Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock once said, "In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director." And considering all the stories about how the auteur treated star Tippi Hedren, it certainly seems like he had a bit of a God-complex himself. Now, a church in Astoria is exploring the world of "Hitchcock and the Catholic Conscious" with a free film series!
For three Friday's this month, the Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria will be showing a Hitchcock film, and have commentary from a series of pastors and professors on Hitchcock and Catholicism. Yesterday was the first event, a showing of Shadow Of A Doubt; next Friday night at 7 p.m. it's the classic Strangers on a Train, and the week after that, it's one of his lesser-known works, I Confess, starring Montgomery Cliff. And best of all, it's all free!
We really can't recommend Strangers on a Train enough if you haven't seen it, especially with the free admission. You can read a paper here by one former Catholic school boy recounting the absence of resolutions in The Alfred Hitchcock Show in relation to God. And below, check out a classic clip from Rope, a movie which deals with Nietzschean ideas of superiority, which would have been perfect for this series:
