I'm starting to think so. I personally dislike auteur cinema because it's always the same thing, a couple of great films at the beginning and then it all goes into this insufferable self-indulgent mess were you actually see the intrusive director on the screen, which does a total disservice to the film. Hitchcock's style is seamless, it other words, it doesn't draw attention to itself, at least not in my opinion. I think he is the greatest.
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shareno way.
shareWhy not?? Alfred Hitchcock was the only one doing new things after everything had been settled with Metropolis and Battleship Potemkin.
shareWhat director has a better track record?....nobody.
shareI agree. But it's more than a track record, as I said in my original post, Hitchcock wasn't intrusive in his own films. They truly stand on its own. You see a Tarantino film and you see that balding hideous fat ass with a chode dick in every frame, or at least the things he likes to copy on every frame, the experience just becomes a massive eyeroll.
shareActually he is one of the worst directors of all time. By his own admission he wanted everyone who watched his films to be uncomfortable. He was a sadist !! He was also sexist !!!
share'He was a sadist !! He was also sexist !!!'
May or may not be true, but has absolutely nothing to do with his skill as a director.
You're thinking Ridley Scott.
shareHis span of work began in the 20s(with work in silent film in both his home country of England AND in Germany), solidified him as "the greatest British director" in the 1930s, brought him to America and a Best Picture(Rebecca) right off the bat in 1940, and saw him work his way up to the top tier of directors in the 40's and early 50s.
By the mid-fifties, he started a TV series that made him a worldwide identifiable star ASIDE from being a movie director. As a director, he was a peer to John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Frank Capra. As a TV star, he was a peer to Lucille Ball, James Arness, and Jackie Gleason. Multi-millions knew who Hitchcock was. It was said for a few decades that only Hitchcock and Cecil B. DeMille were directors who could attract audiences like movie stars did. Came the 50s and 60's, Hitchcock was by far bigger...and hip enough to survive into the 70's.
Hitch spun off books for adults and books for kids; a Mystery Magazine; records, and radio broadcasts.
He made 53 films, many that were classics, many that were hits, some that were hits AND classics(Rear Window, Psycho.)
And I can't think of another film director who made the "famous four in a row" greats that Hitchcock did: Vertigo(ranked as the Number One film of all time by Sight and Sound), then NXNW(ground zero for Bond, Indy, Die Hard, The Matrix); Psycho(his biggest blockbuster and a piece of world history) and The Birds(Hitchcock's contribution to the CGI era that was decades away.)
Director, producer, silent-partner screenwriter, TV star, icon.
Nobody has matched his career. Subjectively, maybe not the best. Objectively, by all measures of fame and success -- definitely the best.
As one Hitchcock scholar put it: Hitchcock is actually over, above and apart from the rest of Hollywood. He's his own universe of achievement.
UPDATE: I am thinking that while both Steven Spielberg and James Cameron have OUT-EARNED Hitchcock in their careers, inflation and world population growth is a part of that and neither man can claim the overall historical impact I note above. Moreover, Spielberg tried a TV series and it pretty much flopped after two seasons; Hitchcock's ran for ten.