Thoughts.  First, yes, sorry, George Robinson, I assumed that you were 
referencing Durgnat's PSYCHO book mainly because I imagine it has been 
talked about, or cited, a lot in this 50th-anniversary year of PSYCHO.  
'The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock' (based on a series of articles 
originally published in 'Films and Filming') I suspect is much less 
known (but maybe not?).

I mis-quoted Wood myself in my post.  Wasn't what he said actually, 
'Hitchcock is too sophisticated for the sophisticates'?  He meant that 
Hitchcock's vision was not the one-fold  vision of many of his 
fashionable and supposedly knowing critics.  To be honest, I place 
someone like Pauline Kael in that category - apropos her understanding 
of Hitchcock, anyway.  Her favourite Hitchcock film was NOTORIOUS - 
which is fine - because she responded to the sensuality.  'Will 
suspicious, passive Grant succeed in making Bergman seduce him, or will 
he take over? ...  Bergman is literally ravishing ... Great trash, great 
fun.'  But a little film like VERTIGO went over Kael's head, I'm afraid.

I deliberately didn't refer Peter to negative first-release reviews of 
Hitchcock films because what do they prove?   I have seldom found any 
first-release reviews of films - positive or negative - to have lasting 
value as criticism.  Grahame Greene or James Agee may offer rare 
exceptions, but even their reviews continue to be read more for 
stylistic and belle-lettre qualities than critical penetration, I 
think.  (Hitchcock himself was bemused by how, so often in his career, 
his films would be reviewed badly on their initial release and then be 
hailed within a year or two as established masterworks!)  Mind, I do 
think that film reviewing has improved out of sight in recent decades 
(for some obvious reasons).

I notice that Peter himself seems happy to go to moralistic or other 
disapproving articles that put down Hitchcock.  But as I said last time, 
Peter,  you are treading dangerous ground.   Don't sell yourself - or  
reality, or Hitchcock's take on it - short.  I think Truffaut was right 
to say that the true morality of REAR WINDOW is its lucidity.

Btw, just apropos FRENZY, I have always felt that anyone who was 
following trends in popular but reasonably classy /fiction /at the time 
- the 1970s - would have noticed increasing emphasis on explicit matters 
of sex, torture, etc., that Hitchcock just naturally felt he had to show 
himself able to match (as best a commercial filmmaker could, at any 
rate).  The master-outflanker in danger of being outflanked, is how I 
think of it.

Finally, a related matter.  For all of Mike Frank's sensible points, I 
still cavil when he seems to imply that (an alleged) misanthropy in 
Hitchcock's filmmaking is, ipso facto, grounds for negative criticism.  
I believe that artists are free, pretty well, to give us any take on the 
world they care (or feel the need) to.  What matters is how well they do it.

But, hey, we're talking about Hitchcock.  A master entertainer.  One 
given to 'Romantic irony' and 'dualistic vision', as I said last time.  
And, Peter, one very hard to pin down (cf Keats's 'poetic character').

- KM

P.S. Any chance of clearing this up?  Norm Holland thinks that 
Hitchcock's cameo in VERTIGO has him carrying a trumpet case.  William 
Lingle contests this - he thinks it's an ear trumpet case.  But Jane 
Sloan's 'Alfred Hitchcock: A Guide to References and Resources' (1995) 
says it's a horn case.  (I used to think it's a coal scuttle!)


 

----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu