Why The Girl on the Train heralds the return of the Hitchcockian thriller

Why The Girl on the Train heralds the return of the Hitchcockian thriller

Posted by John P. Bradford // October 6, 2016

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The spirit of Alfred Hitchcock has returned to push filmgoers back to the edge of their seats with the release of a set of suspenseful new films but why does Hollywood keep returning to his template?

Few things would please Alfred Hitchcock more than the idea that, 36 years after his death, he is somehow back: a portly, sinister specter in the back row of the multiplex, or perhaps leaving an insidious trail of silvery ectoplasm across Hollywood backlots. Then again, hed probably take issue with the idea that he was ever gone: Hitchcock took up spiritual residence in genre cinema and television while he was very much alive, as suspense techniques that began as his alone became standard practice.

Hitchcockian has become a go-to descriptor for entire branches of storytelling not always an apposite one, but evocative to an audience far beyond the film-nerd coterie that tends to adjectivize auteurs. (Even Coenesque feels niche by comparison.) And when Vertigo formally challenged Citizen Kane for branded greatest film of all time status topping Sight & Sounds famed decennial critics poll in 2012, ending Kanes 50-year reign it was clear that Hitchcocks style remained something of a cinematic lingua franca, its effectiveness and influence recognizable to viewers across cultures and generations. Indeed, as the poll met with inevitable online pushback from film fans, the recurring question wasnt why Hitchcock?, but why this Hitchcock? Among others, Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window and Notorious have at least as many adherents; DNA from any number of his works is detectable in one contemporary thriller or another.

But even allowing for his continuing watermark presence in our cinemas, it feels like the industry is having more of a Hitchcock moment than usual. Chalk it up to coincidence or a gap spotted in the market for mature genre fare away from the more fanciful superhero glut, but the adult mystery is very much back in fashion. The chiaroscuro murkiness of film noir, after all, emerged from the general mood of pessimism among audiences and film-makers in the thick of the second world war; perhaps the current international climate of political distemper has audiences once more seeking the shadows.

Television, the medium that Hitchcock himself embraced to enduring effect in the mid-1950s, is leading the revival most directly. A protracted, contemporary-set prequel to Psycho, Bates Motel has been renewed for a fifth series on the A&E cable network, while news broke last week that Universal Cable Productions is developing Welcome to Hitchcock, a series in which classic narratives from Hitchcocks oeuvre will be repurposed and reimagined over the course of a season. The Hitchcock estate has lent its support to the project, which sounds rather like the American Horror Story of film noir fingers crossed for a Lady Gaga cameo.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/oct/05/girl-on-the-train-alfred-hitchcock-thriller