Wednesday, 10 October 2012

"Hitchcock"

I get the sense that there's going to be a lot of unease and divisiveness with "Hitchcock" (the breezy-looking "making of 'Psycho'" Alfred Hitchcock movie that now has an official trailer) and "The Girl" (the dark "Hitch stalked, tormented and probably sabotaged the career of Tippi Hedren" Alfred Hitchcock movie from HBO) coming out around the same time. Hitchcock is God to three and counting generations of film buffs, and "cinephile culture" has always had a hard time reconciling "Hitch the lovable oddball genius" with "Hitch the petty, domineering creeper."

The thing is, from the trailers I'm feeling like "Hitchcock" looks like the better movie overall (they both look pretty good, really) ...and I'm kind of bracing at that observation, unable to help wondering whether it really looks better or if it's - at least partially - my own Inner Film Student automatically preferring the movie hawking Hitch The Mythic (the mega-famous Hollywood director still conducting himself like an indie/outsider rascal within "the system") to the one looking to tear the myth down a bit.

What I wonder is, if "Hitchcock" IS the better movie  (Hopkins is certainly doing a better Hitch than Toby Jones IMO - though they both come off like themselves "doing" Hitchcock, who was too much of a self-caricature for any actor to really "embody" at this point), will there be a "pushback" among critics for actually saying so for fear of being seen as wanting to continue "whitewashing" it's subject? Dunno, we'll see.



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