Hitchcock/Truffaut transmits the desire of filmmaking for all to fall in love with — a film review
January 7, 2016
It can be a tricky proposition: making a film about films. Even trickier is the idea of making a film based on a book about films, in this case the 1967 book Hitchcock/Truffaut. But film critic/director Kent Jones turns the task into a buoyant, delightful ramble that will inspire viewers to revisit the film catalog of Alfred Hitchcock. Co-written with Serge Toubiana, the director of the famed Cinémathèque française, the documentary is an examination of cinema so in love with its subject, the viewer will find themselves seduced by it. It sucks you into the delights of some of the most brilliantly formed films, from editing to music to performances to tricks of mise-en-scène like a light hidden in a milk glass to subtly draw the viewer’s eye. It’s an absolutely captivating bit of filmmaking in and of itself.
The source material stems from the famous book by French film critic turned director François Truffaut written after a week-long conversation with Hitchcock, in 1962. Jones has assembled some of contemporary cinema’s most famous filmmakers to talk about the book’s essential quality and the lessons they have learned from it. Wes Anderson, Olivier Assayas, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Martin Scorsese are among some of the talking heads whose voices mostly supplement images of Hitchcock’s films, interwoven with samples of Hitchcock and Truffaut’s original conversations. There are also storyboards, photos from the meeting of the two filmmakers in Los Angeles and perpetual string music by Jeremiah Bornfield, which could forgivably be confused for original music by Hitchcock regular Bernard Herrmann. The montage of it all is structured but still breezy.
The film begins with Anderson and David Fincher recalling early memories of the book as children and how it seemed to seep into their identity as aspiring filmmakers. There’s a bit of history of Hitchcock and Truffaut before their meeting, which is explained as a symbiotic event. Truffaut sought to free Hitchcock of a perception that his films were shallow, and Hitchcock freed Truffaut as an artist. Then the film goes into the minutiae of how Hitch played with the form of cinema. The layers of information can be overwhelming, but you will want to revisit the documentary to get familiar with it and enjoy it deeper, just like the value of the book to all these filmmakers. It’s a terrific lesson in filmmaking that benefits aspiring directors and fans of cinema alike.
Jones dedicates a big chunk of time to Vertigo and Psycho, but the insight is interesting, especially for Vertigo, a film that was seen as a bit of a popular failure when it saw release, though now it’s considered one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. It’s Fincher (whose work often endures similar perception) who points out Hitchcock’s embracing of his perverted interests, which Fincher also admits is key to his own work. Scorsese chimes in to note how Vertigo is more than a story but a life. The examination of the film becomes a look not only at plot but how it reflects the director and his beliefs. Bringing up the scene in the museum where James Stewart’s character spies Kim Novak from the back of her head, director James Gray brings it back to the power of the image in the cinema of Hitchcock and how amazed he is about Hitchcock’s vision. Gray assumes Hitch must have been so confident in the choice of his images that he probably skipped coverage from other angles.
Though some may argue, where’s the book in this? I posit this kind of passion is informed by Truffaut’s passionate respect for Hitchcock, the filmmaker. A sort of transcendent energy and affection comes from the meticulous examination of Hitchcock’s oeuvre. This excitement of the art by current directors becomes indelible with the book that dared to celebrate the form of an art with a genuine curiosity and affection for its subject. It’s no wonder Truffaut and Hitchcock fell in love with one another as fellow travelers in their craft. It’s a love that has outlived them and is beautifully transmitted by Jones and Toubiana.
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A retrospective of films by Hitchcock/Truffaut starts today, Jan. 7, and continues every Thursday for the month of January at the Miami Beach Cinematheque featuring local film critics (including us at Independent Ethos) and friends of ours. The schedule is as follows:
- Jan. 7: Marnie with intro by Miami International Film Festival Director Jaie Laplante
- Jan. 14: The Bride Wore Black with intro film critic Rubén Rosario
- Jan. 21: The Wrong Man with intro by film critic David N Meyer
- Jan. 28: Confidentially Yours with intro by film critics Hans Morgenstern and Ana Morgenstern (that’s us!)
For tickets to each of these events, visit the theater’s calendar and look for each of these dates: miamibeachfilmsociety.memberlodge.org/calendar.
