Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, who died forty years ago, had a few obsessions and obsessions when he made a film. Discover this story in this bonus episode of "At the heart of history".

By listening to the story dedicated to the life of Alfred Hitchcock you may have wanted to know more about the filmmaker's way of working. In this bonus episode of "At the heart of history", the history specialist Jean des Cars reveals some of the mania and obsessions of the master of suspense. 

Alfred Hitchcock was a fetish filmmaker. From his third film as director, in 1926, The Lodger, he made a short appearance on the screen. In this story of serial killer, who assassinates only blonde women and always on a Tuesday, he appears seated, from behind, behind a desk, agitated a lot on the phone. Through the windows, you can see a boiling newsroom: a new crime has just been discovered! 

From now on, it will be a ritual. Even when he approaches talking cinema, his appearance will always be silent and extremely rapid. His discreet intervention is almost always picturesque. For example, when he tries to get on a bus by carrying a double bass! A sort of ritual for Hitchcock and a game for spectators! With each new film, they will watch for the furtive appearance of the master of suspense! 

Blondes, stairs and handcuffs

He also had a certain fetishism for the pretty blondes and for the handcuffs which one puts, generally wrongly, on the wrists of the innocent hero. He also likes to film the stairs in virtuoso shots. We always feel that something terrible will happen! Women with glasses also inspire him. In The Unknown of the Nord-Express, it is in the victim's glasses that the face of the murderer appears.

The master of precision

We know, on the other hand, that Hitchcock was adulated in France by Les Cahiers du Cinéma in general, and by François Truffaut in particular, the embodiment of the New Wave ... However, there was no more classic nor more precise than Alfred Hitchcock on the shooting of his films. Before each scene, he drew the storyboard for the sequence himself. Each angle, each plane, each actor movement was meticulously drawn and planned. Grace Kelly paid the price in her first film with him in Crime was almost perfect. At one point, she shoots a scene, however repeated, and doesn't know where to go! Hitchcock stops him and says, "Miss Kelly, what do you think you're doing?" 

Grace replies: "I'm not sure!" 

Hitch asks her if she has read the screenplay! "Yes…"

Even what was written in parenthesis? "No…"

Glacial, Hitchcock says: "If you had read it, you would know exactly where you should go!" Grace Kelly, however professional, becomes all red. She is mortified!

From now on, she would know that the indications in parenthesis of the script were as important as the dialogue itself. Before each shooting, Hitchcock had in his head the entire sequence of the scene. There was no room for improvisation. Director Alfred Hitchcock was the opposite of "the pen camera".

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"At the heart of history" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast

Author and presentation: Jean des Cars 

Project manager: Adèle Ponticelli

Realization: Guillaume Vasseau

Diffusion and edition: Clémence Olivier

Graphics: Europe 1 Studio