“In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.' When we tell a story in cinema we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“To reproach Hitchcock for specializing in suspense is to accuse him of being the least boring of filmmakers; it is also tantamount to blaming a lover who instead of concentrating on his own pleasure insists on sharing it with his partner.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“The camera should never anticipate what’s about to follow.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“Nowadays, the work of Alfred Hitchcock is admired all over the world. Young people who are just discovering his art through the current rerelease of Rear Window and Vertigo, or through North by Northwest, may assume his prestige has always been recognized, but this is far from being the case.
In the fifties and sixties, Hitchcock was at the height of his creativity and popularity. He was, of course, famous due to the publicity masterminded by producer David O. Selznick during the six or seven years of their collaboration on such films as Rebecca, Notorious, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case.
His fame had spread further throughout the world via the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the mid-fifties. But American and European critics made him pay for his commercial success by reviewing his work with condescension, and by belittling each new film.
(...)
In examining his films, it was obvious that he had given more thought to the potential of his art than any of his colleagues. It occurred to me that if he would, for the first time, agree to respond seriously to a systematic questionnaire, the resulting document might modify the American critics’ approach to Hitchcock.
That is what this book is all about.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“That’s because the theme of the innocent man being accused, I feel, provides the audience with a greater sense of danger. It’s easier for them to identify with him than with a guilty man on the run. I always take the audience into account.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“gatherings I would sit quietly in a corner, saying nothing. I looked and observed a good deal. I’ve always been that way and still am. I was anything but expansive. I was a loner—can’t remember ever”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“Suspense is simply the dramatization of a film’s narrative, or if you will, the most intense presentation possible of dramatic situations.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
“The art of creating suspense is also the art of involving the audience, so that the viewer is actually a participant in the film.”
― François Truffaut, quote from Hitchcock
François Truffaut
Born place: in Paris, France
Born date February 6, 1932
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“A wallet shows a person’s personality and lifestyle. Just like a cell phone, it is at the center, forming the nucleus of the owner’s secrets, everything he carries on him.”
― Fuminori Nakamura, quote from The Thief
“We're going to Connecticut.' A deep inhale. 'Via a pond dome.' I blinked bit by bit. 'Through the Sound.' I rolled my shoulders. 'I think I should have paid better attention when Mom took me to Sunday school classes.”
― Scarlett Dawn, quote from King Cave
“He wanted to be alone, and he wanted to be found.”
― Andrew Peterson, quote from The Monster in the Hollows
“When you hear hoofbeats,
you think horses,
not zebra's.”
― quote from Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl, Her Journey to Heaven, and Her Amazing Story of Healing
“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. [...] Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person, the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We could prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from The Annotated Lolita
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