According to the British "Guardian" report, the recently published "Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards" (Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards) was compiled by Hitchcock research expert Tony Lee Morrall, which contains a series of films that have never been published. The images and detailed text provide an in-depth analysis of the directorial thinking of this "master of suspense", including the behind-the-scenes story of how the great director collaborated with the surrealist painter Salvador Dali to create film storyboards.
Book cover of "alfred hitchcock storyboards".
The time goes back half a century. In Los Angeles in 1970, film critic John Russell Taylor accidentally discovered a series of Hitchcock's storyboard manuscripts at a garage sale. Taylor, a Hitchcock expert who later wrote a biography of the director, immediately recognized the sketches as coming from Hitchcock's 1945 film Spellbound, which tells the story It tells the story of a psychoanalyst treating a man with amnesia.
Taylor spent only $50 to buy a set of storyboard sketches carefully made by the director. After closer inspection, he noticed another detail: one of the storyboards depicted a famous dream sequence from the movie, and unlike the other manuscripts, seemed to have been drawn by another artist. Of the nine storyboards Taylor purchased that day, he most likely took away a work painted by the Surrealist painter Salvador Dali himself.
The dream sequence in the movie "Doctor Edward" was inspired by the creation of Salvador Dali.
Taylor recalled that when he bought these storyboard manuscripts, he was having lunch with Hitchcock every week. He said the director assured him it was certainly an original work by Dali himself, recalling how the Surrealist painter hastily corrected some of the angles with watercolor paint. Hitchcock also confirmed that other storyboards were written by art director James Besway, who was hired to condense Dalí's ambitious vision into something more conventional and easier to film.
"Doctor Edward" was one of the first films to explore psychoanalysis and the subconscious, and dream sequences were the core plot of the film. Rather than smearing Vaseline on his lenses to create hazy nighttime visions like other directors, Hitchcock wanted his films to be as bright and clear as our most vivid dreams. Therefore, Hitchcock spent a huge sum of US$4,000 to invite Dali to design a unique core part for the film. Dalí was originally hired to create a 20-minute highlight reel for the scene, but it was ultimately cut to just three minutes.
"Hitchcock was very shrewd," says Morrall, "and he knew that Dali was a big-name star who could be used to promote the film." The problem was that Dali's idea for "Doctor Edward" was so "unique." . His storyboards included elements such as the protagonist turning into a statue and then shattering into ants. "It was basically unfilmable," Moral said.
Filmmaker David O Selznick apparently held the same view, and was so worried about the cost that he eventually asked art director Besway to recreate a more practical version of the dream sequence based on Dali's sketches. Version. “I think Dalí played a big role in the final dream sequence, but the influence was somewhat indirect,” Taylor said. In fact, the artist was likely disappointed that his byline ended up being "Dream Fragment, Inspired by the Creation of Salvador Dali." However, the finished film certainly achieved what Hitchcock had originally had in mind.
Hitchcock's storyboard design is a key factor that cannot be ignored in the success of his films. He is also one of the directors who takes storyboards to the extreme. Hitchcock himself started as an advertising storyboard artist, then became a film editor, and finally a director, so he attached great importance to storyboard design.
Moral points out in the new book that other directors might draw some very rough scenes as a guide for shooting, but Hitchcock was so meticulous that he created carefully drawn pictures that could be copied to the screen almost like a photocopy.In fact, Hitchcock sometimes claimed that storyboarding was his main creative task, and he viewed the directing process as a tedious job for the sake of errands, not even bothering to look through the viewfinder.
"He always said anyone could direct his films because he had it all planned out in his head."
Reference:
'dalí's were unfilmable': the astonishing story of hitchcock's lost storyboards – found in a bric-a-brac sale
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/26/dali-hitchcocks-lost-storyboards-spellbound-bric-a-brac-sale
compiled/Li Yongbo
edited/Zouzao
proofread /Lucy
