Hitchcock

[Fuzznuts]

Look, we all know he's the greatest director living or dead. So what's his best movie? Let the debate begin!

[limitdeditionlayla]

North By Northwest & Vertigo are amazing films, but Rear Window is my absolute Hitchcock fave. Brilliant characterisation & setup, all the technical aspects of the film are top-notch, its just a perfect thriller. And a great screenplay too - I mean, you become sympathetic to a voyeur.

Just a wonderful movie. It EASILY equals any of Hitchcock's greats & in fact, betters the majority of them. One of the finest films of all time, imo.

[Fuzznuts]

Yep, it's probably a "perfect" movie. The amazing thing is, Hitch made about 5 or 6 "perfect" movies.

My vote has to go to North by Northwest because, well, Cary Grant.

[limitdeditionlayla]

I can name at least 7 of his films that I can't fault.

Hitchcock was a bizarre little man.

[poseidon]

Rear Window

Psycho

[Adam]

No one has chosen Vertigo yet? Hmm...I'll get the ball rolling on that one.

Runners-up include Notorious, Rear Window, The Lady Vanishes, North by Northwest and Psycho (but the greats don't stop there).
Vertigo is my all-time fav, because its so emotionally devastating. To watch Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak (especially Novak) stripped psychologically bare (in a way rarely seen in thrillers and film in general) is so fascinating and overwhelming. The most beautiful of Hitch's films, too.

[Kensterberg]

I'm with Adam ... Vertigo is Hitch's finest accomplishment, all things considered. There's stuff there to discover on your fifteenth viewing, but the first time you watch it is (as Adam said) just emotionally devastating. Few thrillers put you through the ringer the way Vertigo does.

I will also pause here to note that I first saw The Birds back in '96, on commercial television, at the ripe old age of 31, and it scared the hell out of me! One of my favorite films by the master.

I also love Rope, primarily for the way it pulls off two neat conceits. The first is the obvious "there's a dead body in that trunk!" The second, which amuses me to no end as a former motion picture projectionist, is the fact that the only time Hitch changed shots/camera perspectives was when the projectionist had to also change reels of film - so each shot is about 20 minutes long. A very neat, if somewhat contrived, trick.

[Adam]

I also love Shadow of a Doubt and almost considered voting for it. Strangers on a Train is also noteworthy. It would be cool to see someone vote for those.

[Adam]

Here are the only Hitchcock films I won't bother revisiting: Jamaica Inn, The Paradine Case, I Confess, Stage Fright, The Man Who Knew Too Much (56) ('cuz 34 was better), Torn Curtain, Frenzy and Family Plot. They're either too dull or too bad.

I notice Under Capricorn is missing from the list. That's actually a decent, overlooked Hitchcock with Ingrid Bergman.

[Fuzznuts]

Yeah, I could only put 35 titles on there, so I had to leave a few off, like the silents and some of the really early talkies.

Frenzy I thought was actually pretty decent, with some incredible camera work, and it was somewhat of a return to form after a couple stinkers.

Other faves, besides the obvious: Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Sabotage, The Lady Vanishes, 39 Steps, Spellbound.

[Weeping_Guitar]

Hitchcock was the master of true cinema and his most essential representation of this is Rear Window, which almost literally puts the viewer into the position of the protagonist because he, like us, is physically helpless to play the hero. Plus, Grace Kelly's entrance may be the best in any movie outside of Harry Lime. That and it's probably the funniest thriller ever, which is a tag that can be applied to a number of Hitch's films.

[sisyphus]

I voted for Rear Window... so careful and subtle and suspenseful.

I remember learning in a film class once that Hitchcock changed the way we consume movies. Before Hitchcock, people would wander in and out of the theater all the time.. Filmstrips would play and news reels would roll, but people did not generally show up at the beginning of a movie and stay until the end. If they showed up in the middle of a movie, they might watch it until the end and then wait for it to start over so they could see the beginning. For many people, cinema was almost more about the thrill of the moving picture than seeing some kind of narrative completely play itself out. Hitchcock changed all that, though. He made rules that audiences could not watch his films unless they watched them from the beginning, so that they could get the full effect of the suspense... As audiences picked up on this, theaters began changing their viewing policies and other directors began following Hitchcock's example. Crazy.

[Fuzznuts]

That's why he killed off Janet Jeigh in the beginning of Psycho.

[Adam]

sisyphus said:

I voted for Rear Window... so careful and subtle and suspenseful.

I remember learning in a film class once that Hitchcock changed the way we consume movies. Before Hitchcock, people would wander in and out of the theater all the time.. Filmstrips would play and news reels would roll, but people did not generally show up at the beginning of a movie and stay until the end. If they showed up in the middle of a movie, they might watch it until the end and then wait for it to start over so they could see the beginning. For many people, cinema was almost more about the thrill of the moving picture than seeing some kind of narrative completely play itself out. Hitchcock changed all that, though. He made rules that audiences could not watch his films unless they watched them from the beginning, so that they could get the full effect of the suspense... As audiences picked up on this, theaters began changing their viewing policies and other directors began following Hitchcock's example. Crazy.

More like "thanks."
Damn. Audiences back then were dicks.

[Fuzznuts]

Too bad nothing much has changed in the "Audiences are Dicks Dept."