All language subtitles for 1964 - Monitor - Huw Weldon meets Alfred Hitchcock

Let's start, Mr Hitchcock, by discussing
this whole business of frightening

audiences. Do you find that audiences
are frightened by different things now

from the things that frightened them
when you started, what, 30 years ago, 35

years ago, making films? No, I wouldn't
say so, because after all, they were

frightened as children. You have to
remember that it's all based on Red

Hood, you see.

Nothing has changed since Red Riding
Hood.

So what they're frightened of today...

are exactly the same things they were
frightened of yesterday.

Yes. Because this, shall we call it,
this fright complex is rooted

in every individual.

Do you think, when making films, that
women are frightened by different things

from the things that frighten men?

Oh, I would say so, yes. I would
definitely say that, after all, women

frightened by a mass.

You don't see men jumping on chairs and
screaming.

So there are definitely different
things.

So when you make a film, are you setting
out to frighten men or women? Women.

Because 80 % of the audience in the
cinema are women.

Because, you see, even if the house is
50 -50, half men, half women,

a good percentage...

of the men has said to his girl, being
on the make, of course, what do you want

to see, dear?

So that's where her influence comes as
well.

So men have very little to do with the
choice of the film.

When it comes to audiences in different
parts of the world, take American

audiences as against British audiences
instead of men and women for a moment.

Bearing in mind your Red Riding Hood
point that we're all frightened by the

great simple things, are American
audiences frightened by different things

European audiences?

I would say no. You've got to remember
the American audience is the global

audience.

As I once reminded an Englishman, I
said, you don't understand America

you think they are Americans, but
they're not.

America is full of foreigners.

They're all foreigners since 1776.

So therefore, whatever frightens the
Americans, frightens the Italians, the

Romanians, the Danes, and everyone else,
you know, from Europe.

Do you think that it does an injustice
to you simply to think of you as a man

who, above all else, has frightened the
wits out of audiences?

Yes, but you have to remember that this
process of frightening is done by means

of a given medium. The medium of pure
cinema is what I believe in.

The assembly of pieces of film to create
fright.

is the essential part of my job.

Just as much as a painter would, by
putting certain colours together,

create evil on canvas.

Now, you would go as far as that, would
you, to say that to create fright is an

essential or the essential part of my
job?

Of my job?

Only in terms of the audience expected
from me.

Let me put it in another way.

You're a master, aren't you, of the
unexpected?

Well, that's only because one's
challenged by the audience. They're

me, show us.

And I know what's coming next.

And I say, do you?

And therefore that's the avoidance of
the cliché.

Automatically.

They're expecting the cliché, and I have
to say we cannot have a cliché here.

When you talk about putting bits of film
together and then creating, in

terms of what you call pure cinema, the
sequence that you're going for, I can

imagine that it must have been a bit of
a shock to you personally when talkies

came.

Because, in a sense, you're talking
almost about a classical technique,

you? Well, the only thing wrong with the
silent picture was that mouths opened

and no sound came out.

Unfortunately, when talk came in, the
Bulgarians, the money changers of the

industry, immediately commenced to cash
in by photographing stage plays.

So that took the whole thing away from
cinema completely.

It's like a lot of films one sees today.
Not that I see very many, but to me

they're what I call photographs of
people talking.

It bears no relation to the art of the
cinema.

And the point is that the power of
cinema in its purest form is so vast

because it can go over the whole world
on a given night.

A film can play in Tokyo, West Berlin,
London, New York, and the same audience

is responding emotionally to the same
things.

And no other medium can do this. The
theatre doesn't do it because you've got

different sets of people. But remember,
in a film, they're the same actors.

A book is translated.

How well do we know? I don't know.

The risk is in translating even a film,
what they call dubbing, you know.

There's liable to be a loss, and
therefore when one's thinking of a film

globally, the talk is reduced to a
minimum, and if possible, tell the story

visually and let the talk be part of the
atmosphere.

