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A screening of ''The Girl'' attended by Hedren took place in [[London]] in October 2012. At the event she spoke briefly of its subject matter: "I don't know if any of you women have had a horrible experience of being the object of someone's obsession. If you have, you would know exactly what that's like. It's oppressive and frightening. You find out that you've been followed and you're being spied upon, and made demands of that you would never acquiesce to in any circumstances. It becomes a situation of not being able to deal with it, not wanting to deal with it and not dealing with it."<ref name=Telegraph-2012-10-22/> The film received its US television debut on 20 October 2012, airing on HBO.<ref name=NYT-2012-10-18/> It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 26 December on BBC Two.<ref name=Independent-2012-12-26/> |
A screening of ''The Girl'' attended by Hedren took place in [[London]] in October 2012. At the event she spoke briefly of its subject matter: "I don't know if any of you women have had a horrible experience of being the object of someone's obsession. If you have, you would know exactly what that's like. It's oppressive and frightening. You find out that you've been followed and you're being spied upon, and made demands of that you would never acquiesce to in any circumstances. It becomes a situation of not being able to deal with it, not wanting to deal with it and not dealing with it."<ref name=Telegraph-2012-10-22/> The film received its US television debut on 20 October 2012, airing on HBO.<ref name=NYT-2012-10-18/> It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 26 December on BBC Two.<ref name=Independent-2012-12-26/> |
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''The Girl's'' release came at the same time as another Hitchcock biopic, which also explores an episode in the director's career. ''[[Hitchcock (film)|Hitchcock]]'' stars [[Anthony |
''The Girl's'' release came at the same time as another Hitchcock biopic, which also explores an episode in the director's career. ''[[Hitchcock (film)|Hitchcock]]'' stars [[Anthony Hopkins]] in the eponymous role and [[Helen Mirren]] as his wife, [[Alma Reville]], and is based on events during the filming of the 1960 film ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]''. It was released in the United States in November 2012 and the United Kingdom in January 2013.<ref name=Independent-2012-12-11/><ref name=New-Yorker-2012-10-19/><ref>{{cite news|last=Corliss |first=Richard |url=http://entertainment.time.com/2012/11/25/was-hitchcock-psycho/ |title=Was Hitchcock Psycho? |work=Time Magazine |publisher=Time Inc |date=25 November 2012 |accessdate=5 January 2013}}</ref> |
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==Reception== |
==Reception== |
Revision as of 21:29, 5 January 2013
Please do not use {{Infobox television film}} directly. See the documentation for available templates. The Girl is a 2012 British television film directed by Julian Jarrold and written by Gwyneth Hughes. Produced by the BBC and HBO Films, and starring Sienna Miller and Toby Jones it portrays the difficult working relationship that existed between British-born film director Alfred Hitchcock and the American model and actress, Tippi Hedren who Hitchcock plucked from relative obscurity to star in his 1963 film The Birds. The film is based on Donald Spoto's 2009 book Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, which discusses Hitchcock and the various women who took leading parts in his films.
Featuring Miller as Hedren and Jones as Hitchcock, the film's title was inspired by the name the director allegedly used for Hedren. It depicts a Hitchcock who becomes infatuated with his leading actress, but who ends up subjecting her to a series of traumatic and gruelling experiences during the filming of The Birds after she rebuffs his advances. When Hedren takes the starring role in Hitchcock's next production, Marnie the director continues to be obsessed with her. He does not hire her for any further films. However, because she is still contractually obliged to him he refuses to allow her to work for anyone else, effectively ending her Hollywood career.
The film received its television debut in the United States on 20 October 2012 on HBO. In the United Kingdom The Girl aired on BBC Two on 26 December 2012. It received mixed reviews from critics. The Daily Mirror praised Miller's Hedren, while The Daily Telegraph felt it gave a balanced account of Hitchcock, but The New York Times was critical of the film's objective. Hedren herself endorsed the film, but it attracted criticism from others who knew and worked with Hitchcock because of its portrayal of him as a sexual predator. The actress Kim Novak, herself the star of one of Hitchcock's films, and Nora Brown, the widow one of Hitchcock's close friends, both refuted the version of events depicted by the film.
