Hitchcock - the legend and his wife ...

“Hitchcock” - the legend, his wife and the “Psycho” that almost destroyed everything

   

HitchcockSwedish premiere: 8th of February 2013. Contents: Skinsuits, serial killers and suspense - long before "Silence of the Lambs". Now sir Anthony Hopkins, of Hannibal Lector fame, dons the fatsuit to portray the great director ...


Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” knocked down Orson Welles “Citizen Kane” as the best film ever made in the latest poll, held every decade by the British magazine Sight and Sound, where great directors all over the world get to vote. Nevertheless, Hitchcock’s “Psycho” has probably attained even greater fame - and notoriety - than “Vertigo“.
Hitchcock - the great presenter
The motion picture “Hitchcock“, directed by Sacha Gervasi, is based on Stephen Rebello's non-fiction book “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho“. However, the film often wanders into the territory of fiction, albeit knowingly, and enjoying the drama along the way. The film is presented like one of Hitchcock’s own television shows, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, starting with the legend of Cain and Abel - while Ed Gein is killing his own brother at their farm, behind Hitchcock’s back, while he is presenting what we are to see. The fratricide however, is a red herring. The theme of brotherly envy is not again touched on during the remainder of the film, and when Hitchcock the presenter comes back again, a huge black bird lands on his shoulder - indicating that the great director will next turn his hand to making “The Birds” …
The woman behind the great man
“Hitchcock” centers both on the making of the controversial horror film “Psycho“, now a film classic, and the private relationship between the great British director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the making of the film. Alma was in fact Alfred’s boss when they first met and he had to work himself into the great position of assisting director before mustering up the courage to ask her out. The rest is history. For 30 years they collaborated on every film, every screenplay, every final cut. It was Alma’s idea how to present the famous murder in the shower scene - Hitchcock opted for silence, Alma opted for strings, as well as very quick paced cutting. Strings won out in the end and that scene has been giving cinema enthusiasts nightmares ever since.
True story - true stories

Like the film “Hitchcock“, “Psycho” is also based on a supposedly true story, the book “Psycho” by Robert Bloch, published 1959, which is based on the crimes of the serial killer, Ed Gein, the Norman Bates character in the book “Psycho“. In November 1957 Ed Gein was arrested in Plainfield, Wisconsin, for the murders of two women. His home was searched and furniture, silverware, and even clothing made of human skin and body parts were found. Psychiatrists theorized that he was trying to make a skin suit, a woman suit, to wear so he could pretend to be his dead mother.
This all happened years before Thomas Harries wrote “The Silence of the Lambs“, the screen adaptation of that novel gave sir Antony Hopkins a well-deserved Academy Award for best male actor –and now the suave Hannibal Lector actor plays Hitchcock. Sensing a whiff of metafiction, anyone? However, Hopkins played the upper class, heterosexual killer, who survives the film, to the cheers of the audience, while the gay serial killer, trying to make a skinsuit, is severely punished for his crimes – also to the cheers of the audience.
Alfred Hitchcock, Helen Mirren and Anthony Hopkins“We don’t want another Vertigo”
Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville also started their movie making career in Britain and continued working and living together in America where Hitchcock made most of his acclaimed horror movies and thrillers. Nevertheless, after making “North by Northwest” for MGM, Paramount wanted another spy thriller, just as good and as money-making. Hitchcock wanted to make “Psycho“. The film industry said no. Unanimously. With the motivation: ”We don’t want another Vertigo!” i.e. we don’t want another movie which will lose us our money. Today “Vertigo” is considered the greatest film ever made. The irony of it all!
In the end Hitchcock and his wife financed the film themselves, mortgaging the house and risking their home, their garden and their swimming pool to make the film they wanted to make.
Horror turns into feel-good
In the film the strain of making “Psycho” seems to be cracking up Alfred’s and Alma’s otherwise solid marriage. In real life they had lots of dogs, one child and three grandchildren, their house was always open to friends and family. In the film they have dogs. Full stop. Nothing distracts us from enjoying the banter and the quips between Mirren and Hopkins. No annoying little child actors are in the way. However, as a true portrait of Alma’s and Alfred’s marriage and life together, the film is highly speculative.
Finally, the hard working couple pull together to salvage the film, their marriage and their home. “Hitchcock” finally turns into a feel-good-movie about an elderly couple who shows the younger generation that they are still the masters of horror and suspense. In a world of youth culture, fast profits and commercialism, the old people who believed in their own artistic vision gets the last word. And a great slice of the profit.

Belinda Graham