I imagine it's because of this point of
view which you've now articulated and

which is very, very definitely known
about you.

that your reputation is so high with the
great avant -garde film

critics in France, particularly, where
you've been practically canonised by

them. I mean, haven't you? Oh, yes.

I mean, really, Hitchcock is the last
word.

Your response to that elevation, has
that been one of gratification? Were you

pleased? Oh, I think so. I think one
should be flattered for that.

Excuse me.

Of course, you know, there are constant
divisions of opinion among the devotees.

The Hitchcock devotees?

Yes, of course. Yes, sure.

Have you ever been tempted to make what
is nowadays called a horror film, which

is different from a Hitchcock film?

No, because it's too easy.

Are you talking about visual horror like
Frankenstein, that kind of thing? No,

they're props.

I believe in putting the horror in the
mind of the audience and not necessarily

on the screen.

I once made a movie, rather tongue -in
-cheek, called Psycho. Yes. And, of

course, a lot of people looked at this
thing and said, what a dreadful thing to

do, how awful, and so forth.

But, of course, it was, to me, it had
great elements of the cinema in it, the

content as such.

I felt rather amusing.

And it was a big joke, you know. And I
was horrified to find that some people

took it seriously. It was intended to
cause people to scream and yell and so

forth, but no more than the screaming
and yelling on the switchback railway.

Now, this film had a horrible scene at
the beginning of a girl being murdered

the shower. Well, I deliberately made
that pretty rough.

But as the film developed, I put less
and less physical horror

into it because I was leaving that in
the mind of the audience. And as the

went on, there was less and less
violence, but the tension in the mind of

viewer was increased considerably.

I was transferring it from film into
their minds.

So towards the end, I had no violence at
all, but the audience by this time was

screaming in agony.

Thank goodness.

You mentioned a switchback railway.

You do see yourself as a kind of
switchback railway operator.

Well, I'm possibly, in some respects,
the man who says, in constructing it,

how steep can we make the first dip?

And this will make them scream.

If you make the dip too deep, the
screams will continue as the whole car

over the edge and destroys everyone.

But therefore, you mustn't go too far,
because you do want them to get off the

switchback railway giggling with
pleasure, like the woman who comes out

movie, the very sentimental movie, and
says, oh, I had a good cry.

Now, what is a good cry as opposed to a
bad cry?

I don't know, but she says that. And
with tears rolling down her cheeks, she

says, Oh, it was lovely.

I cried my eyes out.

Yes, now what is a good cry as opposed
to a bad cry? Ask your own question.

Well, I think it's the satisfaction of
temporary pain.

And that's the same thing when people
endure the agonies of a

suspense film.

When it's all over, they're relieved.

That's why.

I once committed a grave error in having
a bomb from which I'd extracted a great

deal of suspense.

And I had the thing go off, which I
should never have done, because they

the relief from their suspense.

Clock going, the time for the bomb to go
off is such a time. And I drew this

thing out and attenuated the whole
business.

Then somebody says, oh my goodness,
look, there's a bomb.

Pick it up, throw it out the window.

Bang!

But everybody's relieved.

I made the mistake. I let the bomb go
off and kill someone.

Bad technique.

Never repeated it.

Bad technique, yes. Mind you, it perhaps
came nearer reality because bombs do go

off. That's probably true. Probably
true. After all, you know...

What is reality?

I don't think many people want reality.

I think whether it's in the theatre or
in films, I think it must look real, but

it never must be.

Because reality is something none of us
can really stand at any time.

Would it be accurate to say that the
tradition of your films on the

whole is the tradition of the English
adventure story, which takes us back to

whom? Very definitely.

John Buchan. Of course, John Buchan, a
big influence on me.

But I think more than that, I think that
the attack on the whole of this

subject matter is strictly English.

And where sometimes one gets into little
difficulties with the

American people is that they want
everything spelled out, you know,

exactly. And they worry about content. I
don't care about content at all.

The film can be about anything you like,
so long as I'm making that audience

react in a certain way to whatever I put
on the screen.

