If you have the chance to visit Milan in these days, you must visit
Palazzo Reale and its great exhibitions.
Starting with the one dedicated to the
Master of suspense: Alfred Hitchcock.
Here's a summary of what you'll find there:
"The exhibition shows seventy photographs and special features from the Archives of Universal Pictures, the American major that produced the films of Alfred Hithcock from 1940 to 1976 realizing for the cinema a series of unforgettable masterpieces.
The aim of the exhibition is the investigation and the reproduction of the effect of suspense typical of Hitchcock films that, over the years, has terrorized - and perhaps continues to terrorize - millions of viewers.
A photographic story wants to move the audience into the backstage of famous films such as Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963)."
One of the things I liked the most was the presence of the critic
Gianni Canova, who follows the visitors through videos in which he appears dressed as Mr. Hitchcock in
Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He explains the fundamentals of the film to which the area is dedicated and goes through interesting details about the
particular making of some of the scenes.
There are also many references to
Hitchcock by Truffaut, which I had just finished reading (a suggested reading, definitely).
The exhibition also shows some of the original films' posters, or pictures of their promotion.
As Mr. Canova underlines, a persistent element in Hitchcock's films is his
duality expressed through the choice of his two favourite actors:
James Stewart the voyeur and lover, what Hitchcock believed to be, his alter-ego, on one side, and Cary Grant, the playboy, the saviour, what Hithcock wanted to be, on the other side.
As mentioned before, four rooms were dedicated entirely to his most famous films
I've been delighted to visit the one dedicate to
Rear Window, my Hithcock's favourite, and to see many pictures taken on set during the complex construction of the different apartments used as setting. Considering the characters who were always part of the mise-en-scene were:
Fire Escape Sleepers, Composer, Miss Torso, Salesman, Honey Mooners and Miss Lonely Hearts, there had to be at least 6 fully furnished flats on set, without counting Stewart's.
The room dedicated to
Vertigo was accompanied by quotes from
Kim Novak's speech at this year Cannes Film Festival.
Follow the link to listen to a part of Kim Novak's speech:
In the one dedicated to
Psycho I was delighted to listen to Canova defining the
film as pure language of film, while analyzing the shower scene.
In the last one, dedicated to
The Birds, I was thrilled to see how many ideas this room gave me: first, the information about his
technical complexity which is the reason why it took so long to complete it, there are exactly
370 track shots in this film only; secondly, the video wasn't presented by Canova this time, but it showed different directors and scholars presenting the film as
the monster film, and making comparisons with more recent ones. The most interesting comparison was with
Steven Spielberg's Jaws, it was amazing to see the split screen showing the very similar sequences of the two films, and to think that
Hitchcock managed to turn simple and harmless birds into the creatures of a monster film.
The funniest room is the one dedicated to the director's cameo appearances in his films, there was a montage with the most important ones.
Another room was dedicated to Hitchcock's most famous quotes, and another one, the last one, to his films'
soundtracks and his collaboration with the composer
Bernard Herrmann.
A little curiosity I learned from this room: the song
Que sera, sera written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston,
was composed in occasion of Hitchcock's film The Man who knew too much (1956).
Here you can listen to the use of the song in the film:
Last, but not least, film fact of the day:
Alfred Hitchcock
66 Films - 487 Homicides
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