By Hitchcock
I’m not interested in content. It’s the same as a painter not worrying about the apples he’s painting – whether they’re sweet or sour. It’s his style, his manner of painting them – that’s where the emotion comes from.
—Terror in the Aisles
If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.
It’s only a movie, after all, and we’re all grossly overpaid.
Peter Bogdanovich: I just wondered if at any point in your career you ever thought of what you were doing as works of art—as many people have called your films.
Alfred Hitchcock: "Oh, I’m very glad when they do, but it’s not like taking page one of a script and then saying, 'I will now start a work of art.' It’s ridiculous—-you can’t do it."
— Who the Devil Made It
Peter Bogdanovich: Do you feel that American films remain the most vital?
Alfred Hitchcock: "Worldwide, yes. Because when we make films for the U.S., we are automatically making them for all the world — because America is full of foreigners...I don’t know what they mean when they talk about 'Hollywood' pictures. I say, 'Where are they conceived?' Look at this room—you can’t see out the windows. We might just as well be in a hotel room in London, or anywhere you like. So here is where we get it down on paper. Now where do we go? We go on location, perhaps; and then where do we work? We’re inside on a stage, the big doors are closed, and we’re down in a coal mine: we don’t know what the weather is like outside. Again, we don’t know where we are — only within our film, within the thing we’re making. That’s why it’s such nonsense to talk about locale. 'Hollywood.' That doesn’t mean anything to me. If you ask, 'Why do you like working in Hollywood?' I would say, because I can get home at six o’clock for dinner."
— Who the Devil Made It
After all it stands to reason that if one were seriously doing the Psycho story, it would be a case history. You would never present it in the forms of mystery of the juxtaposition of characters, as they were placed in the film. They were all designed in a certain way to create this audience emotion. Probably the real Psycho story wouldn't have been emotional at all; it would've been terribly clinical.
— qtd. in Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie
Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.
— His general rule for suspense filmmaking
About Hitchcock
"A master of shock and suspense, of cold horror and slyly incongruous wit, he uses the camera the way a painter uses his brush, stylizing his story and giving it values which the scenarists could hardly have suspected."
—The New York Times, praising Hitchcock in its review of The 39 Steps in 1935.
"We have forgotten for what reason
Montgomery Clift kept an eternal silence
and Janet Leigh stopped at the Bates Motel
and why Theresa Wright is still devoted to Uncle Charlie
we have forgotten that Henry Fonda is not completely guilty
and why exactly did the American government
employ Ingrid Bergman.
...but we remember
a handbag
but we remember a bus
in the desert
but, we remember a glass of milk
a windmill's blades
a hairbrush
but we remember a row of bottles
a pair of glasses
Montgomery Clift kept an eternal silence
and Janet Leigh stopped at the Bates Motel
and why Theresa Wright is still devoted to Uncle Charlie
we have forgotten that Henry Fonda is not completely guilty
and why exactly did the American government
employ Ingrid Bergman.
...but we remember
a handbag
but we remember a bus
in the desert
but, we remember a glass of milk
a windmill's blades
a hairbrush
but we remember a row of bottles
a pair of glasses
