Quotessence
Home / Topics / Hitchcock Quotes

Hitchcock Quotes

Browse 130 quotes about Hitchcock.

Related topics

FilmThinkingDirectorsIfsKnowsCinemaPeopleSaidAudienceLooksShotsWantWayWellsActorsHitchcock MovieKindWanted

Hitchcock Quotes

“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean. We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!" In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”

SuspenseHitchcockSuprise
Author:Alfred Hitchcock
Create image

“I put it to the great man [Hitchcock], the key to fictitious terror is partition or containment: so long as the Bates Motel is sealed off from our world, we want to peer in, like at a scorpion enclosure. But a film that shows the world is a Bates Motel, well, that's... the stuff of Buchloe, dystopia, depression. We'll dip our toes in a predatory, amoral, godless unive3rse, but only our toes.”

HorrorThrillerMoviesHitchcock
Book:Cloud Atlas
Create image

“Staying relaxed was helping him cope with the drug induced juddering vision that could be best described as being like a Hitchcockian visual effect operated by a hyperactive squirrel that shook the whole universe closer and farther away. If you went with it, it was quite pleasant, as long as you didn't introduce any lateral movement like turning your head or the car. This caused the universe to try and slide away from underneath you. The other side effect was the constant feeling you ought to try to twist your head off, in a good way.”

HumorFunnyFantasyHumourDrivingUrbanDrugsHitchcock
Book:Gods Just Want To Have Fun
Create image

“François Truffault: Mr. Hitchcock, you were born in London on August 13, 1899. The only thing I know about your childhood is the incident at the police station. Is that story true? Alfred Hitchcock: Yes, it is. I must have been about four or five years old. My father sent me to the police station with a note. The chief of police read it and locked me in a cell for five to ten minutes, saying, "This is what we do to naughty boys.”

CinemaHitchcock
Book:Hitchcock/Truffaut
Create image

“Actors read lines and change their facial expressions. Even then they usually need a director to tell them how to do it. It could be argued that actors are not creators or are at best secondary creators. Actors create something from something, usually a prewritten script. Whereas sculptors will create something from the raw material of the earth only using their hands and no other tools. In this regard sculptors are higher creators than painters, and painters are higher creators than musicians or writers who use symbols and tools to create. Actors however are the lowest of all creators. Perhaps that helps to explain why Hitchcock said, “Actors should be treated as cattle.”

ActorsActressesHitchcockCreatorsMovie StarsAlfred HitchcockOverrated ActorsOverrated CelebritiesPrimary Creators
Author:Jack Freestone
Create image

“I dislike The Exorcist, and I found it a warning sign of the dangers in a furious cinematic talent putting the audience through it (a Hitchcock phrase) without purpose, or without the nagging moral anxiety that activated Hitch. You see, I don't think William Friedkin believes in the Devil, or cares about him. I think he found exorcism a pretext for a gross-out and he calculated there was an audience for it, or a crowd ready to be challenged. Maybe I'm too much of an atheist to stand religion being so thrashed.”

ThinkingBelieveCareFilmPurposeFoundMoralAudienceToo MuchTalentDangerReadyAnxietyDevilHollywoodAtheistCrowdsPhrasesWarningDislikeGrossFuriousPretextCinematicHitchcockNaggingExorcismExorcistWarning Signs
Author:Edward Jay Epstein
Create image

“Directors who have inspired me include Billy Wilder, Federico Fellini, lngmar Bergman, John Ford, Orson Welles, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Francis Ford Coppola and Ernst Lubitsch. In art school, I studied painters like Edward Hopper, who used urban motifs, Franz Kafka is my favorite novelist. My approach to film stems from my art background, as I go beyond the story to the sub-conscious mood created by sound and images.”

ArtStoriesSchoolFilmUsedSoundDirectorsApproachConsciousInspiredMy FavoriteMoodBackgroundsPainterNovelistsStemUrbanArt SchoolStanleyHitchcockWilderMotifsBergman
Author:David Lynch
Create image

“Alfred Hitchcock talked about planning out his movies so meticulously that when he was actually shooting and editing, it was the most boring thing in the world. But drawing comics isn't like shooting a movie. You can shoot a movie in a few days and be done with it, but drawing a comic takes years and years... That's the biggest part of doing comics: You have to create stuff that makes you want to get out of bed every morning and get to work.”

WorldWantYearsDoneStuffMorningBedBoringDrawingPlanningComicShootingEvery MorningEditingHitchcockBoring Things
Author:Daniel Clowes
Create image

“Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny, but working with him, I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre, he could be a very funny man to work with, always telling jokes and holding court. Of course, when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.”

MenFunnyFilmCoursesFoundStrangeSeriousJokesCourtGetting OlderCharlieAmusingHitchcockChaplinFunny MenMacabreSerious Man
Author:Tippi Hedren
Create image