Hitchcock/Truffaut runs 80 minutes and is rated PG-13. It opens Friday, Jan. 8, in our Miami area at the following theaters: The Miami Beach Cinematheque and in Broward, at the Cinema Paradiso Fort Lauderdale, which will host a Skype Q&A with the film’s director, Kent Jones, on Saturday, Jan. 9, at the 7 p.m. screening of the film. The film expands to The Bill Cosford Cinema on Jan. 22. It opened in other parts of the U.S. already and continues to roll out. For dates in other cities, visit this page. Cohen Media provided all images in this post and a preview screener for the purpose of this review.
A chat with actress Margot Robbie on Scorsese, DiCaprio and ‘the Wolf of Wall Street’
January 8, 2014
Everyone who follows this blog (and we know we don’t thank you enough for it, as we close in on 3,000 subscribers for the new year) knows how this writer feels about Martin Scorsese’s latest picture, The Wolf of Wall Street (Film Review: ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ is one nasty, vulgar film about nasty, vulgar people– for 3 hours!). Despite that view, of course I am keen on talking with the filmmakers regarding the movie. So, when I was offered a telephone chat by Paramount Pictures with the actress who plays Leonardo DiCaprio’s character’s wife, of course I jumped at the chance.
I spoke with Margot Robbie via phone, a day after she arrived in L.A. from her native Australia, on Monday afternoon. She was running late on interviews, so after some polite banter to ease things, I got to the questions that addressed the divisive reception of the film: the black humor, the subjugation of women, her first nude scene. You can read all about that for the blog I wrote it for, “Cultist,” via the “Miami New Times.” Jump though the blog’s logo below to read it all:
Of course, to get to these substantive questions in a non-confrontational, inviting way, one must have a little banter. As this is a Scorsese film, none of it was without its value. Most interesting is the revelation of her favorite Scorsese film and the fact no one in the cast even had a look of the legendary four-hour cut of the film, which delayed the film’s release by a month:
Hans Morgenstern: May I say your age? If not, it’s OK.
Margot Robbie: No, it’s all right. I’m 23. Born in 1990. Funnily enough, Nadine, who my character’s original name was, she met Jordan when she was 22, and when I was filming the scenes, I was actually 22, so the age is spot-on perfect for the character I was playing.
How much time did you spend on the set for your scenes in Wolf?
It was a 90-day shoot. I think it spanned over five months or something like that, and I think I was on set for 50 something or 60 days, so it’s like two-thirds of the shooting days.
I heard there was a four-hour cut. Did you see earlier versions? If so what differences are there?
Marty didn’t want any of the cast to see any of the cuts until it was locked in to the actual release cut, so I saw it a week before the premiere because I was filming in Argentina before that, so I saw it when I got to New York, which is a week before the premiere.
Did you have a favorite Martin Scorsese film before you came into this?
You know, Gangs of New York has always been my favorite Scorsese film. I don’t know why. I could just watch that again and again and again. I know everyone says Goodfellas, and I adore Goodfellas. I really do, but Gangs of New York has always been my favorite.
So you must have been how old when you saw Gangs of New York?
I don’t know, maybe 15?
So you saw Leo in that role. What was it like playing opposite him?
It’s funny meeting him in person, I don’t really associate him with the characters I see him play in movies. The way I don’t associate Jack from Titanic, with Howard Hughes in the Aviator. They’re just such different characters. He never really plays the same character the same way. The characters are never similar to him as a person, so it’s easy to distinguish the Leo in real life with the Leo in films. So meeting him, though you’re aware, obviously, “I’m about to meet Leo DiCaprio,” you kinda quickly forget it because then you’re just meeting a person and when you get to know him, he’s a really cool guy, he’s really smart, and there’s a lot to learn from him. It was just kinda cool getting to know him.
‘Wolf of Wall Street’ is one nasty, vulgar film about nasty, vulgar people– for 3 hours!
December 26, 2013
Despite his status as a big time Hollywood director, Martin Scorsese deserves consideration as an auteur who can still assert his independent ethos to produce work that does not neatly fall into the category of classical Hollywood cinema. Sadly, his latest work reveals what can go wrong when such a talent goes unchecked. There’s something rather soulless and harrowing about his latest picture, The Wolf of Wall Street. It reveals the travesty of self-indulgence on many levels, and the ultimate victim is the viewer.
