13. 8. 1899. Happy birthday, Mr Hitchcock
di�onal cameo is replaced by a silhoue�ed narra�on in the introduc�on. Hello, MacGuffin Even if you don’t know it by name, you know what it is. The MacGuffin is the so-called mo�va�ng element that drives a film’s plot forward. Think: the eponymous stat- ue in The Maltese Falcon, or the briefcase in Pulp Fic�on, or the plane engine plans in Hitch’s own The 39 Steps. Never won an oscar Hitchcock is in the bi�ersweet class of venerable film- makers like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Ingmar Bergman and others who never received their in- dustry’s highest honour as Best Director. Hitchcock did re- ceive Oscar nomina�ons for direc�ng Rebecca (which took home Best Picture), Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window and Psycho, but he personally went home empty-hand- ed every �me. When the Academy finally honoured him with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1967, his long-�me-coming speech was only five words long: “Thank you very much indeed.” Notorious practical joker Hitchcock had a penchant for pulling absurd and o�en cruel pranks on his film sets and in his private life. He de- lighted in placing whoopee cushions under his co-work- ers’ chairs, and once held a dinner party where all the courses had been inexplicably dyed blue with food col- ouring. In some cases, Hitchcock even used his pranks as part of the crea�ve process. During the filming of The 39 Steps, he handcuffed the two leads together for a scene and then pretended to have lost the key. Blondes didn’t have fun Alfred Hitchcock o�en cast blonde actresses in his films. According to The Guardian, his reason was that “Blondes make the best vic�ms. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”
As we celebrate the 121 st anniversary of the legendary director’s birth, we remember that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master of Suspense, a pioneer of what we now call horror cinema
T he shower scene in Psycho. e biplane chase in North by Northwest. e gas station attack in e Birds. ese are some of the most mem- orable and terrifying scenes in cinematic histo- ry—and they came from the mind of one man: Alfred Hitchcock. e Master of Suspense, who went by the nickname “Hitch”, is also one of the most recognisa- ble Hollywood icons, and his life was as fascinating as his films. Here are some things you might not have known about this legendary filmmaker. Frightened of his own films “I’m frightened of my own movies. I never go to see them. I don’t know how people can bear to watch my mov- ies,” he once said in a interview. “There’s nothing more stupid than logic,” was Hitchcock’s famous reply when asked about his illogical fear of his own films. Afraid of eggs Omele�es were decidedly not his favourite breakfast op�on. “I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me,” he once said in an interview. “That white round thing without any holes … Have you ever seen any- thing more revol�ng than an egg yolk breaking and spill- ing its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yel- low, revol�ng. I’ve never tasted it.” He learned from a master In 1924, Hitchcock and his wife Alma were sent to Germany to work on two Anglo-German films. There he was taken under the wing of expressionist filmmaker F.W. Murnau, who created the chilling Dracula adapta�on Nos- feratu, and was then shoo�ng a silent film called The Last Laugh. “From Murnau,” Hitchcock later said, “I learned how to tell a story without words.” Popping up on screen all the time The most consistent image in Hitchcock’s films seems to have been Hitchcock himself. The filmmaker perfect- ed the art of the cameo, making blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances in 39 of his own films. His trickier appear- ances include the single-loca�on film Lifeboat, where he appears in a weight-loss adver�sement in a newspaper read by one of the film’s characters. The only film he ac- tually speaks in is 1956’s The Wrong Man, where his tra-
Hičkok kaže da nikada nije video ništa strašnije od jaja Hitchcock says he has never seen anything scarier than eggs
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