What do you get when you
present one side of a story as a historical fact and leave the other
side out? Well provocative propaganda and this movie right here. It
focuses on the relationship between Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock
during the filming of The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). Hitchcock is presented as a disgusting monster and Hedren as the
damsel in distress. This movie feels like a personal attack towards
Hitchcock and I really can't see any other reason for it. Hitchcock
basically makes Hedren's life a living nightmare in it. Only those
two know what really happened, but I must say it just feels rather
convenient that Hedren first waited for Hitchcock to die before even
coming out with all of these accusations.
Now I have to give out my
opinion on the historical accuracy of this movie, it is after all
presented as a historical biography. But as the subject matter
involves only 2 people and happens mostly outside the cameras, how
can anyone prove it to be wrong? Well everyone can prove one part of
the movie wrong, the nightmarish screen test for Birds. You can watch
the original screen test right here and if you compare it to the one in this movie you'll see they have
close to nothing in similar. Now that's only one part of the many in
this movie, but it's the only one anyone can prove either way and if
they got that wrong, I'm willing to bet that not many other parts of
this movie are true either. I know as a hobbyist filmmaker myself
that the bird attack scene was nothing but absurd, anyone who knows
anything about how movies are made should also notice this. If you
are shooting a scene where a well groomed woman is attacked by a
flock of birds pecking her into a bleeding mess, how the hell can you
take 40+ takes on that without a single break for makeup and wardrobe
to get her to look like she did at the beginning before the attack
started. It's simply impossible, not to mention the share insanity of
risking an extremely expensive production by disfiguring your leading
lady at the beginning of filming. The set producers would have called
it quits before take two.
The part about Hitchcock
destroying Hedren's career you can also get some idea what really
happened by looking at Hedren's filmography. Her best performance by
far was funnily enough in Marnie and pretty much everything after
that was mere posing and looking pretty no matter what the role was.
If you are not a good actress you won't get good parts, it's rather
simple. Late 50's and early 60's was the turning point when it wasn't
enough to just look pretty, actors had to actually generate true
emotions to sell the role to the audience. Now Hitchcock was known
for trying out different, sometimes crazy, directing tricks on his
actors. Marnie called for a strong woman getting very insecure and
vulnerable, maybe Hitchcock tried to get Hedren as insecure as
possible outside the cameras to get her best performance on camera. I
highly doubt he used the means depicted in this movie, but who knows
I wasn't there to see it, all I know is that Hedren gives out a
brilliant performance in Marnie. After Marnie turned out to be a
box-office disaster, it was bad for both of their careers, I highly
doubt that there were many directors asking Hedren after Marnie, they
tend to avoid failures after all. Hitchcock was desperately trying to
find a new project and as most of the promising ones didn't kick off,
mostly because of the studios said no, he took on Torn Curtain (1966). There simply isn't a role for Hedren in Torn Curtain, she wouldn't
fit in it as there are no roles that would suit her talents, hence she's not in it. Then the “contract” with
Hitchcock ended and she got the chance to prove herself in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). The role was pretty much perfect for a stand out performance, the
movie itself is quite dull, but her role was towards the end with
some of the better lines in the whole movie. And what does she do?
Pose, look pretty and deliver the lines like reading a phone book. If
anyone destroyed her career, it was she herself.
So now that we got the
important parts out of the way, we can focus on this movie here.
First of all Toby Jones was surprisingly good, he doesn't even
remotely look like Hitchcock but he surely does sound like him, sad
to see a performance that good wasted in a movie like this. Sienna
Miller was quite ok as well, even though her screen presence is miles
away from that of Tippi Hedren. Rest of the cast were nothing to rave
about. The cinematography was quite dull and TV-like most of the time
(well it's a TV-movie after all) and the only peaks it had were
direct copies from the man the movie slanders. I know I'm a Hitchcock
fanboy so I of course can't like a movie which is like a stab in the
back of the guy, but even if you look at it without the “fanboy
goggles”, there's a big problem in the structure of the movie. It's
the same problem as it's historical accuracy, the one sided view of
things. It's rather dull to watch a movie where the line between good
and evil is so strict with nothing in between. I mean if someone's
career making movies is like a nightmare and makes her scared of her
own well being, why the hell wouldn't she just quit? I highly doubt
it was the intention of this film to portray Tippi Hedren as an
idiot, but unfortunately that's how you end up seeing her. In the end
this movie is a provocative piece of garbage with some nice
performances from the leading duo, no matter how you see it. Lets
hope Hitchcock (2012) will be a better view into the life of Alfred Hitchcock as I surely
would like to see a good movie about the “Master of suspense”.
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