Plot summary
The film provides a version of the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren, beginning in the early 1960s as she is discovered by Hitchcock, who wishes to turn her into the next Grace Kelly (an actress with whom he had worked extensively during the 1950s). Hedren is successfully screen tested, then groomed for the starring role in Hitchcock's latest film, The Birds. Captivated by the actress's Nordic looks, Hitchcock becomes infatuated with Hedren, and makes a forced advance on her while they are working together on the film, but she fights him off. In retaliation for this rejection, Hitchcock exposes Hedren to a number of terrifying encounters with birds. The first of these occurs when the glass of a phone booth is shattered by a mechanical bird during the filming of a scene. Then while shooting a later part of the film in which Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels is trapped in an attic with attacking birds, Hitchcock orders the mechanical birds to be replaced with live birds, then demands the scene be repeated several times until he is satisfied that Hedren's reaction appears authentic, a process that takes several days and leaves the actress physically and mentally traumatised.
With filming of The Birds complete, and its successful release at the box office, Hitchcock and Hedren begin work on another movie, Marnie. But Hedren finds the film's content, which includes a scene involving marital rape, together with Hitchcock's unrelenting obsession with her mentally and emotionally exhausting. She resigns from working with him after he refuses her request for time off to attend an awards ceremony and informs her that her contract with him is to be modified to include a clause that she must make herself sexually available to him whenever he demands it. He refuses to release her from her contract and promises to destroy her career, but continues to lust after her as she completes her role as Marnie. As the film ends, two notes that proceed the titles inform the viewer that Hitchcock and "The Girl" never worked together again and that The Birds and Marnie were later considered to be his final two classic movies.
Cast
- Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock
- Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren
- Penelope Wilton as Peggy Robertson
- Imelda Staunton as Alma Reville
- Sean Cameron Michael as Robert Burks
- Candice D'Arcy as Josephine Milton
- Carl Beukes as Jim Brown
- Conrad Kemp as Evan Hunter
- Adrian Galley as Martin Balsam
Production
Background
The film is based on Donald Spoto's book Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, which examines the relationships between the film director Alfred Hitchcock and the leading female stars of his films. Among those with whom Hitchcock collaborated is the actress Tippi Hedren, star of The Birds and Marnie. The author talks about how Hitchcock sought to turn Hedren into the perfect woman, even choosing the clothes and lipstick he believed she should wear, finally becoming so taken with his protege that he fantasized about running away with her.[1] This account of Hitchcock came from Hedren, who in recent years has spoken at length about their working relationship. In December 2012 she told the Daily Mail, "In my day, the casting couch was in regular use. It was accepted, as a matter of course, that actresses would have to do certain things to get certain parts and nobody found it that surprising. He made it very clear what was expected of me, but I was equally clear that I wasn't interested ... Nobody is denying that Hitchcock was a brilliant moviemaker and I enjoyed working with him before I realised he was starting to take an almost obsessive interest in me. He would stare at me across a room while supposedly in conversation with other people".[2]
Filming
Details of a film examining Hitchcock's obsession with Tippi Hedren were reported in December 2011. Written by Gwyneth Hughes the film, titled The Girl would star Toby Jones as Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Hedren. As part of her research for the project Hughes interviewed Hedren and surviving members of Hitchcock's crew before preparing a script. Speaking about her discussions with Hedren, Hughes said, "her wisdom and insights have helped me to put her real life ordeal on to the screen. I know Tippi is absolutely thrilled, as I am, with the casting of Sienna Miller to play her, and when the two of them met recently they got on like a house on fire."[3] Filming began on 8 December 2011.[4] The title was inspired by the name Hitchcock used to refer to Hedren after she stopped working for him.[1][5]