The news in advance of this film was it needed to be cut back from an original four-hour run-time. Recently Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, participated in an interview where she revealed Scorsese had considered releasing the Wolf in two parts (read the interview). One can only wonder how much easier to swallow the film might have been in two doses and whether there had been some subtlety lost in cutting out an hour’s worth of material for the endurance test that ultimately saw release. Might the repetitive Bacchanalia seemed less redundant? Could there have been some actual character development that allowed you to care for the asshole dweebs that constantly rampage across the screen?
The film follows the rise and fall of coke-snorting, lude-popping, prostitute-fucking, slick-talking king swindler Jordan Belfort (a kinetic, unrelenting Leonardo DiCaprio). His talents are revealed during orgies and phone conversations, not to mention several speeches to his crew. 
For three grueling hours, the Wolf of Wall Street agonizingly drones on toward an inevitable conclusion that just does not come soon enough. Why did this film have to carry on so long and feature so many monologues by such a despicable character? I just wanted to see this asshole jailed already. Instead of feeling moved by the slight crash down to earth for this character, by the end, all I felt was relief that this mean movie had ended.
The film is a satirical affair based on a real human being and his autobiography, also titled The Wolf of Wall Street. Belfort was one of those late ‘80s masters of the universe who eschewed any sense of principle for maximum profit. “Was any of this legal?” he says. “Absolutely not.” He worked his way toward the big fish investors by offering penny stocks in unreal shiny packages of bullshit. The slimy con man reels them in using only words and enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter what junk he peddles, they buy it (Belfort has since moved on to become a motivational speaker). The investors invest in crap, and Belfort reaps the commission.
Soon, Jordan has created an industry using just a telemarketing script and a stable of petty drug dealers eager to learn the language that will sucker almost anyone to give up their money. Over the course of the film, we only watch Belfort grow richer. He upgrades his car, his house, his boat and even his wife. All the while, the film gives him nary a redeeming moment to even give one shit about him.
The decadence of after-work parties that include orgies in the office as soon as trading stops are complexly choreographed affairs that will leave you reeling in disgust or delight as horror and humor collide with a reckless sense of tone. Cocaine and Quaaludes freely flow, as does degradation of humanity, particularly to women. Greed is the ultimate motivator for both the wolves and the prey. Early in the film, during one party at the office a woman takes center stage to have her long hair shaved off for $10,000, which she plans to spend on breast implants. It’s a moment of stark depravity that has a rather tragic resonance for any sense of pity for these characters.
For much of the film, you follow Jordan at the height of his most unsympathetic. One cannot even call this man a misanthrope. He’s just an asshole. There is never a moment where he struggles with his conscience. The film never seems to consider the victims. All we know of them are their muffled voices on the other side of a telephone lines. Jordan speaks to them of the riches they are bound to gain while giving the phone receiver a stiff quavering middle finger and silently mouthing the words “fuck you!” while his lackeys gather around and snicker. Jordan seems to hate his customers for their greed, despite how much of his own greed he is satisfying.
It’s a smart depiction, but after seven or eight similar examples featuring gimmicky, jokey scenes that includes cocaine snorted off ass cracks, Jordan’s right-hand Donnie (Jonah Hill) whipping out his dick in the middle of a party to beat off to Jordan’s future next wife 
(Margot Robbie) and Jordan experimenting with a dominatrix who sodomizes him with a candle, the point is made. It doesn’t matter whether you change the music, the setting or vary the speed of the film. There needs to be a sense of something beyond the greed preying on the greedy to merit this film’s languorous duration of indulgence. Otherwise it all just feels voyeuristic, inane, cruel and pointless.
One of the film’s few interesting moments happens way too late to redeem this film. After OD-ing on Quaaludes at a country club, Jordan crashes so hard he calls it a “cerebral palsy high.” Just then, an emergency that could incriminate his racket arises, and he must drag himself to his Lamborghini during a moment of drawn-out slapstick. When he arrives at home, after crawling down the street, he feels some pride at having driven the car the one mile without even scratching it. The following morning, however, it’s another story.
