From the Wood-work

One last bit on Robin Wood.  Found this link via DK Holm's wonderful (but sadly not updated--is all OK?) Cinemonkey site.  It is an interview from Your Flesh Magazine--I know nothing about this mag--that was published in 2006.  Wood had this to say about his appraisal of Hitchcock in 2006--

If I was going to write an attack on Hitchcock, it would be directed at the relative lack of any kind of positive drive in his films. You have a sense of this suppressed underworld of psychological horror, but it has to be kept down because if it erupts, everything will be destroyed. I think that beneath the jolly façade, Hitchcock was a very frightened person. I also think thatLifeboat is one of his greatest films. He really deals with fascism there by making the Walter Slezak character so insidiously seductive, yet at the same time completely understanding that the things he stands for are actually monstrous and he has to be destroyed. I think it's the most intelligent approach to beginning to talk about fascism. If you simply say that all the Nazis are disgusting pigs, then you don't understand why fascism had such an enormous following. You have to understand its attraction before you can effectively denounce it. Another great thing about the film is the way Hitchcock shows the American millionaire siding absolutely with the U-Boat commander, being drawn to him more and more, and eventually playing the pipes for him while he sings. Saboteur is also a somewhat underrated film. It's amazing that it was made during America's entry into the way, and even though it disguises itself as an entertaining thriller, the implication is that all the wealthy people in America are, in fact, fascists and Nazi-sympathizers. Meanwhile, all the sympathetic characters of the film are working-class or circus freaks. I confess that I will have to go back now to Lifeboat--I appreciate his reading, but I'm convinced that in this instance Robin Wood is bringing more to this film than Hitchcock did.  In a body of work as large and significant as Hitchcock's, differences and sudden fetishes over neglected films erupt.  Sometimes these fetishes can evolve into major realignments.  I think Vertigo has benefited from this process.  Click the blog headline to be whisked over to the Flesh Mag  interview in it's entirety.