Hitchcock (2012)
Directed by Sacha Gervasi
Following his great success with "North by Northwest," director Alfred Hitchcock makes a daring choice for his next project: an adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho." When the studio refuses to back the picture, Hitchcock decides to pay for it himself in exchange for a percentage of the profits. His wife, Alma Reville, has serious reservations about the film but supports him nonetheless. Still, the production strains the couple's marriage.
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3 films that influenced Hitchcock
What critics say influenced Hitchcock
Especially since it was following on the heels of Hitch’s greatest commercial success, the slick, Technicolor comic spy caper North by Northwest (1959), his decision to independently produce a low-budget, black-and-white horror film with plot elements involving transvestitism, incest, and a brutally graphic shower murder (partially inspired by the real-life serial killer Ed Gein) should not be underappreciated.
Wearing an impressive body suit and extensive facial prosthetics to mimic the droopy mien of “Hitch” (as he preferred to be called), Hopkins evokes the spirit and personality of the man behind masterpieces like “Rear Window,” “North by Northwest” and “Vertigo.”
One of them is the title character, the pear-shaped film director who channeled his demons and an obsession with icy blonds into such films as "Rear Window," "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest."
Following the global success of “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock felt he needed to enter the 1960s with a groundbreaking film.
In the case of cinematic auteur, Alfred Hitchcock, that opportunity came after the release of his classic, North by Northwest.
Wearing an impressive body suit and extensive facial prosthetics to mimic the droopy mien of “Hitch” (as he preferred to be called), Hopkins evokes the spirit and personality of the man behind masterpieces like “Rear Window,” “North by Northwest” and “Vertigo.”
One of them is the title character, the pear-shaped film director who channeled his demons and an obsession with icy blonds into such films as "Rear Window," "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest."
After seeing that movie as a child, and then seeing his more well-known classics like “Rear Window,” “Vertigo” and “The Birds,” I discovered a wider filmography than just a horror movie director.
We catch Hitch(Anthony Hopkins) as he’s at the very height of his fame — just after the dazzling success of “North by Northwest,” on a roll with “Vertigo” and “Rear Window” just behind it.
The richest of them – “Suspicion,” “Notorious,” “Rear Window,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “The Birds,” “Marnie” – are like cities: There’s always some side street, some building, some statue you’ve never noticed or you’ve noticed but have never appreciated.
Anthony Hopkins joins Ian McKellen in Gods and Monsters (1998), Robert Downey, Jr. in Chaplin (1992), Clint Eastwood in White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), Johnny Depp in Ed Wood (1994), and Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2 (1963).
Director Sacha Gervasi’s treatment of the life of Hitchcock is very much in the tone of Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.”
Think of it as a somewhat less stylish Ed Wood (1994), only about people with actual talent, and you’ll be in the right ballpark — even if this never scales the heights of Burton’s film.
Pitched somewhere between the larky "My Week with Marilyn" and the wry "Ed Wood," and aimed -- despite its many cinephiliac-flattering in-jokes -- more at the senior crowd that made " The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel " a hit than at those cinéastes who believe "Marnie" is a masterpiece, "Hitchcock" is essentially a reassuring, movie-themed nostalgia piece in edgy psychoanalytic drag.