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.

"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.

Another year, another Hitchcock documentary. I suppose I was expecting more from HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT before of all the high brow praise surrounding it, and the link to an early 1960s interview between the master and French director Francois Truffaut promised plenty. However, despite the title, the interview isn't really mentioned all that much and limited to only a few audio snippets linked along the way. I suppose they featured it predominantly to make this stand out from all the other Hitchcock documentaries over the years.

Instead this documentary is the usual praise-fest in which various familiar faces show up and talk about how much of a genius Hitchcock was. Martin Scorsese features heavily alongside other notables like Wes Anderson and David Fincher. Most of the film looks at VERTIGO and PSYCHO and there are many clips utilised from both films. I've always loved PSYCHO but consider VERTIGO to be a bit overrated although it seems these pretentious high brow intellectuals love to analyse it to craft their own theories. Not my cup of tea really - I'm just a kind of 'sit back and enjoy' kind of guy and that's the reason I love Hitchcock, he knew how to entertain.