By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Truffaut/Hitchcock from beyond the grave
EDIT 16 FEBRUARY 2011: FilmDetail has linked to the original postings of the Truffaut-Hitchcock recordings on one page here. These raw materials been a lot of fun to listen to on the train or the bus over the past four years; they’re clear but weren’t recorded for broadcast. Translator Helen G. Scott does a very good job of quickly capturing the odd and often naive questions Truffaut asks. Over time, Hitchcock’s drawl begins to souond like he’s doing an impersonation of Peter Bogdanovich impersonating him.
The links began in March 2006, and Anne Thompson points to Andrew R. Horbal pointing to the online posting of tapes from the classic Hitchcock-Truffaut interviews: “From now until I run out, If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger… will [bring] our visitors the interview recordings that made up the bulk of… ‘Hitchcock/Truffaut.’ In Part One…
Hitchcock speaks with palpable fatigue about his childhood, his early interest in theater, his work as a commercial artist and his gradual involvement in the medium upon which he would soon make an everlasting impact. Truffaut valiantly attempts to understand his answers (even in translation), while he and Helen Scott laugh way too hard at Hitchcock’s half-hearted jokes. While the general atmosphere is never what anyone with a pulse would call electric, these recordings are nonetheless engrossing…” Seven selections are up; the provenance was undisclosed, but proprietor Ron Sutpen illuminates: “The excerpts I’m posting come from a series broadcast over Radio France in 2004 (though I obtained them from another source). They amount to about 12 of the 50+ hours of interview material, and the only work I do on them (apart from writing the introductory remarks on the blog) is editing out the recorded introductions, which are in French and (by way of guess) probably don’t illuminate all that much.”
Thank you very much for this generous plug!
A word about provenance:
The excerpts I’m posting come from a series broadcast over Radio France in 2004 (though I obtained them from another source). They amount to about 12 of the 50+ hours of interview material, and the only work I do on them (apart from writing the introductory remarks on the blog) is editing out the recorded introductions, which are in French and (by way of guess) probably don’t illuminate all that much.
In other words, it’s no big thang.
But thanks again!