And if you begin to worry about the
details of what are the

papers about that the spies are trying
to steal, well, that's a lot of

knowledge. I can't be bothered with what
the papers are, what the spies are

after. In Kipling's day, it was the
plans of the fort.

Well, how can you bring out the plans of
the fort? Do you want the public to

measure them or something?

And so the content per se.

And I often run afoul of critics who
criticise content instead of the

Yes, and the technique is the same
technique as Phillips Oppenheim and John

Buchanan, Mrs Bellock -Lowens.

Yes. Conan Doyle. It comes into that
area, but you see, the English have

had a fascinating fascination for crime
as such. Is it true that you are

yourself...

I've seen it in newspaper cuttings and
this kind of thing, that you are

a great expert on crime.

Well, do you mean in committing it? I
wasn't suggesting, no, no. No, no.

As a detective, you mean, on that side?

No. No, no.

I'm interested in...

I suppose one has a one -finger tip for
all the details of the famous cases of

the past.

And I've often used examples, pieces of
them, in films. For example, in the film

Rear Window... Yes, I remember well.

..there are two passages in it which
come from famous English crime.

Crippen case, I used a bit of that.

And the Patrick Mahon case, you know,
Mahon was a man who...

killed a girl and then cut her up into
pieces and threw the flesh out of the

window you know from a train between
eastbourne and london but his great

was what to do with the head and that's
what i put in in the rear window with

the dog sniffing the flower bed and i
remember i was making a movie

years ago and i employed as a technical
advisor

A man who was one of the big four at
Scotland Yard, and he was on this case.

And this man, Marne, didn't know what to
do with the head, so he put it into the

fire grate and put a fire under it. And
there was a big storm going on outside.

It was the crumbles of Eastbourne on the
beach.

And the heat, while this thunder
lighting was going on, it was awfully,

melodramatic. The heat under the head
caused the eyes to open.

So this poor man ran out into the storm
and came back in the morning when the

fire had done its job. And this
particular superintendent, ex

told me that he went to the butchers and
got a sheep's head and put it in the

grate to test the time it would take to
burn.

So the head business went into this
picture.

Can I ask you about films that you made
in this country and films that you

subsequently made in America? Do you
yourself see any distinction between

two? One's thinking of The Lady Vanishes
and The Thirty -Nine Steps and so on.

The man who knew too much, for example,
which you made in both.

That's right. Well, as the French say,
the early English period is quite

different from the American period.

There's much more spontaneity, I
suppose, and more instinctive work in

English period, but more calculation in
the American period.

That's the main difference.

Have you ever made a film without regard
to any audience? Yes, I made one called

The Trouble with Harry.

It was a big loss, the film.

Was it? Yes, the film has lost, I
suppose, about half a million dollars.

So that's an expensive self -indulgence.

And there we come to the question of
ethics with other people's money.

Let's take the ethics of the film
itself. Why do you think of the film

Money?

Well, I think it was outside the usual
run of pictures. It was a little comedy.

It was an English book, strangely
enough, although I laid it in Vermont.

It was a comedy of the macabre,
typically English.

The approach to it was English.

I'm sure had it been presented to a
wider audience... It

was a film about the man who was killed
and who kept on being buried over and

over again by different people. Oh, it
was a story about a dead body. And the

little man, played by Edmund Gwynne,
thought while shooting rabbits he was

responsible for the man's death.

That's right. Then he found out the next
morning... He found out that he wasn't

responsible, so he dug it up again. And
then someone else came along and...

They had a reason why the man should
have been buried, so he was buried

So the whole film was the burying and
pulling out of this poor body.

It was rather amusing, but I'm afraid
that the exhibitors, the people who

run cinemas and those people who
distribute films,

my natural enemies, couldn't see it.

and traction for the public.

You thought well of it yourself.

I enjoyed it, yes.

What frightens you personally, Mr
Hitchcock, if anything?

Any trouble frightens me.

I was once asked, what is your idea of
happiness?

And I said, a clear horizon.