The Girl
Director:
Julian Jarroldi
Year: 2012
Rating: 6.0
"Blondes make the best victims.
They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints."
Hitchcock
In the same year as the film Hitchcock was
produced about the making of Psycho, this film was made about Alfred Hitchcock's
relationship with Tippi Hedren during the filming of The Birds and Marnie.
It is much the same Hitchcock but even nastier and more obsessed. This was
adapted from a biography by Donald Spoto who is known to sensationalize things.
But Hedren who was interviewed for the book, said it was accurate. In which
case Hitchcock really was a monster. Or a pathetic old man. His obsession
and her rejection of his advances turns him into a very sorry figure. Hitchcock
always became attached to his cold blonde leads - Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly,
Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Madeleine Carroll, Anny Ondra - but his obsession
for Heden went beyond those; trying to maul her, telling her he loved her
and demanding that she be sexually available to him. At least according to
this film. Unlike in the film Hitchcock, his wife here as played by Imelda
Staunton is much less attractive, less forceful and stays in the background.
The Hitchcock that most of us admire is
his public persona of the garrulous, puckish, Buddha like man who presented
himself to the audience at the beginning and end of his TV show. Watching
this which takes place at about the same time as his TV show throws a grenade
into our public perception. A great film director, an awful man. At least
later in life when all those obsessions had come to naught. In the film,
he confesses to have only had sex with his wife. All the fantasy. Never consummated.
The famous scene of Hedren in The Birds
when she is attacked by birds is pure sadism. After she had rejected his
physical advances in a car, Hitchcock punishes her by doing take after take
for five days of staff throwing live birds at her. In this film, they did
the same with Sienna Miller who plays Hedren but only for two hours. Hitchcock
is played by Toby Jones and perhaps he and Anthony Hopkins can battle it
out for best Hitchcock. They are both very good. Even with his bad behavior,
Hedren agreed to be in his next film, Marnie in which she plays a frigid
sneak thief; perhaps how Hitchcock viewed her at this point. She had a seven
year contract with Hitch and broke it after Marnie. He swore he would ruin
her in Hollywood and though she would continue acting for many years, none
gave her the exposure and fame that she had with Hitchcock. But enough was
enough.
