everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Hitchcock/Truffaut" is not a film for everyone. Film students and film nuts might love it but the average viewer will be pretty bored with the material. The material consists of using a series of interviews between Francois Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock from 1966 in which the French director asked the British director about his craft. Originally, this resulted in a book with transcripts from the meeting but in this film you hear portions of the interview as well as hear from many famous filmmakers as well as see clips from various, mostly Hitchcock, films.To love this documentary, you really need to buy into the central assumption of this film...that Hitchcock was the greatest (at least by 1966) filmmaker ever. It seems that the many directors who participated in this agreed and loved to talk about Hitchcock in almost godlike terms. And, this hero worship seemed to me to be a double-edged sword. Sure, they could talk about the great things he did on film. But, since he was a god, he was perfect and any shortcoming on Hitchcock's part simply wasn't considered. No filmmaker is truly godlike and for me the documentary just seemed to lack real objectivity. For example, they praised "Psycho" again and again...even though a very similar film, the brilliant "Peeping Tom" came out the year before but was seen by few because it was banned. So, in this sense, Hitchcock really wasn't first to make this sort of movie....though this wasn't acknowledged. Overall, worth seeing, perhaps, but not a must-see for me.

a book . as result of a legendary, fascinating meet. few confessions of great directors. and the trip in the universe of Hitchcock. it is not a lesson about cinema but perfect occasion to see, in other light, scenes, details, performances, steps of a British director who gives new sense to Hollywood. not exactly revelations. and not only Hitchcock. because the documentary propose only a sketch. like a spiderweb. result - an invitation. to see again the films of Hitchcock. to discover the universe of Truffaud. to be witness of a splendid form of admiration, a friendship and a game. to understand the root of a form of rehabilitation of the art of a great director. in essence, a must see for every film fan.

Not the usual kind of biographical stuff about the celebrity's childhood and how he "rose to prominence" before he "fell from grace." In other words it's not an episode of "Biography." The object of attention is the book, "Cinema According to Hitchcock" by an admirer and fellow director Francois Truffaut, published in 1966.The film is roughly (but only roughly) chronological and the biographical material is limited but covers both Hitchcock and his interviewer. What makes it more interesting than it might be is that Truffaut was about half Hitchcock's age. They came from different traditions -- Hitch from the silents, when everything needed to be spelled out visually, and Truffaut from the French "New Wave" cinema of the early 1960s, when the rules were thrown out the window.Despite their different styles, they never clash. Truffaut is too good natured for that, and Hitch too distantly polite in his British way. Only once, in the book, not in the film, is there any sign of friction, when Truffaut suggests a different way Hitch might have handled a scene and he replies, "It seems you want me to write for an art house audience." Lots of excerpts from Hitch's movies and several from Truffaut's as well. A good deal of attention is paid to cinematic techniques -- the position of the camera, the lighting, the pattern of the images themselves. Some of the talking heads, and Hitchcock himself, come up with implications that to me seem questionable. I can't manage to convince myself that, while waiting for Kim Novack to emerge fully transformed from the bathroom, Jimmy Stewart is "getting an erection." In fact, I can't imagine Jimmy Stewart getting an erection at all.I suspect the program might disappoint some viewers who don't want to listen to the interlocutors making polite jokes. (Twice, Hitch is about to tell an anecdote and asks for the recorder to be turned off.) Nothing in the movie is critical of either Truffaut or Hitchock, who became an alcoholic during his last years.There are photos from the interview and excerpts from the recording, as well as a description of the surprising friendship that developed between the two. I thought it was all fascinating.

Director Kent Jones (director of programming of the 51st New York Film Festival) looks back at a week long discussion critic-turned-filmmaker Francois Truffaut had with Alfred Hitchcock regarding his films. Here, Truaffaut's 1966 book "Cinema According to Hitchcock" is turned into a retrospective of not only the discussions between the two men, but an insight to Hitchcock's movie-making and thinking, and those influenced by him. There was no filming of the week long interview, so snapshots of the interview are what lead the retrospective, along with a slue of interviews from a variety of directors, including Wes Anderson ("The Grand Budapest Hotel"), Peter Bogdanovich ("the Last Picture Show"), David Fincher ("Gone Girl"), Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("The Cure") and Richard Linklater ("Boyhood") to name a few. While it's great to hear Hitchcock speak about his intentions with his films, and to hear how much he has influenced any number of directors, an hour and twenty minutes of praise and approval was tiring. What director Jones could have done to make this retrospective really interesting was to have interviewed Truffaut's assistant/interpreter and/or his crew that film the week long interaction. Their unique point of views haven't been heard (at least not that I know of), and would probably bring more attention and appeal to this film.