Hitch & Welles

My timely article on two of the greatest directors of all time!

Hitch & Welles

Alfred Hitchcock.  Orson Welles.  Two names that instantly inspire admiration, mystery and fascination in the heart of any self-respecting cineaste.  How could they ever be compared?  Welles’ titanic achievement Citizen Kane suffered a rude awakening recently at the hands of Hitchcock’s psychological masterpiece Vertigo, when the latter was voted the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound’s once a decade poll of directors and critics, ending Kane’s unprecedented fifty year reign.  What better occasion could there be to explore these two universally lauded filmmakers than that?

Hitch

Alfred Hitchcock, affectionately referred to as Hitch, is well known as ‘The Master of Suspense’ because he directed a wealth of tension filled thrillers.  He is quoted as saying “Always make the audience suffer as much as possible”, and from the agonising and eerie tension of his best films like The Birds and Rear Window, to the non-stop chases of his apparently ‘lesser’ films such as Saboteur and Torn Curtain, the man certainly knew how to put his punters through the mill.

He was raised Catholic in the then largely Protestant London, and there is a well known story of how at the age of five his father sent him to a police station with a note, which he handed to an officer, who promptly locked him in a cell for five to ten minutes saying, “This is what we do to naughty boys”.  Who knows what terrible act of mischief Hitch had committed to deserve such a harrowing punishment, but we can be almost certain that he never did it again!  From the outset he felt an outsider, afraid to do wrong and yet fascinated by those who commit evil.  This fed into his films, giving them a distinctly voyeuristic flavour as he often forced his audience into the perspective of an unseen outsider looking in, an innocent bystander bearing witness to all sorts of heinous doings.  His penchant for the macabre and a dark and sometimes perverse sense of humour stemmed from his formative years, leading Hitch to effectively psychoanalyse himself for more than five decades via his chosen form of expression.

Among his technical innovations is the now overused Hitchcock Zoom, also known as the Vertigo Effect, as it was pioneered specifically for that film, to exaggerate the perception of depth and to produce vertigo-like giddiness in the viewer.  And if you think that 3D is a recent invention then think again: Hitchcock was an early pioneer of the device, using it with striking restraint in Dial M for Murder.

His legacy is immeasurable.  From pioneering cinematic grammar and techniques to fighting for cinemas legitimacy as a worthy art form, and with countless major directors citing him as an influence there is no telling what cinema today would be like had that Bobby kept poor Hitch locked up forever.

A film about his time making Psycho is in the works, for which renowned actors the world over vied for the chance to play him.  The simply titled ‘Hitchcock’ is due out in 2013, with Anthony Hopkins landing the prize role.  Amazingly, despite all his success and influence Hitchcock never won an Oscar.  Perhaps Hopkins will win one on his behalf!

Welles

Consistently voted the greatest director of all time, both by fellow director’s and his adoring critics, in his day Orson Welles was one of the most obviously talented but famously frustrated filmmakers in Hollywood.  Terry Gilliam excepted, no director is better known for having his artistic visions thwarted at every turn (post-Kane of course), usually due to studio re-edits or lack of funding.  From his butchered masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons, to perhaps his most famous unfinished project, Don Quixote (making more comparisons to Gilliam inevitable, see Lost in La Mancha) Welles’ filmography contains far more films than are actually available to view in a finished form.  Were there such a thing as a no strings attached limitless budget, who knows what other influential masterworks the man could have unleashed on the world.

Though born into an affluent family, Welles learnt self-reliance and to work hard from an early age.  His parents separated when he was four, and at the age of ten he ran away from home with his half-sister Marjorie, only to be found a week later busking with song and dance.  Welles’ creativity and passion for performance flourished as he later staged his own plays during his early teen years at school, and he soon found work as a theatre actor, with a particular flair for Shakespeare.  By the mere age of twenty he was also working as a radio actor, during which time he met many of the collaborators with whom he would soon begin his film career.

For his debut - and best - feature film in 1941, Welles was granted for the first and only time the holy grail of every film director: total artistic control.  That film was Citizen Kane, the legendary picture that as of 2012 is supposedly inferior only to Vertigo!  It is an embellished exposé of the life of William Randolph Hearst, a powerful newspaper baron and sometime politician.  The twenty five year old Welles’ first feature length film was in many ways decades ahead of it’s time, making it’s mark forever on the way films are made.  Welles’ ingenious innovations spanned every department, from the way depth of field is used in cinematography to lighting techniques that allowed sets to have ceilings.

Welles may have changed cinema forever, but he was still never able to make as big a splash as he had the potential to.  Sometimes it was his own fearless impulsivity that left his work open to tinkering (the studio reworked the ending of The Magnificent Ambersons while he was AWOL in South America).  His brilliance spilled over into everything he turned his hand to, and he died the envy of everyone and anyone with an admiration for the art of moving pictures.

