Introduction
First up we’ll cover a grape that grows well in New Mexico that was the parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenere and created the enduring legacy that is Bordeaux wine; Cabernet Franc. Moving to film we cover one of its greatest directors; Alfred Hitchcock. For music we consider one of the great composers of film scores who also created nine scores for Hitchcock; Bernard Hermann.
New Mexico Grapes: Cabernet Franc
New Mexico grapes are quite varied and include hybrid as well as Vitis vinifera varieties. Italian and Spanish grape do very well and a wide range of French grapes including Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Chardonnay. Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir are more challenging.
A hybrid is a cross of typically a North American grape like Vitis labrusca or Vitis riparia and Vitis vinifera to make them more resistant to cold temperatures, or other environmental impacts. The more northern parts of New Mexico at higher elevations do experience colder temperatures that can inhibit ripening.
Cabernet Franc
This grape varietal is heavily planted in France in the Bordeaux and Loire Valley regions. The origin is thought to be in Sud-quest or southwest France in the Basque region. It has been in the Libournais region since the 17th century when planting were taken to Loire by Cardinal Richelieu no less. From these two origin locations it has spread to Hungary and Italy.
- Many Right Bank wines contain up to 50%, such as Chateau Cheval Blanc, which was featured in the movie Sideways as Miles favorite wine even though he trashed both grapes.
- In the Loire Valley, Cabernet is widely planted in the Anjou, Bourgueil, Chinon, and Saumur-Champigny regions
- In California the grape was sometimes mistaken as Merlot because of close genetic ties
- Interest heightened in the 1980s as Bordeaux blends became more popular and it was later featured as a single varietal
- Notable versions come from Corrales Winery, Milagro Vineyards, Jaramillo Vineyards, Casa Rondeña and D.H. Lescombes. I’ve tried all of them
It’s hard to be a father
If it had not been for Cabernet Franc we would not have Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenére and Merlot, even though two of its offspring’s are better known.
- Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc are Cabernet Sauvignon’s parents
- Cabernet Franc and Magdeleine Noire Des Charentes are Merlot’s parents.
- In 2009, DNA analyses carried out by Dr Jean-Michel Boursiquot established that the Merlot variety resulted from a natural cross between Magdeleine Noire des Charentes x Cab Franc.
- Magdeleine Noire des Charentes is also a parent variety of Malbec
- Cabernet Franc and Gros Cabernet are Carmenére’s parents
Milagro 2019 Cabernet Franc, 13.5% ABV, $36
From Milagro website: Grown in our Coronado Vineyard on the warm Corrales hillside from clones 4 & 11, the wine was barrel aged 2 years in French oak followed by one year bottle age. Aromas of raspberry, bramble and green pepper corn spice, flavors of currant, raspberry and red plum, fine tannin, balanced acidity and a long finish. 28 cases produced.
Alfred Hitchcock Movies
When we covered film noir and then neo-noir two names that came up were Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann. Now we’ll cover them in detail here and in film music since we previously covered soundtracks. To say a film is Hitchcockian in style is to acknowledge the genius of the director who created it. I have seen nearly all his films, even most of the early films he did in his native England.
Called the “master of suspense” he pioneered many techniques that we now take for granted in movies. He made good use of the ticking clock, newspaper headlines, the unseen murderer, and sinister shadows. He took us on many train rides over the years. He preferred them to planes for his movies. He played with characters on the run, falsely accused men and ominous staircases.
Roger Ebert, writing about Hitchcock’s screen techniques:
“Hitchcock was a classical technician in controlling his visuals, and his use of screen space underlined the tension in ways the audience is not always aware of. He always used the convention that the left side of the screen is for evil and/or weaker characters, while the right is for characters who are either good, or temporarily dominant.”
He worked with some of the best actors of his day.
- The cool blondes: Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, Eve Marie Saint, Janet Leigh and Doris Day
- The cool guys: Cary Grant, James Stewart, Sean Connery and Paul Newman
The film period I wanted to cover begins in the 1950s when Alfred’s name was on everyone lips.
Strangers on a Train. (1951): with Farley Granger and Robert Walker
A psychopath forces a tennis star to comply with his theory that two strangers can get away with murder. Speaking of trains, Bruno (Walker) takes Guy (Granger) for a dangerous ride in this classic film noir. In one memorable scene at a tennis match all the fans are following the action; turning left and right, but Bruno looks straight ahead at Guy.
Dial M for Murder (1954): Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings
Hitchcock’s first pairing with Grace Kelly. Here she’s an adulteress dallying with Cummings while Milland plots her murder. The telephone becomes an object of suspense as it’s a signal to the murderer to garrote Kelly. The scene is heightened by showing the relays at the telephone switching station engaging each digit of the call. Now of course the switching is digital, but then phone connections took time.
