MartinHafer "Hitchcock/Truffaut" is not a film for everyone. Film students and film nuts might love it but the average viewer will be pretty bored with the material. The material consists of using a series of interviews between Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock from 1966 in which the French director asked the British director about his craft. Originally, this resulted in a book with transcripts from the meeting but in this film you hear portions of the interview as well as hear from many famous filmmakers as well as see clips from various, mostly Hitchcock, films.To love this documentary, you really need to buy into the central assumption of this film...that Hitchcock was the greatest (at least by 1966) filmmaker ever. It seems that the many directors who participated in this agreed and loved to talk about Hitchcock in almost godlike terms. And, this hero worship seemed to me to be a double-edged sword. Sure, they could talk about the great things he did on film. But, since he was a god, he was perfect and any shortcoming on Hitchcock's part simply wasn't considered. No filmmaker is truly godlike and for me the documentary just seemed to lack real objectivity. For example, they praised "Psycho" again and again...even though a very similar film, the brilliant "Peeping Tom" came out the year before but was seen by few because it was banned. So, in this sense, Hitchcock really wasn't first to make this sort of movie....though this wasn't acknowledged. Overall, worth seeing, perhaps, but not a must-see for me.

moonspinner55 Today's top movie-men (Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Richard Linklater among them) reflect on French filmmaker François Truffaut's 1966 book "Hitchcock/Truffaut", wherein an eight-day meeting was arranged in 1962 Los Angeles between Alfred Hitchcock (who had just completed "The Birds") and Truffaut, who had released only three films but who had met Hitchcock before in Paris and struck up a friendship. The interview book with rare photographs took Hitchcock through each one of his movie titles, giving readers a then-rare glimpse into his thought processes, his behind-the-scenes troubles, his triumphs and regrets. Although portions of Truffaut's original recorded interview are heard throughout, the picture (heavy with clips) becomes, predictably, a tribute to Hitchcock's body of work--with, even more predictably, a heavy emphasis on "Vertigo" and "Psycho". Most revealing are the passages from Truffaut's interview, including the famous quote wherein Hitchcock referred to actors as cattle (after finishing a story on working with Method actor Montgomery Clift on "I Confess"). Hitchcock didn't believe in giving his players any free room within his productions to expand on their characters--character content was secondary, everything was planned out visually from the beginning--yet Hitchcock's temperament or volatility (if, indeed, any) isn't touched upon here. This is a reverent piece of work, an enjoyable but mild documentary without intrusive surprises. **1/2 from ****

Thomas Drufke The success of documentary is usually based on how much you already know and how much you learn about the main subject of the film. I knew a bit about Hitchcock, but I never dug deep into his archival footage or books written about him to understand the full psychology of the master of suspense. Hitchcock/Truffaut is a fascinating look into several of Hitch's films, and even some of Truffaut's, even if it is a little too short to call it a full exploration. Director Kent Jones gathers several of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich, and David Fincher, to discuss Hitchcock's influence on the art of cinema and some of his most effective features. These commentators are certainly insightful, but you don't get enough from each of them to get full satisfaction. The film is based around a conversation between Hitchcock and Truffaut that took place in 1962. Truffaut, an up and coming filmmaker at the time, provides the viewer (or reader) a glimpse into what it would be like to interview the legendary filmmaker yourself. In many ways, Truffaut gets to ask all the questions any fan of Hitchcock has always wanted to ask. Whether it's addressing his catholic roots, sexual undertones in many of his features, his transition from silent film to talkies, the dreamlike quality to the films, or his iconic use of "god's eye" camera angles, it's all covered. As a film junkie, this type of coverage on one filmmaker is a dream come true. Again, the one thing I think the film could have improved upon was just giving more of everything and spending even more time on his expansive filmography. Spending a good chunk of time on Vertigo and Psycho was definitely needed, but I would love a more in-depth look at plenty of other films of his as well. However, overall, this documentary is a joy to watch, especially considering it's brilliant filmmakers commenting on Hitchcock, who is one of the greatest.8.5/10

