Film review: ‘My Name is Alfred Hitchcock’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
For better or worse, documentary My Name is Alfred Hitchcock is not so much about the man and his personal history but the master of suspense’s filmmaking approach. To delve into this topic, Director Mark Cousins has made the slightly unusual decision to have British actor and impressionist Alistair McGowan impersonate Hitch as narrator. This is a little distracting at first but the cheeky, mildly narcissistic and near omniscient nature of this device ultimately feels right.
The documentary is structured according to vital themes within Hitchcock’s films such as characters trying to escape their lives, desire, loneliness, fulfilment and time; there’s particular emphasis on the way Hitchcock used a sense of time pressure to ratchet up tension. The film also shows how Hitchcock played with cinematic form such as shot composition, camera angles and movement (especially overhead shots), set design and colour to guide our perceptions of characters and events in the film and to subvert movie conventions as well as audience and studio executive expectations.
There are no talking head interviews in this documentary, which is fitting given that Hitch disliked static filmed conversations. Instead, the film is a swirling montage of scenes from his movies which illustrate the themes and concepts he’s discussing.
Attached to each segment is some biographical information about Hitchcock himself but it’s important to note that this is not a detailed, ‘warts and all’ insight into his life. Having a Hitchcock avatar narrate the film works as a get out of jail free card as we don’t expect him to delve into the less redeeming side of his life including, most importantly, his controversial treatment of his female stars like Janet Leigh and Kim Novak. The documentary also only touches on the way Hitchcock portrayed women in his films and the various psychosexual themes they embodied.
Through the many film images, we revisit classic Hitchcock moments in his best-known works like Psycho, The Birds, The Lady Vanishes and North by Northwest but are also reminded of the lesser-known films in his vast repertoire including I confess and The Paradine Case. We’re also treated to scenes from his earliest, sepia-toned silent films like The Lodger which starred famed Welsh singer, composer and actor Ivor Novello.
Despite its limitations, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock is mostly fascinating, the two-hour running time seems to race by and it does what a good retrospective documentary on any artist should do and that’s make us want to go scrambling back to their works.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Documentary.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Mark Cousins.
Release date: Screening at the Cunard British Film Festival Melbourne until Wednesday 29th Nov 2023.
Running time: 120 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.