Jay Rohr
A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, The Myths, The Legacy by Tony Lee Moral aims to do some reclamation. According to the author, there’s an idea polluting a cinema legend’s reputation. This corruption of the truth has poisoned the public impression of a titan souring all association with the individual. However, as Moral presents it, there’s a different story entirely.
The book is divided into several sections, each with its own primary focus yet all essentially following the chronological course of Hitchcock’s life and career. The opening portions relate the director’s early career and rise to auteur. Some of that includes a light look at techniques such as the dolly zoom, and chiaroscuro lighting, a method that creates distinct areas of light and darkness, often seen in films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Barry Lyndon (1975), and Stalker (1979). This paves the way to the negative allegations seeded by Donald Spoto, which are then carefully dismantled by the author. Afterward, a brief summation of Hitchcock’s legacy ensues.
The main thesis of A Century of Hitchcock centers on the allegations put forth by Spoto in his biographical work The Dark Side of Genius. Released in 1983, Spoto’s book was largely responsible for the allegations of misconduct, some of them sexual, by the famous auteur Alfred Hitchcock. Spoto proposed all manner of psychological implications inherent in the works of the master of suspense but primarily made public the notion that the director malevolently manipulated and intentionally mistreated actress Tippi Hedren on the set of The Birds.
In A Century of Hitchcock, Moral is cautious not to dismiss the recollections of Hedren outright when it comes to sexual misdeeds, but he does question their absolute accuracy. Part of his case stems from Hedren having changed her story over time. As Moral writes, “the divergent recollections of Tippi Hedren… highlight the interplay between memory and legacy shaping the narrative… often colored by personal experiences and agendas.”
Moral presents two other occasions where Hitchcock kissed actresses Dianne Baker and Brigitte Auber without invitation. According to Moral, the way Spoto details the incident involving Baker, Hitchcock comes across as a predator moving in silently to strike. But when another biographer, John Russell Taylor, wrote about the same event, Hitchcock acted “more jovial than silent” and somewhat drunk; by extension, mirroring Brigitte Auber’s experience which she largely laughed off as a wine-induced mistake. Auber even said, “Who wouldn’t have wanted to? Any man in his position would have also wanted to kiss me.”
Moral allows that in these cases, something untoward may have occurred, but at the very least, the malevolent nature of it, as presented by Spoto, is not necessarily the truth. Moral’s argument is supported by numerous interviews as well as other evidence (e.g. call sheets) which contradict portions of Hedren’s accounts. Moral lays out a case that her recollections have changed for a variety of reasons, insinuating that the main source of distortion over the years has been Spoto’s account in The Dark Side of Genius.
Several chapters in A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, The Myths, The Legacy are devoted to dismantling Spoto’s interpretation. Here, Spoto is portrayed as a superfan, rejected by the genius director he adored, and driven by bitterness to write a negative account of Hitchcock’s life. The Dark Side of Genius is presented here as an intentionally sensationalized biography, more cash grab than factual historical account. And Moral provides several receipts, so to speak, which support that analysis.
Moral depicts Spoto as an unpleasant person in general, alleging he shares the very faults he accused Hitchcock of having, suggesting that Spoto’s personality motivated his poison pen. A Century of Hitchcock isn’t Moral’s first defense of Alfred Hitchcock: he’s written several books about the director (including The Making of Marnie and The Making of Hitchcock’s The Birds) and even vocally decried the characterization of Hitchcock in the 2013 BBC drama The Girl, which focused on the casting, performance, and alleged harassment of Hedren on the set of The Birds.
In the documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), Robert Evans repeated an old proverb saying, “There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently.” The same may be the case in A Century of Hitchcock. Those who loved Hitchcock—cast and crew, family and friends—and who never had any animosity towards the director largely dismiss the allegations against him. Meanwhile, everyone in support of the negative views comes across as bitter about some incident or another.
A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, The Myths, The Legacy allows the truth may be a Venn Diagram. When Moral concedes the possibility of inappropriate behavior, it leans more towards a criticism of the studio system at the time as well as general misogyny of the era. Hitchcock is spared the brunt of the blame, it’s old Hollywood failing to empower and protect the young women under him, not to mention society.
At one point, for instance, Moral suggests “women were instrumental in shaping Hedren’s early career. These contributions challenge the idea that Hedren’s ascent was solely a product of the male gaze.” Given how the male gaze, as defined by film critic Laura Mulvey in the 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, typically perpetuates gender stereotypes and sexual objectification, it’s shouldn’t be hard to see how a group of women casting a young lady for cinema or sexy modeling gigs could also be employing that perspective. That said, Moral doesn’t aim to dismantle the overall notion of the male gaze. If so, he could have invoked Camille Paglia who rejected the idea outright in “The Savage Id”. Instead, the author merely insists it doesn’t apply to this specific context.
It takes a while before A Century of Hitchcock finds its footing. In the opening chapters, there’s little biographical material, and most of Hitchcock’s early career is charted like a detailed rundown composed primarily of names, dates, and places without much meat. Only later does the book begin artfully weaving together expansive details into a coherent argument.
A Century of Hitchcock‘s most captivating part is its dismantling the claims made by Spoto as well as the allegations by Hedren. The portrait of a scorned-superfan-turned-biographer bitterly poisoning the reputation of a beloved icon holds interest. Moral then concludes with a comparatively threadbare interpretation of Hitchcock’s legacy in the wake of #MeToo, alongside some minor reflections regarding those the auteur inspired, such as Steven Spielberg.
The cinematic analysis is similarly limited. Brian de Palma is quoted referring to how Hitchcock wrote a certain grammar for cinematic stylization, but how it is employed and why it is effective aren’t a part of the conversation here. The reader is told Hitchcock invented or perfected certain techniques, though why they work is apparently examined more closely elsewhere.
Tippi Hedren once said of Hitchcock, “I still admire the man [Hitchock] for who he was,” later adding, “I’ve been able to separate the two. The man who was the artist. I mean, what he gave to the motion picture industry can never be taken away from him and I certainly wouldn’t want to try. But on the other side, there is that dark side that was really awful.” Moral’s book acknowledges this tension, focusing far more on dismantling the latter, especially as alleged by Spoto, than recounting the former.
It may take a while before Moral’s argument gets captivating, though once it takes off, there’s an earnest effort to repair the reputation of a fallen icon. With A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, The Myths, The Legacy, Moral makes the case that history demands accuracy, and a legacy untarnished means an essential element of cinematic history won’t be ignored.
