Truffaut — Hitchcock (1966)
The book-length interview. Hitchcock's own theory of directing the audience, in his own words.
- book
- interview
- hitchcock
François Truffaut, Hitchcock (Simon & Schuster, 1966; revised 1983), from roughly fifty hours of interviews conducted in 1962 with Helen Scott interpreting. Book overview ↗ · The 2015 documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut uses the original audio tapes.
Good for
Intention — the only major source where Hitchcock explains Psycho's design himself: the "playing the audience like an organ" line used in Psycho — the shower scene; the fun-picture framing ("the film was made with quite a sense of amusement"); the MacGuffin doctrine quoted in The MacGuffin; the "pure film" argument that underwrites Montage.
Handle with care
It's a performance. Hitchcock is constructing his own legend for a flattering interviewer, and technique is systematically foregrounded over collaborators (Stefano, Herrmann and Saul Bass barely register). Cross-check production claims against Rebello.