Ben Oliver

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film

Hitchcock/Truffaut

Suspense isn’t always about fear.
03 May 2016

A documentary about the multi-day interview between Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut.

As a look into Hitchcock’s work from the perspective of some big name directors (Scorsese, Linklater, Fincher, Godard… amongst others), this proves to be quite an interesting film. They provide some valuable insight into how the director influenced their work, as well as some enthusiastic analysis of certain scenes and films that might make you look at some old favourites in a different light.

However, as a film about the Hitchock/Truffaut interview, Jones doesn’t really bring much to the table. In fact, the interview doesn’t get discussed much at all by the talking heads, and as an audience we are left wishing we were just listening to the source material rather than watching the documentary.

I have to wonder if the Truffaut part of the film was just an excuse to get people talking about Hichcock’s work and style. If you remove the interview element altogether, the film doesn’t lose much at all in terms of content.

Still, it never hurts to see experts in the field talk about the films they love and in this regard Hitchcock/Truffaut is definitely worth your time (and at 80 minutes it’s not exactly a chore…).