Thursday, September 15, 2011

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

Or so said one of my favorite directors of all time.

Here's how my brain works. September means Autumn and Autumn means Halloween and Halloween means scary movies and scary movies mean Alfred Hitchcock.
In the Lynch family, you grow up watching classics like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman and Psycho before you're old enough to cross the street without holding hands. It's how we do. Sure, Double Double Toil & Trouble and Tower of Terror will always be favorites for me and my sisters, but we like to really be scared. Like, convinced your house is haunted, afraid to look in mirrors, need to watch Hannah Montana stat, kind of scared. And maybe that's not a good sign if we were to be evaluated by a shrink. We try to keep it to a minimum throughout the year. Well, nothing outrageous anyway. But once October rolls around (and, let's face it, September pretty much is an extension of October, as is November), it's horror season.

One of my earliest memories of my aunt is watching the classic 30s horror flicks on VHS during thunderstorms. My dad was the one who made me start reading Stephen King  when we started reading chapter books in school (only after watching Pet Semetary at my grandma's house). In 6th grade, I dressed up like a princess with glass sticking out of my neck and face and stuff for a Halloween party. It was awesome. I even have this sweet vinyl record in my collection
Hitchcock has always held a special place in my heart. I haven't seen all of them (Dear Mom, you know that beautiful DVD collection of his films? My birthday is in 3 months, 1 week, and 2 days.), but I love what I've seen. Psycho will always be amazing, but I think The Birds is my favorite. We read the short story that inspired the film in high school, and I also did a comparison in another class of the story vs. the movie. And once I came to CIA, I learned that art kids don't mess around when it comes to Halloween parties. So I dressed up as Melanie Daniels, Tippi Hendren's famous character.
(Note: better pictures exist, showing that there are more than 2 birds attacking me. But to be honest, I didn't feel like searching through external harddrives.)

Last year, Psycho came to the Cinematheque in all it's 35mm goodness. That one's a classic, but to see it on the big screen, on film makes it even better. And, if possible, Mr. Norman Bates was even more terrifying. Highlight of my life. One of them, anyway.

So while doing so research for a series of embroideries I wanted to make, I came across this portfolio of images shown in the 2008 Hollywood Edition of Vanity Fair magazine. I don't know why I didn't see this sooner, because it's BRILLIANT. They took some of Hitchcock's most iconic scenes (which are even more amazing to think that they don't even last that long, but everyone remembers them), and recreated them with contemporary Hollywood actors. So I've compiled all of the 11 images here and, for your convenience, set it so that when you hover over an image, it shows you the original still the photograph was based on. So without further ado, the Hitchcock Hollywood Portfolio!
Dial M for Murder
Rear Window
Marnie
Rebecca
Strangers on a Train
Vertigo
To Catch a Thief
Lifeboat
The Birds
Psycho

See the Vanity Fair photos here, and read a behind the scenes article here.

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Thanks for reading about some things I made today! Feel free to leave a comment here; I love hearing from you!

Love, Michaela