Alfred Hitchcock.  Orson Welles.  Rather than attempt the impossible and compare the two, we can be glad they were both blessed with the opportunity to make such good movies, and us with the chance to see them.  It’s meaningless to call the one ‘better’ than the other, and at the end of the day such polls are there to renew awareness of these must-see classics.  To borrow from Citizen Kane’s audacious tagline, ‘they’re terrific!’

(This article was originally written for FilmJuice.com and can be found here).

Dexter Fletcher's Directing Tips - Part II

Here are actor/director Dexter Fletcher's concluding top five tips from his exclusive workshop on how to direct a movie!  (Picture: Dexter Fletcher as Bytes' Boy in The Elephant Man [1980]).

6. Keep your crew happy - everyone is important

“Most people on a film set do it because they are genuinely passionate about film, and on the long days you’ve got to help them remember that.”

Fletcher kept his crew happy by being inclusive, acknowledging their contributions and respecting their passion.  “Even the lowly runner does a job and it’s an important one,” he said, “it’s about remembering that.”

Don’t take anyone for granted, a happy crew is a hardworking crew.  It also helps to feed them well and keep the coffee flowing!  Coffee is the oil that keeps the human machinery of many a crew running efficiently.

7. Take risks - just do it!

If you’re not taking risks, then you probably won’t get anywhere as a filmmaker.  In many ways, choosing to be a filmmaker in the first place is a risk!  “Of course take risks,” said Fletcher, “but calculated ones.”

So how can a director use this philosophy of risk taking to get the most out of their cast and crew?  “It’s about pushing other people to take risks.  Ask [your actors and director of photography] to do stuff that they feel out on a limb on, but ultimately gaining their trust and making them take a risk that you’re in control of.  That’s the calculated risk, you’re pushing people to raise their game in a way that they’ve maybe not expected to, but when they do it they go ‘wow’ and they deliver, because it’s about your faith in what other people can do.”

8. Collaborate - be open to suggestions

One of the key features of being an effective director is knowing how to put the talent at hand to maximum use.  It’s all too easy to be precious and thereby stunt productivity, so remember that ‘collaborate’ is a word used by filmmakers again and again to explain what makes a truly creative team.

Dexter Fletcher is no exception, and spoke plenty on the topic of collaborating, “Heads of department are there because they’ve achieved a lot and understand a lot about what it is that they do, and so it’s okay to defer to other people.  It’s part of the collaborative nature of it.  You can say ‘no’, but it’s okay to ask the question and find out what other people think.”

9. Be prepared - know your project inside out

There’s no excuse for a director, especially writer-directors not to know their story better than anybody else.  On set, you always need to know the context of the scene you’re shooting at a given moment.  As Fletcher put it, “You’ve got to be aware of what it is that you’re shooting, what went before it, what’s going to come after it.”

But how can you achieve such a level of preparation and intimacy with the material?  “The preparation is a natural part of it, I don’t think I was really even aware of it [directing Wild Bill], I was just involved with absolutely everything all the way along the line.”

Full immersion in the script and hands on involvement with every department are core elements of the director’s job and preparation.

10. Let things go - edit brutally!

Once you’ve made your film and the stress (and thrill!) of the shoot is over, then it’s time to sit down and piece it together in the edit suite.  Have you ever wondered why DVD and Blu-rays so often include ‘deleted scenes’ as a bonus feature?  It doesn’t matter how much time you sweated getting the perfect light for that scene you’re in love with... if it doesn’t move the story forward then it has got to go.  Said Fletcher: “You’ve got to be brutal, you’ve got to be able to [ask] is it furthering the story?”

This can be painful, and it’s usually helpful if the director and editor and not the same person, because then the editor is able to look at the film objectively and suggest cuts to the director, persuading them to wave even choice material goodbye.  Fletcher is all too familiar with this, “There’s whole sections of Wild Bill that I just cut out because it wasn’t moving the story along.  It doesn’t matter how you feel personally about something, you’ve got to try and be as impersonal about it as you can when it comes to the edit.  It feels brutal at the time, but it’s about being practical and making the best film that you can.”

Of course it’s up to you what stays in the film and what gets left on the cutting room floor, but it might be wise to bear Fletcher’s final thoughts in mind when you’re splicing and dicing your first film: “Nobody cares what you love.  What [the audience] care about is whether they go to the cinema, watch the film and are entertained.”

Ask yourself, ‘am I making this film for myself, or for the audience?’  If you’re Steven Spielberg and answered the latter, then well done!  You’ve got a bright future.  And if you’re Quentin Tarantino and answered the former, then well done to you too!  Some director’s styles are more commercial than others, and these are just tips after all... food for thought for filmmakers.

Now go make your movie!  And don’t forget the ‘kick in the nuts’ shot...

Wild Bill is out now on Blu-ray and DVD, check out the trailer!

(This article was originally written for FilmJuice and can be found here).