Spellbound by Beauty
by Donald Spoto
ARTS & CULTURE
HUTCHINSON
06/06/08
Donald Spoto explores the cruel obsessions of Alfred Hitchcock
Donald Spoto interviewed Alfred Hitchcock numerous times, and also spoke with as many of his stars and co-workers aspossible, building a formidable database of first-hand knowledge about this extraordinary man.
His two previous books on the director, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock and The Dark Side of Genius, caused controversy because many felt that he was overly critical of his subject. Here, Spoto claims that ‘there has been a general feeling that one can say or write anything about Alfred Hitchcock – except the fact of his frailty, his faults, his suffering and the suffering he caused others’.
It is rather in the context of the suffering he caused to others that Spoto looks at the frequently troubled and troubling relationships between Hitchcock and his leading ladies, drawing on accounts of their experiences from actresses such as Doris Day, Grace Kelly and Janet Leigh.
In the course of his astonishing career, Hitchcock played Svengali to many women. His vulgar jokes and crudeness were legendary, as was his dictum that ‘actors are cattle’. He could make a career, however, and so had no shortage of actresses to work with.
His final obsession, with Tippi Hedren, was so extreme that he dictated what she wore and had her followed. Filming The Birds and Marnie was so gruelling that she was – unsurprisingly – driven to breaking point. It is little wonder that Hitchcock himself said, ‘I sometimes wonder whether I am not – as all my friends insist – a sadist.’
Spoto’s latest study is, however, more than a simplistic enumeration of all the cruelties that Hitchcock unarguably indulged in; he also shows how Hitchcock could be extremely kind and nurturing. He was, as this biography makes clear, a deeply complex man, with overwhelming insecurities and doubts. Rather than being a mere hatchet man, Spoto simply does not allow his admiration for a great artist’s body of work to obscure his discomfort with specific aspects of his behaviour. Nor does he lose sight of his subject’s basic humanity.
A fascinating look at a flawed and troubled genius whose creative influence still lives on.
Louise Band, Waterstone's Perth
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