TRUFFAUT INTERVIEWS WITH HITCHCOCK IN 25 mp3s

Photo from Hitchcock by Truffaut

François Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock and Helen G. Scott in 1962.

In the fall of 1962, French film director François Truffaut and author/translator Helen G. Scott of the French Film Office in New York interviewed legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock at length, with a book in mind. The resulting 26 hours of tape were edited into the 1965 coffee table book Hitchcock By Truffaut: The Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock (revised edition).

Beginning March 17, 2006, Tom Sutpen of the wonderfully named blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats started putting up half-hour episodes edited for a French radio series. The 25-part series of downloadable -- hence portable -- mp3s is finally complete: the last 20 are at this link The Hitchcock/Truffaut Tapes; the first five are here.

It's wonderful to hear Hitchcock's distinctive voice again. Truffaut speaks in French, and Helen Scott mediates in both languages. I jumped in near the end, with mp3 #23, their 27-minute discussion of Hitchcock's classic, Psycho.

Sutpen kicks off the series in the first post by saying,

In Part One of The Hitchcock/Truffaut Tapes, 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.

You can read a couple of chapters in the preview at Google Books of the revised 1985 edition: Hitchcock.

There's an Alfred Hitchcock Wiki where a commenter suggests all 26 hours may be found somewhere on the Web. You can listen, but not download, the French radio series there, but without Sutpen's wonderful photos from the book, of movie posters and of Hitchcock directing these films.

Hitchcock died in 1980, at 80; Truffaut, in 1984 at 52; and Scott in 1987, at 72, after what the Times portrays as an interesting life. They're all very much alive still in these tapes.

The above article is reprinted from: Pojo Subterranean Homepage News.

Interview: Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut (Aug/1962)

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