Hitchcock 3.5 Stars (of four)
Interestingly enough, two different movies with vastly different views of the same subject came out in November, HBO's The Girl and 20th Century Spotlight's Hitchcock. Both are very interesting views of this very complicated artist, one who many consider one of, if not the best director of the 20th century. While I won't comment on that, I will say that both movies are entertaining with fascinating subject material. It would be interesting to see a biopic on Hitchcock someday, as he was a very interesting man. Both movies focus on essentially the same period of his life, Hitchcock takes place as he was making Psycho, the movie that cut movie history in half. The Girl was about his time on his next two films, primarily The Birds and Marnie. It is a revealing choice to focus both movies on Hitchcock's career when it was nearing its end, rather than focusing on a rise and fall, Behind The Scenes-type film. I'll take each one at a time.
The Girl was done by HBO with Toby Jones as a truly terrifying Hitchcock and Sienna Miller playing the beleaguered Tippi Hedron, who was Hitchcock's new blonde starlet in The Birds and Marnie. The film traces Hitchcock's work with Tippi Hedron, the next woman he was going to make a star. By this time in his career, Hitchcock was at the top of his game, with several great movies under his belt and a successful TV show watched by millions. But Hitchcock is not the true focus of the movie, but rather Tippie Hedron. While being a first class beauty herself, she had the unfortunate luck to be following some of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, from Kim Novak to Janet Leigh to Doris Day to Ingrid Bergman to Grace Kelly. Quite big shoes to fill for anyone, but the movie goes to show how determined she was to take her place in this pantheon of starlets. Unfortunately for her, her director, according to the film, was a lecherous and cruel taskmaster, driving her to literal near-insanity during the shoot of The Birds. There is a telling sequence in the film, very famous in Hollywood lore, where she spent five days on a set with large, live birds attacking her, after being told the scene would only last 1 day in shooting with bird models. And if this was not bad enough, the film also portrays Hitchcock as a lecherous fiend who even at one point at the beginning of filming, attacks her in the back of a car. After this, he kept harassing her with unwelcome suggestions, filthy limericks and leering at her all the while. And through it all, holding it over her head that she was nothing without him and that she never measured up to her predecessors, and that he could crush her and her career at any moment.
While I have no doubt this actually happened, based on the accounts by Ms. Hedron herself and others, the movie comes off as a cheap and lurid expose along the lines of a Behind The Music. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Workplace harassment is unacceptable anywhere or anytime. I don't think one should whitewash history. It is important to understand all its context in order to make a objective judgement. But this movie demonstrates to me a disturbing propensity in Hollywood that, unfortunately, is not a new. This movie focuses primarily on the morbidly obese man forcing himself on the young, beautiful woman and we react in characteristic disgust. How dare he, we ask ourselves. Doesn't he realize his place? Yet when an attractive harasser does the deed, the victim is usually portrayed as at least conflicted (Indecent Proposal), enjoys it or at least looks like it (Straw Dogs), laughs at it or treats it as a joke (Anchorman, Horrible Bosses), and, at times, even falls in love (Unfaithful, Memoirs of a Geisha, Cast Away). Being beautiful or ugly should not determine the tone of the film when dealing with this subject. There have been precious few movies over the years that have taken on this difficult subject matter and shown it for how ugly it really is (High Country, Repulsion, The Accused, Disclosure). When I finished The Girl, two things were on my mind. One, I felt I needed a shower, as this movie dripped with lurid undertones. Second, I marveled at how tough this woman was as well. I don't know if Hollywood today is as much of a jungle as it was then, but this is the day of the casting couch, and many woman had to compromise themselves to get ahead in the business. Just dealing with what could only be defined as a very hostile work environment, both professionally and personally, Ms. Hedron certainly went through hell and back. In the end, though, the movie comes off as a shallow hatchet job on Hitchcock with all the taste and depth of a National Enquirer article. Puerilily entertaining, yes. But deep and insightful? Not really.
Hitchcock, I believe is the superior film. While it is a little more reverential about the "great Hitchcock", it is also the more adult of the two. It focuses more upon the relationship with Hitchcock and his wife, Alma, who was his constant companion and collaborator over his long career. Most people probably don't know the enormous influence Alma had on her husband. She was herself an accomplished writer and director who had worked just as long has Hitchcock had, if not longer. All of his movies have both of their stamps on them, not just his. It discussed his enormous insecurities and pressures that were on him while making Psycho. And yes, it also dealt with his predilections and did not shy away from them, but they were a little glossed over in this story. I believe that this was a movie that actually gave a more rounded view of who Hitchcock was and why he was the way he was. Unfortunately, it does require the viewer to know a little about his history with the business and Alma. There is not a lot of exposition in these matters. (For a good, concise history on Hitchcock, read Francois Trauffout's excellent Hitchcock, an extended interview where the master of the French New Wave (himself a celebrated director) has an unusually long and frank conversation for the normally very guarded Master of Suspense.) Hitchcock also has a very wicked sense of humor, very much in keeping with the man himself. It is introduced and ended in a very similar way as his introductions and conclusions to his TV shows, with the blackest of black humor. Anthony Hopkins is his usual amazing self. I honestly believe he is one of the five best living actors of our time. Helen Mirren plays Alma, and she is the real star of this movie. Maybe it is because so little is known of Alma, that this is such a vision. Mirren herself in interviews bemoans the fact that there is so little out there on Alma that she could use to educate herself for her performance. So therefore, she had to make up a lot of if, and showed just how capable she is and adding another fantastic performance to her very long list of great performances. I doubt she will get the Oscar for this film (mostly because she already has one for The Queen), but it is an Oscar-worthy performance.
One last thing I would like to add about Hitchcock. It is one of the three best instances of visually showing the creative process, the other two being Finding Neverland and Amadeus. In all three, it shows just how true artists see the world and how their work occupies their souls and how they must literally and figureatively live with their creations. Hitchcock, being a writer as well as a filmmaker, needs to live with his character. In this case, there are several sequences where he was with Ed Gein, the mass killer whose exploits are the inspiration for Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged and The Silence of the Lambs. It is very difficultr to show the creative process. It is easier to show its result (Pollack, Frida). These three movies come the closest, in my opinion, to accurately portraying the artist and his (or her) process. It would be better to watch these movies in the order of their placement in Hitchcock's life, so one's context guides the other. I know I would have preferred to see Hitchcock before The Girl. But, in the end, I found them both fascinating portraits on a subject I truly love. Both are worth seeing and I would recommend each of them.
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