August 14, 2014

"I think any camera that takes a picture, it comes out all right."

Said Andy Warhol, quoted in "Digitizing Warhol’s Film Trove to Save It."
“He filmed everything around him,” said Geralyn Huxley, a curator of film and video at the Warhol Museum. “He went to people’s houses and filmed the dinners. He was basically a workaholic and the amount of film is unbelievable.”

But she added: “For all of the film out there, there’s very little of Warhol himself in any of it, actually. You get the sense that he didn’t really like to see himself on camera.”
That "added" is anachronistic. Only in these days of selfies would you think of making a point of a photographer's absence from his own pictures. That's why it was amusing that Alfred Hitchcock made a thing of appearing somewhere in his own films. Here's every Alfred Hitchcock cameo:

Don't miss, at 8:10, "The Birds," with dogs.


St. George said...

"Lifeboat" is brilliant.

pm317 said...

My favorite is the one from "To Catch a Thief" where Cary Grant looks disdainfully, and with some irritation at the fat man sitting next to him.. lol.

Anonymous said...

So Stan Lee is following an example as stellar as Alfred Hitchcock in all those Marvel Cinematic Universe cameos?

(The one in Captain America: The Winter Soldier was actually quite funny. . . .)

who-knew said...

I have to say, that short of Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol is the most overrated artist of the 20th century (and since almost all 20th century art is overrated, that's stiff competition). Hitchcock on the other hand deserves all the praise he's ever gotten.

MadisonMan said...

I like that cameo video listicle because you see the evolution from grainy B&W to better B&W to color.

Quaestor said...

There's a slowly building joke that takes years to pay off. In Spellbound (1945) Hitchcock can bee seen existing an elevator with a violin case. In The Paradine Case ('47) Hitchcock is getting off a train with a cello, in Strangers on a Train ('51) he's shown getting on a train with a bass fiddle. Then there's Hitch getting stiffed by a bus door in North by Northwest.The trials of vehicular transport also seems to be a recurring theme.

That supposed cameo in Rope is debatable. All we see is somebody with in a blue suit from five or six floors up. Could be any stoutish body with a bald spot.

I agree with St. George, the Lifeboat cameo (if it is a cameo) is the best of the lot.

Quaestor said...

I wish Hitchcock had dispensed with the comic trombone his "Funeral March of the Marionettes" theme that accompanies his cameo in Torn Curtain, which is one of his best suspense pieces IMAO.

The Godfather said...

This is a learning experience for me. There were more Hitchcock movies than I knew about. I'm not likely to try the silents, but I will take a look for some of the others.

Of course, once it became known that Hitchcock did these cameos, they became more expectable.

socally773 said...

Quaestor - Rope man on the sidewalk at the start is not Hitchcock, he appears in a // to Lifeboat - there is a shot of the skyline from the left side looking right so the right side buildings can be seen, the Hitchcock profile flashes in neon
who-knew - agree completely