Went to see the movie 'Hitchcock' the other night with a friend. I enjoyed it (our other choice was Lincoln, which we were reliably informed was like watching paint dry). Helen Mirren is a charmingly acerbic Alma Revill, with Anthony Hopkins not quite convincing as Hitch, but he does try. I googled Psycho when I got home, as you do if you're a person with curiosity, as I hadn't seen the movie. I found that the Hitchcocks' had a daughter, one Patricia, who acted a small part in the movie and went on to have a not unrespectable career herself in movie making. But she never appears in the movie at all; the impression you, the viewer, gets is that the Hitchcocks were childless.
Patricia was no doubt excluded because she was felt to have no relevance to the story,
just as the movie 'Shine" left out the existence of David Helfgott's older brother, because they wanted to accentuate the conflict between David and his father (a fascinating book by one of David's sisters rubbished the whole movie as a libellous fiction). And just as the movie 'Amadeus' gets rid of Mozart's considerably gifted sisters and his close relationship with his family to concentrate on his conflicts with his father.
I suppose film writers and directors would answer that they're not making a documentary, but just how far should they go in the interests of dramatic licence? Writing people out of existence seems a bit totalitarian. If history is mostly lies, then Hollywood is too.
How interesting - I also assumed from that film the Hitchcocks were childless. Which is silly really because they were an older couple and the inclusion of children or even grandchildren would have been totally irrelevant to the plot.
ReplyDeleteI liked Lincoln alot, but Daniel day lewis was better than the overall film.