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American Film (1980) - Letters: Hitch and the Hereafter

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  • Jacobs' letter was in response to Ernest Lehman's article "Hitch" from the July/August issue

Letter

Hitch and the Hereafter

I would like to thank Ernest Lehman for "Hitch" in the July-August issue.

He said it as well as ... well, as Hitch himself might have. A few academics, a few intellectuals, a few critics had to show us how clever they were by taking potshots at our uncle. Too bad for them. The rest of us were absolutely in love. And when you're in love with true gentility, true artistic perception, true moviemaking, then you don't give a damn about hermeneutics, semiotics, Marxism, or any other kind of theory which amuses those intellectuals but bores the rest of us silly.

Sir Alfred, above all other moviemakers, inspired those of us who went to the Saturday matinee and then to film school. And he inspired us more than our teachers and more than Bergman and more than Antonioni or Eisenstein because he was our moviemaker. The world's moviemaker. He helped us make it through the night.

His children, Lucas, Spielberg, Kurtz, De Palma, and a few others, might be able to answer Lehman's question about what happens next. I think that Hitch, on his well-earned vacation, is waiting to see who finds the MacGuffin.

Bob Jacobs
Oshkosh, Wisconsin