alexdeleonfilm The Greatest Story Hitchcock Ever Told HITCHCOCK/Truffaut; Document, UK. 2015. director Kent Jones. 78 minutes. Viewed on Saturday afternoon in the little tent at Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival June 2016. Makes you want to read and devour the celebrated Truffaut book on Hitch ASAP. Fantastic film. Great shots of Hitchcock film posters. Sharply selected excerpts from Hitchcock films. Opens with a stark still shot of actress Sylvia Sidney in "Sabotage", 1936, and takes off from there on a whirlwind tour of the director's career and obliquely some, but not too much, of his personal life.Comments by Scorcese, Schrader, Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovitch, Olivier Assayas, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, David Fincher and even young Jean-Luc Godard, among others. All indicating how they were influenced by Hitchcock one way or another. Kiyoshi speaks in Japanese, the French directors in French. Subtitles in Finnish (natch)...Many shots of Hitchcock as a young man in London, not yet as rocky-poly as he became later. Actually, not a bad looking if slightly portly young man on a roll. The importance of his wife in the background. Throughout his career he consulted with her regularly on all of his films although she was only credited officially in a few of the early ones. He is invited to Hollywood. Has no interest in Tinseltown but is itching to get into a fully equipped Hollywoid studio.One of the high points of the film is an extensive discussion of the making of PSYCHO, it's social impact in 1960 (people were literally screaming in the theaters!) and a detailed analysis of the construction of the infamously famous shower scene in which ultra sexy Janet Leigh is stabbed to death by ultra-psycho Anthony Perkins. This discussion of the making of that flabbergastingly powerful scene by the master himself could be excerpted and show on its own as a complete independent master class in filmmaking. Mr. Jones's magnificent 78 minute film about the making of a book is, in fact, a Master Class in documentary filmmaking, and on its own justified this trip to the upper reaches of Finland. Hats off -- Bravo! -- I want to own this film so I can watch it over and over endlessly.Among other things it reminds me of my own relationship to Hitchcock over the years. As a youth I saw many of his films routinely when they came out at my neighborhood theater but only thought of them as great entertainment, not as Great Art. It was only when I was a student of linguistics at UCLA that I met many students from the film department who worshiped him as a true artist and a creative genius that my views began to change.At the Pacific Film Archive in 1975 I saw every film in a complete Hitchcock retrospective arranged by Tom Luddy who later founded the Telluride film festival. It was at this time that I truly began to understand the difference between film as entertainment and film as art and how the two can merge without contradiction simultaneously satisfying the intellect as well as the need for fun and distraction.Truffaut himself is, of course, a major character in this film with live and still footage of Hitchcock as well. Many stills are shown from the three day interview in Hitchcock's office at Universal studios in 1962 which served as the basis for the book --with Truffaut, Hitchcock and a woman interpreter -- Truffaut didn't know English nor did Hitchcock know French. Yet the master recognized Truffaut as an upcoming talent and a worthy interviewer. The Point is made that they were of different generations but each was cognizant of film as art and respected the other. Although at the time of the interviews, 1962, Truffaut had only made three films, he was already recognized as a major new director of international importance. In a late ceremonial speech at the Hollywood Oscars Truffaut, underlining the respect in which Hitchcock was held in France as opposed to the cretin like lack of respect in America, Truffaut states a bit bluntly: "In America you call him "Hitch" ~~ in France we call him Monsieur Hitchcock!" --To the very end Monsieur Hitchcock wavered between seeing himself as primarily entertainer or primarily artist but there is no doubt that he was most interested in connecting with and manipulating the emotions of the audience. So, in a sense he was above all a master of mass psychology --another point subtly and effectively made in this exceptional study of an exceptional film career.Hitchcock dies on April 29, 1980 at age 81, and most surprisingly Truffaut less than four years later, on October 21, 1984, at the untimely age of 52 of a brain tumor. Hitch's career was over but Truffaut still had untold amounts of offerings in store. His book on Hitchcock and this film about the book and the man behind the book are now part of his deathless contribution to the history of Cinema.