The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock

The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock by Donald Spoto (1983) This is a hefty book—665 pages—but I listened to it as an audio book, over about half a year (not continuous!) and it was pretty enjoyable, even though it slogs through the early years, etc., in chronological order. For me, Alfred Hitchcock has enough interesting career for ten filmmakers. The author doesn’t gloss over his hangups, weirdness, sometimes cruelty, but I’m not as much interested in the background, reasons for neuroses, injustices, and Hitchcock’s unsavory behavior as I am in looking more closely at his films, at least some of them—and I did get caught up in all of it. It’s kind of hard to imagine an artist working in the movie industry, the way he did, these days. It’s certainly a fascinating account. But besides learning a bit, in general, I was specifically looking for some insight into The Birds (1963), a film that, while not my favorite, I’ve always been obsessed with, confused by, and inspired by. In fact, I’ve been thinking about writing something and using The Birds as a direct reference or inspiration. I took a lot of notes, in that part—stuff like: “the fear of loss and abandonment, and the fragility of human relations, and how each character is focused on emotional isolation. Characters are always saying, ‘I see.’ While the birds are watching and spying. It’s dream-like. There’s a profound distrust of the world.” Stuff like that. I’d like to talk more about my “project,” but you know I can’t do that—at least not at this point—it might end up being one of those “notes only” things.

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