DE PALMA WANTED TO SAVE WHAT HE HAD TO SAY ABOUT HITCHCOCK FOR PALTROW/BAUMBACH DOC
RogerEbert.com's Patrick Z. McGavin posted an interview last week with Kent Jones, who has a new documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut, about the meetings between Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock that took place across eight days in 1962. Those meetings, of course, led to the book of the same name, which can be found on the bookshelves of film lovers everywhere.
"Brian De Palma is the one conspicuous absence among the group of contemporary directors," McGavin says to Jones midway through the interview. "Did he not want to participate in the film?"
Jones replies, "For a very specific reason, because Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow just did a movie about him. They worked on that film for about four years. I asked [De Palma] and he said he wanted to save what he thought about Hitchcock for their movie. We just showed the documentary [De Palma] at the New York Film Festival. Noah and I are pretty good friends, and we kind of exchanged movies at a certain point and we both were amazed at how much they just talked to each other. That’s what their movie is, just Brian and nobody else. He’s talking about his craft, and he’s talking a lot about Vertigo. In fact, the movie begins with a clip from Vertigo. That seemed like a very compelling reason for [De Palma] to not be in [this] film."
Also at RogerEbert.com, Odie Henderson reviews Hitchcock/Truffaut. Henderson concludes in his review, "One interview subject you might be expecting is missing from Hitchcock/Truffaut. Brian De Palma declined to appear in the film, but he had a good reason. He was busy sitting with Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow for their one-man interview/documentary, De Palma. That film, which is also quite good, would make a great double feature with Hitchcock/Truffaut. Both films feature a director talking to another director about his body of work. The similarities are complementary, and I can think of no better way to waste an afternoon if you love movies."
Updated: Sunday, December 13, 2015 11:40 AM CST
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