That duality of perspective is essential to contrast the often romantic presentation of the character’s slash and burn ride to his mountain of millions. It’s a shame Scorsese cannot present enough moments like this. When the final scene arrives, offering a hint of a more grounded world featuring more common men, it’s just too late. You have to wonder where these people were throughout the entirety of much of this high-pitched movie, which screeches along like some speed metal album without any dynamics.
There’s just hardly any sense of humanity in The Wolf of Wall Street. The film feels like watching voracious garbage disposers noisily grind up refuse. You’re just glad when the noise finally stops and all that trash has run its course. All you’re left with, in the end, however, is a greasy residue of emptiness. One should expect more from the director who gave us Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.
The Wolf of Wall Street runs 180 minutes and is rated R (beyond unchecked Scorsese, there’s lots more to be offended by). It opened pretty much everywhere in the U.S. yesterday, Dec. 25. Paramount Pictures hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this review.
The documentary Side By Side is a film for the cinephiles still trying to come to terms with the end of film cameras and the rise of digital cameras. Maybe 10 years ago the debate would have been more heated, but nowadays it is about coming to terms with the new format. A couple of years ago, I posted about how film lovers simply need to accept this new medium, as everyone from studios to projectionists to general audiences were moving to the new format with little sentimentality for the past (To accept the death of celluloid).
Co-produced and hosted by Keanu Reeves, Side By Side features the actor interviewing some of cinema’s great artists. From cinematographers to editors to colorists, he sits down with them all. These people provide a wide-ranging survey of not only how they make movies but also how the conversion from 35mm to digital has affected their craft. On top of that, everyone seems to have different feelings on the new technology.
Many have knocked Reeves for years as an actor of limited range, but he, with the help of director Christopher Kenneally, offers a nerd-worthy examination at all the moving parts in making a movie while diving into the state of flux in the industry. 
You cannot help but love him for his affection for the art, which translates to a thorough, easy-to-understand and entertaining documentary on filmmaking with relevance to the moment. No matter that Reeves injects himself in the dialogue; he does not put himself onscreen to upstage the medium itself. He feels cozy to watch as he chats with all these people who have their hands in the details of the medium. With his unkempt beard and his casual dress, Reeves is no movie star, but your disheveled professor, taking you on a tour of filmmaking 101. He introduces the various roles of the people behind the scenes whose names many audience members never seem to notice as they walk out of a movie’s closing credits. In the meantime, he reveals how digital technology has affected all departments from the creative side to the distribution and projection side.
Like any good documentary on cinema, Side By Side, opens with a celebration of iconic films once exclusively distributed in the photochemical film process most filmgoers over the age 20 used to only experience in theaters. It appeals to the nostalgic, sentimental and emotional connection most film lovers have with movies. There are still some youngish film directors who staunchly support 35mm film, though it seems to have become an uphill battle. Director Christopher Nolan says early on, “I’m constantly justifying why I want to shoot a film on film, but I don’t hear anyone asked to justify why they want to shoot a film digitally.” At the age of 42, he may be part of the last generation to care about 35mm.
When I started this blog I thought celebrating film shot and distributed in 35mm and music released on vinyl were the best ways to fully appreciate these arts. Music continues to exist in vinyl fine and dandy, but film is a whole other beast, as digital technology only continues to advance. The costs of making a vinyl record do not compare to producing a 35mm movie. As someone who has both carried vinyl records and canisters of 35mm film, I know. “Film is a 19th century invention,” says Star Wars director George Lucas. “We are at the top of the photochemical process. This is as far as it’s ever gonna go.”
While explaining the change over to digital, Side By Side also provides a lesson in the movie camera and establishes just how important the cinematographer, or DP (director of photography), is to the process. Not only do some of the cinematographers interviewed celebrate 35mm film’s natural grain, they also appreciate the natural breaks in action every 10 minutes in order to change the cartridges of film that attach to the camera. Some believe these breaks allow moments of essential reflection to assess work flow. Side By Side also reveals film’s cumbersome nature encourages reflection for film editors as well, as they must handle the physical reels of footage and tape them together in the editing room. Some editors celebrate the sound of such a craft, lamenting the loss of the whir of film to clicks on a keyboard. “It’s a different way of thinking,” says Lawrence of Arabia’s editor, Ann V. Coates.
