An American scientist publicly defects to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to steal a formula before planning an escape back to the West.
EN
François Truffaut: So you just dropped these three projects and you went to work on Torn Curtain. Where did you get the idea for this picture?
Alfred Hitchcock: I got the idea from the disappearance of the two British diplomats, Burgess and MacLean, who deserted their country and went to Russia. I said to myself, "What did Mrs. MacLean think of the whole thing?" So, you see, the first third of the film is more or less from a woman's point of view, until we have the dramatic showdown between the young couple in the hotel room in Berlin. From here on I take Paul Newman's point of view. And I show the unpremeditated murder in which he is forced to take a hand and then his efforts to get to Professor Lindt to learn his secret formula before the crime catches up with him. Then, the last part of the film is the couple's escape. As you see, the picture is clearly divided into three sections. The story worked out very naturally in that way, and its movement follows the logical geographical course. To make sure it was exact, before starting the scenario, I made the same trip as the characters. I went to Copenhagen, then, via a Rumanian airline, over to East Berlin, to Leipzig, then to East Berlin again, and finally to Sweden.
True, the three-part division is clear, and I must admit I like the picture best from the second third on. The first part didn't move me. It's my feeling that the public guesses the developments well ahead of Julie Andrews and even before the key information is given out.
I agree with you on that. From the moment when Newman tells Julie Andrews, "You go back to New York; I'll go back to Sweden," the public cannot fully believe him because we've allowed them to see other cues to his strange behavior. Nevertheless, all that had to be accurately worked out because you've got to be fair to the audience who will be seeing the film more than once. The picture's got to be able to stand up to a double check. Of course, when the girl learns that her fiance has booked a reservation for East Berlin and she says, "But that's behind the Iron Curtain," the audience is already ahead of us. But I don't think it matters because what they're really concerned with at this point is to see the effect on the girl-how she is going to mact.
[...]
[W]hat did you think of the photography?
It's very good.
You know, it represented a drastic change for me. The lighting projected against big white surfaces. We shot the whole film through a gray gauze. The actors kept on asking, "Where are the lights?" We almost attained the ideal, you know, shooting with natural lights.
François Truffaut in conversation with Alfred Hitchcock1
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François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).
