in honor of mr. hitchcock

in honor of the fact that i just watched 'north by northwest,' i feel the time has arrived for me to share just how much i love alfred hitchcock. which is a lot, basically.

i'm not by any means an expert on the film industry, but i am an expert on buying lots of films and watching lots of films. i can certainly appreciate all the groundbreaking accomplishments hitchcock made in the world of cinema, and while those groundbreaking accomplishments certainly contribute to why i think he's great, the main reason is that he was a character and a half, and that translated into his movies.

when i say i love his movies, i don't just mean the ones everyone's seen, like 'psycho,' 'vertigo,' 'the birds' and 'north by northwest.' i collect hitchcock dvds like your grandfather collects coins. i'm the kid who can tell you where in each movie you'll find hitchcock's cameo, and i'm a walking encyclopedia on not jut the movies you've seen, but the ones you haven't. i've watched 'psycho' more times than i can count, of course. but i've also seen movies like 'the man who knew too much' and 'strangers on a train' a million times because you can only watch 'rear window' so many times before you start suspecting your neighbors of murdering their wives.

that's one of the main reasons hitchcock's movies are so great. they're so good, you can get invested and involved in these movies in ways you can't with others. the only reason i don't watch 'the birds' day in and day out is that i don't want to develop a pathological fear of pigeons. that being said, i love that if i watch 'the birds' too often, i know i will eventually develop said pathological fear, however irrational it may seem. i watch 'notorious,' wherein cary grant essentially pimps ingrid bergman out to her father's nazi friend so she can be a cia informant, and hitchcock makes it look thrilling and fun. he makes me want to be a secret agent, before my grasp on reality sets in and i realize i would be an abysmal secret agent.

you know what else? he managed to create that signature hitchcockian suspense even within the considerable limits of the censorship laws that existed at that time. it's fascinating that the movies aren't all that scary, per se, but there's enough anticipation to give the audience that exhilarating thrill of psychological suspense. the shower scene in 'psycho' doesn't show much skin or actual stabbing because of the incredibly strict censorship codes, but it's almost better that way. no, not almost. actually.

one sort of morbid reason hitchcock is so awesome is his ability to dream up new and interesting ways to kill people. hitchcock once said, "a murder without gleaming scissors is like asparagus without the hollandaise sauce: tasteless." the gleaming scissors worked in 'dial m for murder,' but throughout all of his movies, hitchcock killed countless people in highly entertaining ways. strangulation with rope or neckties or scarves, drowning in various lakes or rivers, stuffing bodies into trunks, stabbing with knives or scissors or any other sharp object, sawing, hurling down stairs, pecking by birds, locking people in carbon monoxide-filled cars... the list goes on.

watching all these movies makes me want to crawl inside hitchcock's head and see what goes on in his imagination, a la 'being john malkovich.' the great thing about his movies, though, is that watching them sort of gives you a glimpse into that mind. now, i'm off to go watch 'to catch a thief.'