Today's top movie-men (Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Richard Linklater among them) reflect on French filmmaker François Truffaut's 1966 book "Hitchcock/Truffaut", wherein an eight-day meeting was arranged in 1962 Los Angeles between Alfred Hitchcock (who had just completed "The Birds") and Truffaut, who had released only three films but who had met Hitchcock before in Paris and struck up a friendship. The interview book with rare photographs took Hitchcock through each one of his movie titles, giving readers a then-rare glimpse into his thought processes, his behind-the-scenes troubles, his triumphs and regrets. Although portions of Truffaut's original recorded interview are heard throughout, the picture (heavy with clips) becomes, predictably, a tribute to Hitchcock's body of work--with, even more predictably, a heavy emphasis on "Vertigo" and "Psycho". Most revealing are the passages from Truffaut's interview, including the famous quote wherein Hitchcock referred to actors as cattle (after finishing a story on working with Method actor Montgomery Clift on "I Confess"). Hitchcock didn't believe in giving his players any free room within his productions to expand on their characters--character content was secondary, everything was planned out visually from the beginning--yet Hitchcock's temperament or volatility (if, indeed, any) isn't touched upon here. This is a reverent piece of work, an enjoyable but mild documentary without intrusive surprises. **1/2 from ****
Review of Hitchcock/Truffaut
