![]() Marsh: I think you sort of touched upon the central stylistic difference between the two films there: they’re diametrically opposed in terms of tone. He obviously wasn’t in a state of health where he could go out on location and do anything that psychically taxing anymore, and as a result, Family Plot stands as one of the true stylistic anomalies of ’70s cinema, which I think is of the things I enjoy about it. Family Plot, by contrast, is somewhat of an old man’s picture - there is an amusing anecdote relayed by assistant director Howard Kazanjian on the film’s DVD where he described Hitchcock’s response to his assertion that they should film the movie’s centerpiece car chase sequence on location instead of second unit, how Hitch preferred. I think it was Francois Truffaut who said around the time of Frenzy’s release that the film was a “young man’s picture,” referring of course to the editing and sound mixing techniques that he employs throughout. He made his career and built his legacy in the US, no doubt, but for my money, there are few films more satisfying than The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes and, of course, Frenzy, which is not only indebted to the forms and conventions of his formative years but also, I believe, incorporates his decades of subsequent experience to improve upon them.Ĭronk: Frenzy is certainly one of his most controlled, precisely executed films, which actually stands in pretty sharp contrast to Family Plot, which is kind of messy and indulgent in many ways. ![]() You’re right that I prefer Frenzy, but so too do I generally prefer his earlier, British films to the more polished Hollywood classics he produced later – perhaps it’s that I’m British-born and simply can’t escape the sensibilities of my heritage, but there’s something so charming and efficient about his British work. ![]() These are the only two films Hitchcock made in ’70s, and I think they make for a nice compare and contrast between his British and American sensibilities, with Frenzy harkening back to his pre-Hollywood work in his home country, while Family Plot exemplifies the humor and classic post-war American filmmaking practices that rocketed Hitch to the upper echelons of cinematic autuers.Ĭalum Marsh: It’s certainly fitting: Hitchcock essentially had two complete, distinctive careers – one in Britain, from 1922 to 1939, and one in Hollywood, from 1940 onward – and his last two films reflect and comment on that separation in very interesting ways. His 1976 swan song Family Plot is one of his most endlessly entertaining and re-watchable films, while you hold his prior picture, 1972’s Frenzy, as one of his best films, period. In some cases, this is warranted, but there are at least two wonderful examples of Hitchcock working at a very high level late in his career, however, and we each have a strong connection to one of them. But sometime after 1963’s The Birds, Hitchcock’s critical and popular stock waned a bit, and as a result, there is a good decade-and-a-half worth of work which doesn’t garner nearly the same kind of praise that his mid-’50s Hollywood work or even his early British pictures still do. Jordan Cronk: Like we mentioned last time regarding Robert Altman, Alfred Hitchcock has been canonized and re-canonized so much over the past 50 years or so that it can seem at first glance like there’s not much from his filmography left to reconsider at this point. ![]()
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