Storefront Hitchcock is a 1998 American concert film featuring Robyn Hitchcock and directed by Jonathan Demme. It was conceived as "a document not a documentary",[1] and the performance was shot in New York City in December 1996, in an abandoned used clothing store on 14th Street.[2] Over the course of the performance, simple props and set pieces are varied, such as a bare lightbulb and a tomato sculpture, and occasionally a passerby on the street glances in.[3]
Demme met Hitchcock after he attended a live show and offered to direct a live performance video for a song, which was then revised to be a full concert.[4] Demme was inspired to film in the storefront setting by a Hungarian theatre group, Squat Theatre, who operated in New York City in the 1970s and 80s and typically performed in a storefront against a large plate glass window facing the street.[4]
The film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival on March 19, 1998.[2] It was funded by Orion Pictures just before it declared bankruptcy and was bought by MGM, and did not receive the hoped-for distribution or promotion in the United States.[5] In Hitchcock's words, "when MGM kind of unzipped their stomachs to see what they'd swallowed, they pulled out Orion, and they cut open Orion's stomach. And inside Orion's stomach was wriggling Storefront Hitchcock, a little kind of minuscule million-dollar project that MGM wasn't particularly interested in."[1] In fact, in its original US release, it only played in one theater in New York City, Film Forum, for one week starting on November 18, 1998.[1]
Dennis Harvey in Variety said that Hitchcock's "rich, supple voice shines, and his seemingly impromptu between-song patter suggests a pleasing form of mild insanity" also saying that "the songs are the real attraction here, and they provide a good overview of a large personal catalog."[6] Stephen Holden in The New York Times wrote that the film "captures the sensibility of this smart, quirky folk-rocker in the most appealing possible light",[7] while Scott Tobias in The A.V. Club wrote that "Demme's relaxed, ego-free direction is a reminder that the quirky humanist behind Melvin and Howard and Married to the Mob hasn't lost his touch", and "his clean, elegant compositions enhance the intimacy of the performance".[3] However, Douglas Wolk of The Village Voice described it as a "simple but nicely presented document of a middling Hitchcock solo performance", complaining that "the set list dips generously into his lamest recent material".[8]
