August 30, 2007
Hitchcock and Truffaut
I'm unsure of the original source of this conversation excerpt, or if it ever took place. That's one of the charms of Dot Dot Dot, the design journal in which I found it. The fourteenth issue is out now.
Hitchcock: Have you ever seen an assembly line?Truffaut: No, I never have.
Hitchcock: They're absolutely fantastic. I wanted to have a long dialogue scene between Cary Grant and one of the factory workers as they walk along the assembly line. They might, for instance, be talking about one of the foremen. Behind them a car is being assembled, piece by piece, Finally, the car they've seen being put together from a simple nut and bolt is complete, with gas and oil, and all ready to drive off the line. The two men look at it and say, 'Isn't it wonderful?' Then they open the door to the car and out drops a corpse!
Truffaut: That's a great idea!
Hitchcock: Where has the body come from? Not from the car, obviously, since they've seen it start at zero! The corpse falls out of nowhere, you see! And the body might be that of the foreman the two fellows have been discussing.
Truffaut: That's a perfect example of absolute nothingness! Why did you drop the idea? Is it because it would have made the scene too long?
Hitchcock: It wasn't a question of time. The real problem was that we couldn't integrate the idea into the story. Even a gratuitous scene must have some justification for being there, you know!
I love Hitchcock's evident enthusiasm. This dialogue is inserted without explanation on page twenty-nine of the magazine.