summer Music Program at the Shed in Norfolk CT last July. I had never heard it before. It was an amazing performance

I think it anticipated and influenced a lot of the movie soundtracks that followed, including those of Bernard Hermann

There is this, but the results are infuriating: for the piano #3: Debussy vs. Ravel vs. Satie

I don't know why Blake Edwards decided that "Bolero" was a good soundtrack for sex. I guess he like the resonance with the name of his star.

*liked

“Bolero” is sex tho

I suppose, in the sense that it rhythmically builds to a climax, but it takes a long time to get there.

https://e.snmc.io/i/600/w/794e08b67ab88a629684111230f1fe2e/4402113/orchestre-national-de-lopera-de-monte-carlo-alceo-galliera-werner-haas-complete-music-for-piano-solo-complete-piano-concertos-Cover-Art.jpg

this is a fantastic disc

Paul Crossley's two discs on CRD are also highly recommended.

I suppose, in the sense that it rhythmically builds to a climax, but it takes a long time to get there.

you might wanna reword that last bit

Huge fan of Pascal Roge’s solo piano collection tbh

xp Or I might not LOL