He's the most famous director in the history of the movies, but Alfred Hitchcock remains an enigma, a showman who loved to make cheeky cameos in his films and an odd-looking man who obsessed about his leading ladies.
At Christmas we were presented with the darkest possible version of the director, by the BBC drama The Girl, a heavy-handed affair that dealt with his hounding of the actress Tippi Hedren during the making of The Birds. Hitchcock is a very welcome antidote. It's not just better made and hugely more enjoyable, but beneath its buoyant façade is a nuanced characterisation of the man that actually feels tenable.
This time the "making of" backdrop is Hitchcock's groundbreaking Psycho. And instead of an obsession with one of the "Hitchcock blondes", we have a portrait of the director's complicated but extraordinarily bonded marriage with a woman who was also his greatest, yet unsung, collaborator, Alma Reville.
It's 1959. North By Northwest has just opened and Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is looking for his next project. Robert Bloch's sensationalist novel Psycho, inspired by real-life murderer Ed Gein, has been turned down by everyone in Hollywood. But what if, Hitch asks of Alma, "someone really good made a horror picture?".
Fuelled by a busy, intelligent and endlessly witty script, Sacha Gervasi's film offers a lot for our bucks: Hitch's struggles with the studio and the censor ("No American movie has found it necessary to show a toilet," suggests the latter, "let alone flush one"); his flirtation with leading lady Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), who is sassy enough to keep him at bay; his stressed-out, imaginary conversations with Gein; and the battles with his wife (Helen Mirren), as she despairs of his roving eye and he hypocritically becomes jealous of her.
And, throughout, is their collaboration, as Reville, Hitchcock's most trusted script and editing adviser, helps him bring Psycho home.
The film's tone is largely tongue in cheek, but beneath runs pathos, courtesy of Mirren's tremendous portrait of a formidable woman who nevertheless has spent a lifetime supporting a genius director but far-from-perfect husband, with little to show for it. Hopkins is her equal, walking a tightrope between impersonation and interpretation. His Hitch is funny, egotistical, vulnerable and a little scary, Hollywood royalty and grocer's son in one.
Pablo Larrain completes his superlative trilogy on the Chilean dictatorship with No. And whereas Tony Manero and Post Mortem were brilliantly made but emotionally gruelling, the finale – befitting its coverage of the end of repression – is gloriously upbeat.
In 1988, General Pinochet succumbed to international pressure and called a referendum on whether he would remain in power. He expected to win. The opposition parties expected him to win. But he lost. That we know. The film is about how exactly the "No" television campaign turned the tables.
Larrain skillfully blends archive footage with his fictional story of the campaigners, led by a cynical ad man with leftie leanings, played to perfection by Gael Garcia Bernal. Alfredo Castro, who sends up his sinister image as the man leading Pinochet's campaign. The result, Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, is a mixture of laughter, suspense and triumphant tears.
Warm Bodies is a gloriously silly and surprisingly soulful zombie comedy, with Nicholas Hoult from Skins doing very good work as a post-plague zombie, whose lumbering persona conceals a fully functioning consciousness and a romantic heart – who, when he meets the living girl of his dreams, warns himself: "Don't be creepy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article