As part of her research into the role of Hedren, Miller spoke to the actress on several occasions during the filming of The Girl, and the two became good friends.[6] Jones's role as Hitchcock required him to spend four hours each day being made up to look like the director, with prosthetic makeup and a fatsuit used to recreate his appearance.[7] Live birds were once again used to reenact the filming of the scene in which Melanie Daniels is attacked by birds in the attic. Speaking about this, Miller told the Radio Times, "I did go through a bird attack for two hours. It pales in comparison to what she [Hedren] was subjected to, but it was pretty horrible. There were men off-camera with boxes of birds, throwing seagulls and pigeons in my face."[8]
Release
A screening of The Girl attended by Hedren took place in London in October 2012. At the event she spoke briefly of its subject matter: "I don't know if any of you women have had a horrible experience of being the object of someone's obsession. If you have, you would know exactly what that's like. It's oppressive and frightening. You find out that you've been followed and you're being spied upon, and made demands of that you would never acquiesce to in any circumstances. It becomes a situation of not being able to deal with it, not wanting to deal with it and not dealing with it."[9] The film received its US television debut on 20 October 2012, airing on HBO.[1] It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 26 December on BBC Two.[10]
The Girl's release came at the same time as another Hitchcock biopic, which also explores an episode in the director's career. Hitchcock stars Anthony Hopkins in the eponymous role and Helen Mirren as his wife, Alma Reville, and is based on events during the filming of the 1960 film Psycho. It was released in the United States in November 2012 and the United Kingdom in January 2013.[8][11][12]
Reception
Criticism
The film attracted criticism because of its portrayal of Hitchcock as a sexual predator. Some members of an audience who attended a private screening of The Girl at the British Film Institute expressed their concerns that writer Gwyneth Hughes and director Julian Jarrold had unfairly represented Hitchcock in their depiction of him.[2]
The actress Kim Novak, who worked with Hitchcock on the 1957 production Vertigo disputed Hedren's and the film's view of the director. "I feel bad about all the stuff people are saying about him now, that he was a weird character. I did not find him to be weird at all. I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody. And wouldn't you think if he was that way, I would've seen it or at least seen him with somebody? I think it's unfortunate when someone's no longer around and can't defend themselves."[13]
Nora Brown, the widow of Jim Brown, an assistant director on The Birds who knew Hitchcock for several years said that her husband would not have endorsed The Girl had he seen the finished product. “If he was here today, I doubt that he would have any negative comments. He would be saddened by the image portrayed of his friend and mentor." Writer Gwyneth Hughes interviewed Brown, but his death occurred before its completion. In October 2012 Nora Brown told The Daily Telegraph that she had written to Hughes to express her anger.[9] Hughes has claimed, however, that Jim Brown backed up Hedren's claims of sexual harassment.[2]
On the day the film was aired in the United Kingdom an article appeared in The Daily Telegraph quoting several actresses who worked with Hitchcock, including Doris Day and Eve Marie Saint, all of them appearing to refute Hedren's account of him.[14]
Reviews
Writing prior to the film's US television debut in October 2012, Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times was critical of the film's objectives: "The trouble with “The Girl” is that it tries to psychoanalyze Hitchcock but fails by trying to know the man too much. It's a movie about Hitchcock that ignores his best advice: “Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement."[1] Richard Brody of The New Yorker was also negative in his review: "In effect, "The Girl" is not a drama but a work of criticism—not one of any groundbreaking originality, but one that points to what everyone ought already to have been talking about in the first place: not least, that it's no surprise to learn that a filmmaker whose art is devoted to pain, fear, control, and sexual obsession also experienced and inflicted them in life."[11] However, a pre-broadcast article by James Rampton of The Independent, published on the day the film received its British television debut, said that The Girl was "no mere black-and-white hatchet job on Hitch. It does not seek to portray him as an unambiguous monster; rather, it highlights the profound psychological damage that plagued the director throughout his life."[10]
The Guardian's Deborah Orr was generally positive about the film, but felt it lacked the psychological drama usually associated with Hitchcock. Of the content she said, "The top complaint is that the film isn't "true". The contradictory opinions of others who worked with Hitchcock and Hedren have been sought – as if they could know better than Hedren what it was like to be her. Critics say Hitchcock didn't deliberately break the glass in a phone booth Hedren was filming in to punish her, or deliberately film take after take of her being swooped upon by live birds. Yet we know these things occurred. The inference is that there's a big difference between injuring someone accidentally or on purpose. True. But Hitchcock may have let Hedren believe the latter when the former was the case, for example. Life, and humans, aren't simple."[15]
