From theguardian.com
In 1962, director François Truffaut conducted a series of in-depth interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, published in a lavishly illustrated book, which became something of a film-makers’ bible. Truffaut’s aim was to reclaim Hitchcock as an artist – an “auteur” rather than just an entertainer. Kent Jones’s documentary, which draws on audio tapes of those conversations along with new interviews with Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Wes Anderson et al, is no less evangelising, arguing that Truffaut’s book should be viewed and valued on a par with his movies. The documentary certainly makes for fascinating viewing; although most cineastes will already know the source text inside out, it’s great to hear audio of these exchanges, and the new interviews that make up the bulk of the film are entertaining, erudite, and (most importantly) refreshingly enthusiastic.

https://nitro.download/view/4BB26700F7B9D6D/Hitchcock.Truffaut.2015.720p.WEB-DL.DD5.1.H.264-Coo7.mkv

Language(s):English, French, Japanese
Subtitles:English, hardcoded

The post Kent Jones – Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Narrator: Martin Scorsese.
Nowhere else on television is such a genuine love for filmmaking consistently on display as in the Turner Classic Movie documentaries, especially when they have the audacity to stretch beyond household-name stars and directors. So it is with Martin Scorsese’s heartfelt tribute to Val Lewton, the producer responsible for such movie-buff fare as “Cat People” and “I Walked With a Zombie.” As always, the doc is linked to a retrospective of the subject’s work, and “The Man in the Shadows” more than achieves its objective of stoking interest in Lewton’s filmography.

It’s easy to see what attracted Scorsese (who produces and narrates for writer-director Kent Jones) to Lewton, who made an art of creating movies with a distinctive look and style in the 1940s, despite operating with extremely modest budgets.

Beginning as an assistant to producer David O. Selznick — where his resume included conceiving the boom shot in “Gone With the Wind” — Lewton segued to a special unit at RKO to produce inexpensive horror fare.

Yet Lewton (working with such directors as Robert Wise, Jacques Tourneur and Mark Robson) aimed higher than his employers ever intended with his artfully constructed productions, which as much out of necessity as anything else demonstrated the value of implied horror. He also jump-started the mummified career of Boris Karloff, who was reluctantly foisted upon him, allowing the actor to demonstrate, in films such as “Body Snatcher” and “Isle of the Dead,” that he was capable of more than just playing Frankenstein’s guttural monster.

An unassuming figure who emigrated from Russia to the U.S., Lewton left behind diary entries the producers deftly weave in to help tell his story. Jones also seeks out such logical suspects as Roger Corman and Kiyoshi Kurosawa — filmmakers familiar with the challenges of low-budget production — to heighten appreciation for the nearly lost art that Lewton mastered, creating thrills minus the benefit of CGI effects, and suspense without resorting to spurting streams of gore.

Despite his cinematic legacy, Lewton’s is not an especially uplifting story, from the callous way he was treated by various studios and former colleagues near the end of his career to his untimely death. For a man who worked in relative obscurity, however, even that aspect of his life — much like the shadowy little black-and-white gems he oversaw — proves strangely and perhaps ironically illuminating.
More than one option

http://nitroflare.com/view/B10C45539FC12F2/Val_Lewton_The_Man_in_the_Shadows.2007.avi
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/7A5A91DCA4B8B27/Val_Lewton_The_Man_in_the_Shadows.2007.English.srt
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/50667DEDC01AE5D/Val_Lewton_The_Man_in_the_Shadows.2007.French.srt

Language:English
Subtitles:English and French SRT

The post Kent Jones – Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007) first appeared on Cinema of the World.