Hitchcock going through Newman and Andrews, an unimaginable filming | EUROtoday
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Phave any doubts: The torn curtain won’t ever set up itself within the pantheon of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces. The fault, initially, is a shaky state of affairs – proper as much as the blissful ending, of an abysmal naivety, virtually inconceivable in Hitch –, then a barely tearful heroine, and at last a Paul Newman/Julie Andrews couple as frozen because the nonetheless water within the glasses within the first scene.
But the matter is extra refined. Hitchcock himself by no means actually defended this spy movie launched in 1966, in the course of the Cold War. And for good purpose: he didn’t have complete management over it. Starting with the selection of the star duo, imposed by Universal Pictures, which the grasp supported virtually as a lot as the concept of capturing a movie with out suspense.
It should be stated that the start of the Nineteen Sixties supplied him Psychosisa triumph as brutal as it’s sudden, earlier than reminding him that glory isn’t everlasting. The Birds, terrifying however poorly understood, didn’t meet with the hoped-for success, even when the movie stays right now thought-about his final nice aesthetic shock. No spring for Marnie, launched in 1964, described by François Truffaut, a praise in his speech, as a “great sick film”, satisfied neither the critics nor a public baffled by this intrigue nourished by the primary intuitions of contemporary psychiatry. Hitchcock, for his half, will solely preserve the bitterness and the affirmation that, undoubtedly, Tippi Hedren would by no means be Grace Kelly.
These are robust occasions for Hitchcock, who sees the world wherein he constructed his kingdom crumbling. He deplores the disappearance of the good stars of yesteryear; he even acknowledges that James Stewart can not play main roles, his face sagging, like a metaphor for yesterday’s Hollywood. Cary Grant refused the primary function of Birdsforcing him to attribute it to Rod Taylor, whose charisma stays inversely proportional to his imposing stature. And Grace Kelly left on a Rock to marry her future.
Tensions with Paul Newman
His current semi-failures not put him able of power, he who as soon as made the studios tremble. Universal, in the hunt for thrills however above all {dollars}, due to this fact imposes on him, who dreamed of bringing to life as soon as once more the alchemy of Death in pursuita pair bankable : the Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint mirage vanishes in favor of Julie Andrews and Paul Newman who, between them, soak up half of the movie’s funds.
She comes out of Mary Poppins (for which she gained the Oscar for greatest actress) and The Sound of Musicwherein she nonetheless sings, within the function of a governess full of fine intentions and sentimentality. He is the brand new golden boy of American cinema: much less tortured than Montgomery Clift, however as incandescent as Brando on the top of his fever. The studios need them on the high of the invoice: they’ll get them.
For the director, it’s a primary slap within the face. Julie Andrews will not be blonde – against the law towards Hitchcock – and has not one of the icy beauties that populate his work. It’s tough for him to direct an actress who is anticipated “at any moment to start singing,” he laments.
Paul Newman, for his half, has a string of triumphs (The Swindler, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Wildest of All). The studio applauds; Hitchcock, for his half, is cautious of the well-known “Method” of the Actor Studio revered by the actor, this fashion of inhabiting a personality to the purpose of obsession, which generally prevents him from providing the filmmaker the fast, detailed photographs essential to create suspense. What’s extra, the indocile permits himself to debate sure scenes, questioning the actions of his character.
Bernard Herrmann dismissed
Another exhausting blow: Hitch not has his traditional group to hold his concepts and intuitions. Editor George Tomasini and cinematographer Robert Burks (Oscar winner for The Hand within the Collar) are lacking. But the heaviest, virtually irremediable loss stays musical. The abandonment of the soundtrack composed – then rejected – by Bernard Herrmann sounds the dying knell for some of the fruitful collaborations within the historical past of cinema. In any case, Universal desires a “modern” sound, a composer able to climbing to the highest of the charts. Bernard Herrmann not meets the specs. We will select John Addison, contemporary Oscar winner for the movie Tom Jones.
So, is there actually nothing to save lots of from Torn curtain ? Of course it’s. Hitchcock nonetheless is aware of how you can distill his suspense tinged with black humor, even when the breath struggles to settle within the first a part of the movie. But he stays a grasp within the artwork of designing scenes the place the spectator suffocates, clinging to his seat. A bus, a ballet corridor (a bit of nod to The man who knew an excessive amount of), a museum: so many locations the place he manages, along with his traditional class, to recreate refined anxieties.
And then there’s the farm scene, a monument of dry horror and black humor. An virtually legendary sequence from Hitchcock’s cinema which takes all of the clichés in reverse. Paul Newman, supported by a younger farmer performed by Carolyn Conwell (future common Fires of affection), makes an attempt to laboriously remove a Stasi agent, the filthy Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling).
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Answer
An extended, clumsy, relentless wrestle with out dialogue the place everybody makes use of on a regular basis objects. Far from a James Bond who kills as he breathes, Hitchcock reminds us right here that taking life is a brutal, thankless, terribly bodily act. An virtually primitive scene with out music – sorry Herrmann – which makes each gesture extra insufferable. This second of cinema, alone, justifies that we nonetheless watch right now The torn curtain. Sweats, chilly in fact, assured.
The torn curtain by Alfred Hitchcock. 1966. With Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova, Hansjörg Felmy, Tamara Toumanova, Wolfgang Kieling, Ludwig Donath, Günter Strack, David Opatoshu, Gisela Fischer, Mort Mills, Carolyn Conwell. To (re)uncover on Arte.
https://www.lepoint.fr/culture/le-rideau-dechire-hitchcock-face-a-newman-et-andrews-un-tournage-impossible-24-11-2025-2603828_3.php