The Telegraph's Nigel Farndale praised the film for having a balanced view of Hitchcock: "Even though he was portrayed in this exquisite drama as a manipulative, vindictive martinet, the portrait was not unsympathetic.[16] That sentiment was echoed in a preview of the film by the Daily Mirror's Jane Simon, who praised Jones's Hitchcock: "For actor Toby Jones, the physical transformation into the jowly director took four hours in make-up each day. Beyond that, he's managed to give this monster touches of humanity, too. There are moments when you feel a real pang of sympathy for Hitchcock, although admittedly they don't last long."[17] Simon was equally positive about Miller's role: "Gliding gracefully through it all (and with an impeccable American accent) Sienna Miller brings untouchable beauty and icy glamour, but also captures the extraordinary resilience Hedren must have had to withstand everything Hitchcock threw at her."[17] In The Telegraph, Clive James felt that Miller was a good choice for Hedren. "A better choice could not have been made than Sienna Miller, who is even lovelier than Hedren was. The actor playing Hitchcock, Toby Jones, quite believably looked stunned."[18]
See also
- Hitchcock, a 2012 American film directed by Sacha Gervasi and starring Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock.
References
- ^ a b c d Stanley, Alessandra (18 October 2012). "Off-Camera Terrors on Hichcock's Sets". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 14 December 2012.
- ^ a b c Oglethorpe, Tim (21 December 2012). "Hitchcock? He was a psycho: As a TV drama reveals his sadistic abuse, Birds star Tippi Hedren tells how the director turned into a sexual predator who tried to destroy her". Daily Mail. Daily Mail and General Trust. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
- ^ "Sienna to play 'Hitchcock blonde' - News, Entertainment". Belfast Telegraph. Independent News and Media. 4 December 2011. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ "Sienna Miller to play Hitchcock obsession, Tippi Hedren". The New York Post. News Corporation. 5 December 2011. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ Hiscock, John (24 December 2012). "Tippi Hedren interview: 'Hitchcock put me in a mental prison'". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
- ^ Adams, Tim (16 December 2012). "When Sienna Miller met Tippi Hedren". The Observer. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
- ^ Rose, Steve (9 December 2012). "Toby Jones: dial H for Hitchcock". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
- ^ a b Battersby, Matilda (11 December 2012). "Sienna Miller endured 'horrible' two-hour bird attack while filming The Girl". The Independent. Independent Print Ltd. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
- ^ a b "Alfred Hitchcock drama The Girl sparks angry backlash". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. 22 October 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ a b Rampton, James (26 December 2012). "Obsession: The dark side of Alfred Hitchcock". The Independent. Independent Print Ltd. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ a b Brody, Richard (19 October 2012). "Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren: HBO's "The Girl," Reviewed". The New Yorker. Conde Nast. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
- ^ Corliss, Richard (25 November 2012). "Was Hitchcock Psycho?". Time Magazine. Time Inc. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
- ^ Rushfield, Richard (8 October 2012). "Kim Novak tells all". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
- ^ Millward, David (26 December 2012). "BBC under fire over Hitchcock drama". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
- ^ Orr, Deborah (27 December 2012). "If only Alfred Hitchcock himself could have directed The Girl". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ Farndale, Nigel (27 December 2012). "Nigel Farndale on the week's television: The Girl and Restless". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
- ^ a b Simon, Jane (26 December 2012). "The Girl: Sienna Miller is perfectly cast in true story of Alfred Hitchcock's obsession The Birds leading lady". Daily Mirror. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
- ^ James, Clive (4 January 2013). "Clive James on TV: Downton Abbey, Restless and The Girl". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
External links
- The Girl at IMDb
- Interview with actors - The Independent, 26 December 2012, Obsession:The dark Side of Alfred Hitchcock [1]
- BBC under fire over Hitchcock drama (The Telegraph, 26 December 2012)