I’ve been obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock since I was about…11. I think that’s about how old I was when I saw ‘The Birds,’ which, if I remember correctly, is the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw. I didn’t like it at first, but the more I’ve watched it since, the more I love it.

The random, coordinated group attacks of birds on humans for no explained reason at first left me completely unsatisfied as an 11 year old but now is one of my favorite things about almost any thriller/horror film – something completely normal that starts behaving abnormally for no explained reason. It isn’t uncommon to see a murder of crows hanging out at a park or a flock of seagulls near a bay. But when you run at them, they go away, they don’t launch coordinated attacks.

It’s a great film.

Anyway, I watched a bunch of Hitchcock films after that – ‘Strangers on a Train,’ ‘Notorious,’ ‘Rebecca,’ ‘Spellbound,’ etc…and finally ‘Psycho’ when I was 12 or 13 and my mom decided I could handle it. I loved ‘Psycho’ in a weird, obsessive way. I think I watched it a billion times. It made me want to work in movies. (Spoiler alert: my career in film didn’t work out.)

My love of Hitchcock’s films hasn’t faded although the time I have to study them since graduating from college has diminished a lot.

So I saw this (updated!) biography, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock by Donald Spoto, and jumped at the chance to listen to it. I really enjoyed it, but I don’t know if it was because I’m such an obsessive fan or if it was because it was really very good. It was quite detailed, which I enjoyed.

I liked hearing about Hitchcock’s wife, Alma, who was an equal in writing and often cleaned up a lot of his scripts. He never filmed a script without her approval, and while their relationship seemed to be more about companionship and similar interests than passionate romance, Hitchcock could barely function whenever Alma was away or ill. When she was sick, later in their lives, he sat vigil in the hospital with her.

It’s hard to find out a lot about Hitchcock’s childhood online. It isn’t well documented, and even in this biography there were gaps. What we do know is that Hitchcock was raised Catholic. If you know anything about the Catholic Church of Hitchcock’s time, it’s not surprising that he had warped views of humor, sex, and death. In fact, Hitchcock’s sense of humor could be wicked as well, and rather nasty. He played a number of cruel pranks on people he decided he didn’t like.

But anyway, Hitchcock’s films very much reflected what was going on in his life, and reflected his Catholic upbringing, and I really liked learning about different film techniques he used and developed himself.

It was difficult for me, though, to hear for the first time “the dark side” of Hitchcock’s personality. I mean, I kinda knew, but the details are always hard for me to hear for the first time (and this is true for anyone I like, or who does something that I like, not just Hitchcock, before I fully accept the situation). Hitchcock’s obsession with film technique and story and everything that made his films so great extended to his actresses. He was obsessed with Grace Kelly, Joan Fontaine, and Ingrid Bergman, but it sounded as if he managed to control himself until he met Tippi Hedren, who he was actively cruel to and aggressive with, and who he was vengeful towards after she rebuffed his advances.

None of this was a shock to me, although yes, hearing the details made me cringe. Hedren’s been very open about this for years and I always believed her even if it was hard to reconcile my love for Hitchcock’s films with the fact that he was abusive towards her. As someone who has been dealing with this dilemma of separating the artist from the art since I was about 15 or 16, none of the Hollywood scandals of the last few months have shocked me at all, or particularly troubled me except in the sense that this is so wide spread and nobody said anything. But the “What do we do with the art?” thing now? No issue.

I’ve done it with the Founding Fathers, athletes, people I know personally, and myself. People have good and bad within them. They tend to do good and bad things. You have to separate the good from the bad or you’re not going to be able to have friends or enjoy anything. Sure, you have to have your line, and you should not tolerate abuse, and people who hurt other people should be punished accordingly. But somebody who commits adultery and also makes films? It’s disappointing, I guess, but what do I care really? Mel Gibson is a horrific human being. I’m still going to watch Signs in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep.

I get if other people can’t do that. You don’t have to go the way I do. But I still stop to watch ‘The Birds’ or ‘Psycho’ or ‘North by Northwest’ whenever they’re on. They’re great films, even if Hitchcock wasn’t a great guy.

I loved The Dark Side of Genius. Again, I’m a huge fan of Hitch’s work, so I may be biased about the book, but I found it fascinating. Any movie buff who likes Hitch’s stuff should read it. The reader gets so much more background and it makes watching the films so much more interesting.

Tagged: authors: donald spoto, books: the dark side of genius, genre: biography