That is the other level many of those working with the film medium appreciate the format for. As a writer who used to produce first drafts longhand and revised in notebooks before typing a final product out to a professor or editor, I understand how the process in which one creates often contributes to that product’s character. I would go through at least three drafts in my old process. There is something to be said about pausing one’s work that allows to activate moments of reflection by the creative mind. Martin Scorsese 
laments that something is lost when digital allows you to playback “dailies” right after shooting a scene. With 35mm, filmmakers must wait a day to see what the film captured. Undeveloped film has to be sent to a lab where it is processed and printed. It is then sent back to a screening room the next day. Hence the name dailies. Scorsese believes dailies need to be seen later, so one can concentrate better on shooting a movie while on the set.
As Side By Side continues to chronicle the changes to cameras, including one that produced a “negative” in a cartridge, filmmakers started to evolve with the new cameras. One thing that helped were technological advances in resolution. The better the picture got, the less complaints from filmmakers. The technology began to speak for itself.
Directors were also excited about new advantages like lightweight cameras that allowed for placement and maneuverability unimaginable until now. There was also a healthy sense of competition among camera makers that pushed the quick development of the technology, from functional design to resolution. By the time Danny Boyle won his Best Picture Oscar® and— even more shocking— an Oscar® for cinematography for Slumdog Millionaire, a film mostly shot in with digital cameras, the argument had become moot. Digital had arrived, accepted as one of the tools of the trade.
Side By Side does not hold back on how thoroughly it covers the evolution of digital, as 35mm is almost consistently proven as outmoded. It even goes into the hype of the supposed next generation of theatrical digital projection: 3D. James Cameron talks of his anticipation to shoot in 3D as early as 1999 with digital technology. His Avatar certainly revealed the money studios could make with 3D. Cameron seems proud of himself, noting the successes that followed
Avatar, including Tim Burton’s shallow and garish Alice in Wonderland, which nonetheless brought in a record haul at the box office. But director Joel Schumacher warns of abusing the technology, as, he says, there are films made for that technology, like Avatar, and films that are not.
Digital technology and digital effects have grown together, the documentary notes. However, when Scorsese says, “I don’t know if our younger generation is believing anything anymore as real,” and Cameron retorts, “When was it ever real?” in separate interviews, I will hand that round to Scorsese. Even though Scorsese famously followed Cameron into digital effects and 3D with his most recent film, Hugo, which ingeniously paid tribute to cinema’s origins while embracing technological advances, I believe Scorsese is right. The weight, shadow and light interplay on digital characters still have not achieved the same level concreteness as the cheapest, rubbery creature of the B-movies. There is an artificial, almost gimmicky quality of live action characters mixed with what I consider fancy cartoons. This mix of digital and flesh and blood lightens the stakes compared to pure live action, as it calls attention to itself, disturbing the illusion of suspension of disbelief. Side By Side gives Cameron the last word, but for all he created with computers with Avatar, I do not believe he wins his argument.
In the end, Side By Side tries to hand it to celluloid in a token moment, noting it works better for archival purposes. 
Digital has a tendency to disappear off hard drives, and, with formats constantly moving forward, various methods of archiving also become outdated, leaving files irretrievable. Celluloid actually lasts longer, adds Scorsese. Though most everything seems to point to the advantage of advances in digital filmmaking, this seems to raise some bigger questions, as the documentary ends on a philosophical note tangled in the practicality of archiving. What does saving a film mean, anyway? What ultimately matters to anyone in the future will be saved somehow and even “dug up” when it matters. Ultimately, filmmakers are storytellers, and the value of the story will carry on. It doesn’t matter what sort of medium you use to tell it, be it music, books, film or some new medium that has yet to be perceived.
Trailer:
Side By Side is not rated (contains no offense material, though) and runs 99 min. It premieres exclusively in South Florida this Friday, Sept. 22 at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. Tribeca Film provided a DVD screener for the purposes of this review. It could already be playing in your city or coming soon. Jump through this link for more locations.
Independent Ethos 