Few directors ever became a popular celebrity like Alfred Hitchcock. His imprimatur and famous profile were used to brand books, magazines, and even a television show. Yet, as bizarre as it seems to us today (with “Vertigo” recently eclipsing “Citizen Kane” on the Sight & Sound critics poll), in the early 1960s, Hitchcock was not widely hailed as an artist. The exception was in France, particularly among Cahiers du Cinema’s grubby circle of critics and filmmakers—that most definitely included François Truffaut.
Truffaut convinced the Master of Suspense to sit for an epic eight day interview that would eventually be edited into of the most treasured film books of all time. Kent Jones uses the 50th anniversary of its publication as a springboard to celebrate the films it analyzes in “Hitchcock/Truffaut.”