Rear Window (1954): James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr
A wheelchair-bound photographer, Stewart, spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window, and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder, despite the skepticism of Kelly, his fashion-model girlfriend. Burr is chilling and sinister here; very different than his Perry Mason. Kelly, by contrast, was luminous and dreamlike. We are all voyeurs here, sharing Stewart’s preoccupation with his neighbor’s lives. Rear Window was first a play.
Vertigo (1958): James Stewart, Kim Novak
This might be the most hauntingly beautiful and sad movie I’ve ever seen. I was 15 when I saw it on first release and it has stayed with me ever since. Hermann’s music perfectly mirrored the dreamlike and vertiginous aspects of the movie. This was either the last great film noir or the first neo-noir film or a bridge between them. It’s also one the two greatest Hitchcock films ever made. Novak played two roles here, the suicidal “mad” Madeleine and the tragic Judy who was called on to play a role that shielded the murderer.
One of Hitch’s best scenes occurs when Judy agrees to wear Madeleine’s clothing and enters the hotel room, with the glow of a cross street neon sign casting a dreamlike reveal that is enhanced with Hermann’s score. The other is the accordion-like movement of the staircase leading up to the bell tower illustrating Stewart’s vertigo.
North by Northwest (1959): Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
A NYC ad exec goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he doubts. Along the way he’s almost done in by a crop-duster and must scale the heights of Mount Rushmore; one of the many well-known landmarks Hitchcock places in his films. In fact the UN building and Rushmore were movie sets. Mason plays one of a long list of suave criminals determined to eliminate Grant. Another excellent film score from Hermann.
Psycho (1960): Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh
I’m guessing the basic elements of this movie are known by most filmgoers. It is a near perfect movie and shames all the slasher movies that followed in its wake. I’m betting no one who saw it on its initial release as I have, has ever forgotten it. The shower scene, masterfully created without showing a knife enter flesh, was gruesomely imagined by Hermann’s shrieking violins.
Filmed for a small budget ($800,000) with Hitchcock’s television crew in black & white; in part to look like a cheap exploitation film, it influenced countless movies even to this day. Having the lead killed off a third of the way through the movie was a bold stroke that heightened the shock of the shower scene. Some of us still keep the bathroom door locked before we enter the shower.
The Birds (1962) Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleschette, Tippi Hedren
Set in Bodega Bay, a Sonoma Coast fishing village, but any thought of a quiet meditative film quickly dissipates after the first murderous attack by the birds. Based on a Daphne Du Maurier short story and script by Evan Hunter and introducing Hitchcock’s latest ice-cold blonde, Tippi Hedren after Grace Kelly turned him down. There was a decided downturn in birds as pets after this movie came out.
Hedren plays Melanie Daniels; ironically the name of her daughter Melanie Griffith, and received a Golden Globe award for her role. Anyone that had to fight off that many birds should have gotten some kind of award, right?
It received a Metascore of 90, which is a IMDB composite of top film critics. The Guardian and Telegraph gave it a 100.
Frenzy (1972): Jon Finch, Barry Foster and Barbara Leigh-Hunt
Hitch’s next to last film was a return to England and London and his only R-rated movie. It was again a classic wrong man theme for the elusive necktie murdered terrorizing London. Well at least he uses a tie instead of ghastly mutilation like London’s first serial murderer. Many famous landmarks get the Hitchcock treatment, not to mention the pubs.
Roger Ebert rated this film four stars along with Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window. We both enjoyed the comic relief of two hilarious gourmet meals the Chief Inspector suffers at the hands of his wife.
Music: The Film Scores of Bernard Hermann
The right film score can enhance any movie if it contributes to atmosphere and mood. Played against type or by using canned music it can be jarring. Many classical music composers have been drawn to compose for film as well as many jazz artists and contemporary music composers. Some artists have even made a career writing for cinema.
The man behind the low woodwinds that open Citizen Kane (1941), the shrieking violins of Psycho (1960), and the plaintive saxophone of Taxi Driver (1976) was one of the most original and distinctive composers ever to work in film.
- He won a composition prize at the age of 13 and founding his own orchestra at 20.
- He wrote scores for Orson Welles’s radio shows in the 1930s and went on to score Welles’s film debut, Citizen Kane (1941), and then, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
- Herrmann was a prolific film composer, producing some of his most memorable work for Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he wrote nine scores.
A solo perfectionist he once said that most directors didn’t have a clue about music, and he ignored their instructions–like Hitchcock’s suggestion that Psycho (1960) have a jazz score and no music in the shower scene. We know how that turned out.
- He was an early experimenter in the sounds used in film scores.
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), was scored for two theremins, pianos, and a horn section.
- A theremin was a precursor to later synthesizers
- His last score was for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and he died just hours after recording it.
There is an extensive discography of Hermann’s film scores from Citizen Kane to Taxi Driver as well as compendiums with other composers of film.
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