The Hitchcock Of The Walk: A Tribute To My Father

When you finish watching a guilty pleasure show like Gossip Girl, it's only right that you watch something with substantially brilliant writing and content to regain your sense of what is good and what is...well, a guilty pleasure. This last week I really needed something with substance and class. So many movies today are what I call "multi-tasking movies." You know the ones. You can watch the first five minutes of them to learn the characters voices and then clean your apartment or write an essay or talk on the phone and still understand the entire premise without missing a thing. That's how a lot of movies are these days, and I really resent it. Ahem, excuse me, my movie snob is showing.


Lucky for me, my dad is a movie buff. He's just a movie buff from a few generations back. It takes me, my brother, and my mother convincing him these days to go see a movie, except on Christmas Day, and then it's our tradition, so he knows he has to go. But at home, he's always watching some black and white flick or some cowboy movie. From time to time he'll call me into the room and ask me to look at someone on screen. Then he'll say with a big grin on his face, "You know who's mother that is?" or "You know who that guy is on TV today?" I usually stare for a minute, and sometimes the answer is obvious, but more than not, I come up blank. Then he traces the connection for me, and I am always amazed that his 60+ brain still has room for these kinds of things. I hope I inherit this trait.

A Flock of Fear.

In most ways, I am just like my mother. But I pretty much owe my love for scary movies to my dad. At a pretty early age, he introduced me to what we refer to as "disaster" movies. Tower Inferno, Earthquake, and pretty much any movie where an animal multiplies and infiltrates/attacks an area. Frogs, Ants, Jaws...and of course...The Birds. 

The Birds is my second favorite Alfred Hitchcock film. Rear Window is my favorite. Psycho is surprisingly far down the list, but of course still a classic. At some point during the rainy Sunday afternoons of my childhood, when my younger brother and my mom were napping, I fell in love with old "scary" movies. My dad sat in a recliner next to me, making sure to pull me back into the movie with his storytelling voice, "Uh oh, what's gonna happen!?" if my attention wavered. I would look up from my popcorn just in time to see that Tippi Hedren was just inches in front of playground equipment that was covered in birds. Terrifying, and exhilarating. It wasn't just Hitchcock movies though, it was his TV show that drew me in also. I loved his introductions and conclusions, his little props and antics that were so uniquely his, and no one has been able to pull off since. 


These times with my dad taught me to appreciate the way movies, whether long or short, are made. I began to recognize the elements of writing and props and scenery, subtle movements, camera angles, facial expressions, and the tension of silence. I learned that usually dialogue is of secondary importance in a really good movie, and that too much talking is almost always a bad thing. 

Director of Doom.

Of course, my dad taught me that last lesson in real life too; his eyes busy watching every scene in our house, but only choosing to speak when it would further the plot rather than simply create more drama. Letting his stillness usher us into whatever lesson needed to be recognized at any given moment, and then finally, just like Hitchcock, summarizing the scene, offering a little sarcasm, a little humor, a lot of comfort by reminding us that no matter how bad things seem, none of it is real enough to spend time fretting over.