[6]

This documentary centers around the lasting influence of a week-long interview Francois Truffaut conducted with Alfred Hitchcock in 1962, and the book that encounter produced, 1966’s Cinema According to Hitchcock. Sprinkled throughout the run-time are snippets from interviews conducted with some of today’s top filmmakers about their affection for both the book and the work of Hitchcock, including Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Linklater, and Paul Schrader.

Like the book, the documentary covers a wide variety of Hitch’s films in chronological order. Much of the film is devoted to scholarly analysis of the films, with particular emphasis on Vertigo (which filmdom has decided over the last fifteen years is Hitch’s best film). The analysis is dry at first, but gets more interesting as sound recordings from Truffaut’s interview with Hitch are introduced. It’s wonderful to hear Hitchcock lean in and prepare to tell secrets of cinema, often teetering on frank discussion of sex and fetishism, only for the director to suddenly say, ‘Stop the tape.’ Hitchcock is so compelling in his own words, that I couldn’t help but wish the documentary would stop interfering with his unfettered explanations.