The 33 Strategies of War

by Robert Greene

detached. Some thought it was part of his character—that there was something inherently cold-blooded about him. Others thought it a gimmick, a put-on. Few suspected the truth: before the filmmaking had even begun, Hitchcock would have prepared for it with such intense attention to detail that nothing could go wrong. He was completely in control; no temperamental actress, no panicky art director, no meddling producer could upset him or interfere with his plans. Feeling such absolute security in what he had set up, he could afford to lie back and fall asleep. Hitchcock’s process began with a storyline, whether from a novel or an idea of his own. As if he had a movie projector in his head, he would begin to visualize the film. Next, he would start meeting with a writer, who would soon realize that this job was unlike any other. Instead of taking some producer’s half-baked idea and turning it into a screenplay, the writer was simply there to put on paper the dream trapped in Hitchcock’s mind.