Image of the day, 6/11/09

Alfred Hitchcock (floating, far right) in Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year At Marienbad, 1961. Shortly prior to this shot, the film's narration mentions "a gray silhouette of a man..." And there it is!

Comments

[Matthias Galvin]

When I first saw the film, I had thought that looked remarkably like Hitchcock, but always thought it was a stand-in, because I never recalled seeing verification in any materials that it was Hitchcock being mentioned anywhere.

[Glenn Kenny]

@Mathias—well, in a sense, it is a stand-in—if you look carefully, particularly at the feet, you can see it's a life-size cardboard depiction of Hitchcock, no doubt a remnant of an ornate lobby promotional display for one of his films.

When I get the time I'll find the shot-by-shot homage to "Gilda" in this thing, and post a comparison...

[Kent M. Beeson]

Thank you for this. I'd read, via Jonathan Rosenbaum, that Hitchcock makes a "cameo", but even after seeing the film twice (once in the theater), I could never find him. Even in your screengrab, even with directions, I had to scan it for a few seconds.

[Catherine Grant]

Maybe the best screen-grab I've ever seen. Thanks. Like a magic eye picture! One that truly packs an auteurist punch...

[Tim Lucas]

Are we sure this isn't something those jokers at Criterion added to this masterpiece digitally?

This has got to be the first time a film has been so cleaned up for DVD that suddenly a Hitchcock cameo became visible.

[Glenn Kenny]

@Tim: I amm sure! The blink-and-you-miss-it AH " cameo" is a legendary bit of cinema lore, mentioned in "Midnight Movies." I believe it came up in my interview with himm too. This might be the first time it could be pinned down, though.

[Jonathan Rosenbaum]

Hi Glenn,

For whatever it's worth, this frame grab was also reproduced in the English translation of the screenplay published by Grove Press as an Evergreen paperback--which is where I first found it. And, as I believe you already know, there's also a Hitchcock "cameo" in MURIEL, with a Hitchcock blowup right outside a restaurant.