Hitchcock on love

I bought the brother Hitchcock Truffaut for Christmas, a book-long series of conversations between the two directors. At one point they discuss Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), and the two-and-a-half minute snog where Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman don't let go of one another even as they move round the room.

A.H. I was on a train going from Boulogne to Paris and we were moving slowly through the small town of Etaples. It was on a Sunday afternoon. As we were passing a large, red brick factory, I saw a young couple against the wall. The boy was urinating against the wall and the girl never let go of his arm. She'd look down at what he was doing, then look at the scenery around them, then back again at the boy. I felt this was true love at work.

F.T. Ideally, two lovers should never separate.

A.H. Exactly. It was the memory of that incident that gave me an exact idea of the effect I was after with the kissing scene in Notorious.

Hitchcock Truffaut (1984), p. 262.

You can listen to the conversations between Hitchcock and Truffaut (hours and hours of them!) here.