General Discussion

Alfred Hitchcock always gets big praise as a filmmaker n' stuff, but I can't say i really care for most of his films. I thought The Lady Vanishes was great, and Rear Window was ok, but that's about it. The rest of his movies (that I've seen) always have weirdly stilted dialogue and awkward pacing, and most of the stories themselves are kind of dumb. Maybe I was just too old, and had had too much of it spoiled, to really enjoy Psycho, but it still didn't seem like anything special. And Vertigo was straight up one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I have yet to see some of his stuff, like the Birds (although the short story it's based on is really fucking good) or Strangers on a Train, but still. I just really don't get why he's such a big deal. Anyone feel the same, or want to defend him?

I do, I've only seen about seven of his movies but they have all been great. Most of them are really exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat. My favorite is North by Northwest, just a perfect entertaining flick with a charismatic lead performance by Cary Grant, some fantastic set pieces and great twists.

I do think, however, that Vertigo is a fine film but terribly overrated.

But, looking from the point of view of myself as a filmmaker, Hitchcock deserves absolutely every bit of praise he gets. His movies, while lacking emotional depth, are technically perfect in every possible way and he basically invented several techniques that are commonly used in most movies today. He is one of the most influential filmmakers for a reason, watching his movies is necessary if you want to make movies yourself, you can learn so much from them.

He's brilliant and your opinions seems to boil down to not liking Vertigo, setting expectations too high on Psycho (understandable, most older films cant live up to their lofty reputation but they're still good) and not seeing the vast majority of his body of work. Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Alfred Hitchcock Presents are both available free on Hulu, I'd start there. Here's the thing, an artist doesn't get to pick their legacy. Vertigo, Psycho, and Rear Window are the films most often topping lists of his best but that doesn't make them his best films. Just his more approachable ones. Im more a fan of his doublecross-laden crime films.

I love Hitchcock's movies, but Vertigo is not one of my favorites. Rear Window, Rope and North by Northwest are all amazing movies though and there is a reason he is considered one of the best directors of all time.

@ryanwho: I was just using those as examples, I didn't want to go through every single film of his that I've seen. I remember seeing some of his Hitchcock Presents a really long time ago, thought it was kind of a proto-Twilight Zone that hadn't aged quite as well. You make a good point about legacies, although I don't see how anyone could consider Vertigo 'approachable'. Do you have any reasons in particular for thinking he's brilliant?

@Black_Rose said:

My favorite is North by Northwest, just a perfect entertaining flick with a charismatic lead performance by Cary Grant, some fantastic set pieces and great twists.

But, looking from the point of view of myself as a filmmaker, Hitchcock deserves absolutely every bit of praise he gets. His movies, while lacking emotional depth, are technically perfect in every possible way and he basically invented several techniques that are commonly used in most movies today. He is one of the most influential filmmakers for a reason, watching his movies is necessary if you want to make movies yourself, you can learn so much from them.

Well, I thought North by Northwest was terrible, but I guess I could see how the technical aspect to his work might get more attention. Like, I could see how his films influence later work by other people -the particular approach to action films that NNW has, for example- but I just don't think his actual body of work holds up that well on its own.

@MarkWahlberg: Do you like any films from the 50's-early 60's? The way dialog was delivered and scenes woven together was altogether stylistically different back then. language was still being defined, and as a result, many actors projected as if they were in a theater, rather than behind a camera. films do occasionally suffer from this, but so do the majority of films from that time.

I find it hard to believe, though, that you really don't understand why he's considered important. The man almost single-handedly popularized the "thriller" genre. Horror up until him was stuck in the Universal monster mode, and there was more real "horror" in crime/gangster films which were popular. Hitch mashed them up, taking the suspense of the monsters, and adding it to the human intrigue. I could go on, but as many entire books have been written about this, but people way more educated than me, I'll shut up about it.

Basically though, you are more than free to dislike any film you want, but that doesn't mean you should deny the influence that a director has clearly had on others.

@gangly: I love plenty of old movies - my friends make fun of me for preferring 'boring old B+W stuff'- so I don't think that's really the issue.

I probably haven't been phrasing myself as well as I should have, I think. The title of this thread is 'do you like Hitchcock', not 'do you think he's important/influential'. I'm not debating that point, I understand the impact his films had. I'm asking whether you think his movies are any good in and of themselves. Obviously, these things are related, but there's a difference between saying 'Birth of a Nation' is an influential movie, and saying it's a good one ( I know that's not by him, it's just an example).

I know that lots of people love Hitchcock movies, I just never really got into them and was curious as to how other people on the forums felt. That's all.

It'd be good if you explained exactly why you don't like his films so we understand better where you're coming from.

This feels a bit like having a conversation about not liking chocolate. There are folks out there that don't care for the taste and nothing can be done to convince them otherwise. Still, one can't and shouldn't deny the importance of chocolate in this world.

North by Northwest is my absolute favorite movie, so yeah I like Hitchcock. I've seen all of his major films and many of his minor ones. One of my personal favorites is Mr. & Mrs. Smith because it's so unlike all of his others. It's a screwball comedy in which a couple discover that they're not legally married starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery. Most film goers are familiar with Vertigo, The Rear Window, The Birds and Psycho. Earlier movies like Suspicion, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Notorious, Strangers on a Train and Spellbound are also well referenced. Every one of those is great, but in addition to them I like the more (by today's standard) obscure features such as Foreign Correspondent, Rope, The Trouble with Harry and Lifeboat. I started watching old films when I was still in single digits, so I've always had an easier time accepting the way movies used to be made. In the 1970's the way stories were told and how film actors portrayed their roles changed. Things became more realistic but also less awe-inspiring. I prefer that era of grandeur. Film makers like Hitchcock, John Ford and Billy Wilder created movies which I can watch repeatedly without ever tiring.

There are some things about Hitchcock movies that I don't care for, but I still like his movies. Nobody matches him for tone or content.

His actors are sometimes over-elaborate, his sound-editing is much different than it is today, and there are sometimes plot problems (not plot holes, more like "It's totally unbelievable that these two characters are head-over-heels in love"). Overall, I don't find it hard to look past this stuff. His movies don't have "a lot to say", but they're fun, suspenseful, and they feel unique.

I think that PenguinDust has it right by saying that his movies are inextricably a product of their time and as such it helps to let go of expectations of sound-editing or acting. (To be clear, I don't think his actors are bad, only that their style of acting is much different from what we see today.)

Yes, I' m a huge fan. His early work in the 1920's and throughout the 30's may not have been very good but once the 40's came, Hitchcock really honed his craft. He put out classics like The Foreign Correspondent, Shadow of a Doubt, the vastly underrated Saboteur and Rebecca. His films in the 50's and 60's which are his most remembered are easily some of the best films I've seen like the greatest thriller of all time-North By Northwest, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo. Although I'm not a huge fan of The Birds but Psycho and much of his 60's stuff is quite excellent especially my favorite the forgotten classic Marnie starring Sean Connery. On top of that you had those couple of shows he did like Alfred Hitchcock Presents; and to this day there has never been a director whose filmography could top his save for Steven Spielberg that is. And like PenguinDust, I can enjoy his films over and over again along with the films of his contemporaries John Ford and Billy Wilder who effectively formed a triumvirate representing the greatest directors of the 1940's through the 1960's with John Ford being the man behind John Wayne's greatest film The Searchers and Billy Wilder being responsible for the masterpiece Double Indemnity and another masterpiece-1956's Witness for the Prosecution.