Interview: Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Tuffaut (Aug/1962)

Introduction

In the fall of 1962, François Truffaut carried out extensive interviews with Alfred Hitchcock at his offices at Universal Studios. The interviews were recorded to audio tape and the content eventually edited down into the "Hitchcock/Truffaut" book.

Although Truffaut could speak a little English, he hired Helen Scott (of the French Film Office in New York) to act as the translator for the interviews.

Audio

The audio tapes of the interviews have not been released commercially. However, portions of the tapes were used for a French radio broadcast.

French Radio Broadcast

Nearly 12 hours of the interviews were broadcast on French radio as a 25 part series. Each episode runs for just over 25 minutes.

• - part 1
  childhood through to his early years in the film industry

• - part 2
  "Mountain Eagle" through to the end of the silent era

• - part 3
  "Blackmail" through to a discussion about American audiences

• - part 4
  "Rich and Strange" through to realism in films

• - part 5
  "The 39 Steps" through to plausibility in film and film critics

• - part 6
  "Secret Agent" and "Sabotage"

• - part 7
  "Young and Innocent" and "The Lady Vanishes"

• - part 8
  final years in Britain through to his move to America

• - part 9
  "Rebecca"

• - part 10
  discussion about Hollywood through to "Notorious"

• - part 11
  "Mr and Mrs Smith" through to "Suspicion"

• - part 12
  "Saboteur" through to "Shadow of a Doubt"

• - part 13
  "Lifeboat" through to "Spellbound"

• - part 14
  "Notorious" through to "The Paradine Case"

• - part 15
  "Rope"

• - part 16
  "Rope" and "Under Capricorn"

• - part 17
  "Stage Fright" through to "Strangers on a Train"

• - part 18
  "Strangers on a Train" through to "I Confess"

• - part 19
  "Notorious" through to a discussion about suspense

• - part 20
  initial discussion about the "The Birds" through to "Rear Window"

• - part 21
  "The Wrong Man" through to "Vertigo"

• - part 22
  "North by Northwest" through to "Psycho"

• - part 23
  "Psycho"

• - part 24
  "The Birds"

• - part 25
  "Psycho" through to characterisation in films

Video

The following is an interview from the French "Apostrophes" television programme (13/Apr/1984), in which Bernard Pivot talks to Truffaut and Roman Polanski about Hitchcock. Truffaut had just released the "Definitive" version of the book and this would be his last public appearance -- just six months later, he died from a brain tumour. The video is in French with Italian subtitles.

External Links

• The Hitchcock/Truffaut Tapes - 13 part series of blog posts