Hitchcock/Truffaut

The book ‘Hitchcock/Truffaut’ is to film geeks what a sauce-stained copy of the ‘Moro’ cookbook is to budding chefs. Published in 1966 and still available in its iconic grey paperback, it goes movie by movie – sometimes shot by shot – through the greatest career in onscreen suspense. Alfred Hitchcock’s interviewer, the rising-star French director and critic François Truffaut, brought a fan’s passion and a colleague’s precision to his questions. The result remains a how-to guide for ‘Vertigo’, ‘Psycho’ and a future wave of nail-biters inspired by their observations.

The doc’s director, Kent Jones, does more than bring the week of smoky interviews between Hitchcock and Truffaut to life. He assembles the likes of Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson and fearsomely smart ‘Gone Girl’ director David Fincher (who carries the Hitch crown better than anyone these days) as talking heads. For all his bankability, Hitchcock was underappreciated until Truffaut’s study came along. Jones vibes off that idea, turning Truffaut’s enthusiasm into an honourable act of reclamation.