Sight and Sound Voter: ‘Hitchcock Was a Predator’

BFI/Sight and Sound will follow tradition this coming December, as the critics/directors poll results for their prestigious per-decade Greatest Films of All-Time list will be published. It will most likely be the most polarizing results we’ve seen in a very long time. A shake up is no doubt about to occur due to how hyperpoliticized things have become these last 10 years.

A Tinseltown producer, who shall remain nameless, emailed me this morning a very depressing, and concerning, exchange he had with an East Coast film critic last month. It had to do with the upcoming Sight and Sound poll.

This critic received a ballot, but refused to vote for any Hitchcock with the reasoning that the legendary filmmaker’s oeuvre is now toxic due to his past misdeeds with women. I mean, how depressing is that? The critic went on to say that Hitchcock is now, in his eyes, a toxic “predator.”

That means, according to this critic, classics such as “Vertigo,” “Psycho,” “Rear Window,” “Rope,” “Shadow of a Doubt,” “Notorious,” “The Birds,” “Strangers on a Train,” and many more, have been annulled from his cinematic mind. Blasphemy!

If this is the attitude that many will go into, when filling out their ballots, then … f*ck.

The Hitchcock ire seems to stem from beloved actress Tippi Hedren, who turns 88 this year, a latter-day Hitchcock blonde, the last of them actually, who admitted in her recent memoir that the director attempted to forcibly kiss her while the two were taking a limo ride on the set of "The Birds."

The following year she signed on to make “Marnie” and his behavior did not change, in fact it got worse. She claimed "Hitchcock installed a secret door between his office and dressing room. Eventually the director found his way into her room and “put his hands on me. It was sexual, it was perverse…the harder I fought him, the more aggressive he became.”

I'm sure getting forcibly touched by someone that looks like Alfred Hitchcock must be a nightmare for any woman, but where do we limit and separate art from artist? I’m most certainly convinced that films by the likes of Woody Allen, and Roman Polanski will also take a hit when the upcoming Sight and Sound results are revealed.

Alfred Hitchcock was, at times, what some would call today, a “misogynist” towards his actresses, but that doesn’t mean his indisputably great movies should be downgraded. Ditto John Wayne and “The Searchers,” a film with racial undertones, but whose impact in film history is undeniable.

Hitchcock’s influence in cinematic history is practically everywhere today. I can’t go a week without watching a movie that has some kind of Hitchcockian detail to it. The man changed the way movies are made and told and there really is no way around that. No matter how hard one might try, you just can’t ignore the immense impact he’s had.