Movie directors

[Exodus]

On Hitchcock, I read once a book-length interview of him by Francois Truffaut; the two discuss Hitchcock's films at length. Hitchock was remarkably casual about changing the script, or even the whole point of the story; he himself admitted that the details of the screenplay - on a scene-by-scene basis - of North by Northwest make no sense. For him, it was all about using image to cause an emotional response.

? I have heard that Hitchcock was quite demanding and rigid when it came to his films.

[Expat]

? I have heard that Hitchcock was quite demanding and rigid when it came to his films.

And he even said, reportedly, "actors are cattle". And he used 37 (or whatever) different shots in the Psycho shower scene, over two weeks of shooting. That's very demanding. But that does not mean that he wasn't casual about the script, in terms of the plot. One actress (I think Kim Novak in Vertigo) asked him about her character's motivation; he shrugged and said, "Kim, it's only a movie". That's the kind of thing I mean.