Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Johnny Deadline: MY NAME IS ALFRED HITCHCOCK

 by JB

This new documentary is jaw-droppingly awful.

I am a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock, having read many books on the subject over the years and having taught his films in my late, lamented film studies course (1985 – 2010 RIP). For over a decade, Hitchcock actually stood in my classroom, having been assembled from a life-size Halloween decoration of a mad scientist; one of my old, black suits; and a terrifically realistic full-head mask of the Master of Suspense himself. Whenever you entered the room, you would catch a glimpse of Alfraud Hitchcock from the corner of your eye, and for just a nanosecond, it would scare the be-jabbers out of you.
Twelve years ago, Patrick and I recorded a podcast on the film Hitchcock, the Anthony Hopkins vehicle that detailed the making of Psycho. The film was hooey, and I said as much. I could not for the life of me understand why the filmmakers had paid for the rights to Stephen Rebello’s excellent book, The Making of Psycho, and then gleefully throw said book out the window. I remember that podcast ending with me practically ranting—shouting about a long list of books that proved Hitchcock was two hours of made-up bullshit.
Loyal Listener Brad L. then suggested a new entry into our late, lamented FTMovie Glossary: “Psycho Bibliography [...] when a movie or person gets totally and utterly 'owned' in aggressive style, complete with multiple references.”

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, the new documentary by Mark Cousins, is poor in every sense—poorly conceived, poorly paced, with a paucity of real insight that gets more and more tedious as the film goes on. This doc is designed around a stupefying artistic trope. I’ll let critic Daniel Gorman describe it:

“Cousins has written a script to be read aloud by a Hitchcock impersonator, so that the film acts as the man himself addressing the audience directly. It’s a shatteringly awful gambit, one that creates an impenetrable distance between any ideas Cousins wishes to explore and his viewers. It’s a ghastly, fake resurrection, only a stone’s throw away from something like generative A.I. (much of the film unspools as if written via ChatGPT, frankly).”
So, Hitchcock narrates the film. Not the real Hitchcock, mind you; it would have taken hundreds of hours to piece together the actual things Hitchcock actually said in the hundreds of actual interviews he gave in his actual lifetime. No, Cousins has hired English impressionist Alistair McGowan to impersonate the real Hitch and to read aloud the dubious insights that Cousins has written. It’s nauseating. Cousin’s hubris is so fevered that he is not content to merely comment on and interpret the Master’s work as any other documentary on the subject might do—he feels his insights are so accurate and true that they demand HITCHCOCK SPEAK THEM AS IF HIS OWN. Cousins and Hitchcock are one!

The ego behind this directorial choice makes me want to vomit.
I suppose the Switch Hitch might be forgivable if Cousins had a single interesting thing to say about Hitchcock’s work or career. He does not. The documentary discusses Hitchcock’s work by focusing on six themes: escape, desire, loneliness, time, fulfillment, and... height. That final theme seems like it was thrown in as filler and briefly discusses Hitchcock’s love of high angle shots. Cousins also spends time on Hitchcock’s “beloved hallway shots,” which begs the question, was there a single major Hollywood director who avoided "hallway shots"? Where is the insight?

Imagine any other documentarian playing a similar game with any other filmmaker.

JOHN FORD’S FAKED VOICE
Did you notice that I tend to focus on actors and actresses in the frame?
Usually, it’s the ones speaking or doing something interesting?
I am unique in that I focus on people over animals, props, the ground, and dirt.
Did you notice I make Westerns? Oh, you did?

The film clips in My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock are mostly well-chosen and all look pristine, and that’s probably the nicest thing that anyone can say about this very misguided tour of a very great man’s work.
THE CRITICS RAVE:

“It’s just incredibly dumb, featuring baffling gags like McGowan-as-Hitch talking about modern technologies that came along decades after his death. When he talks about “your cell phones,” he reminded me of Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.”
—Stephen Silver, The SS Ben Hecht

“[It] is impossible to get around the uncanny valley that this pseudo-doppelganger effect has on the film. Rather than play like a documentary or a film lecture, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock feels like a badly conceived DVD bonus feature gone awry."
—David Harris, Spectrum Culture

“There’s no doubt that Cousins genuinely loves Hitchcock’s work, and that passion is on full display here. But this film is at least as much about Cousins’ ego as it is the master’s oeuvre. Vaguely, haphazardly organized and occasionally quite dumb, viewers are being sold a bill of goods with My Name is Alfred Hitchcock.”
—Daniel Gorman, In Review Online

“The problem is that this documentary isn't really about [the idea of Hitchcock in modern times.] It's about putting Cousins' thoughts and opinions about Hitchcock's films into the mouth of someone who broadly sounds like the man. The movie's too obvious about its fakery to call it dishonest, but it is disingenuous and, maybe, more than a bit prideful. Does Cousins not trust his own ideas enough to just put them out there as his own, or does he think so highly of them as to think that they could belong to his subject?
—Mark Dujsik, Mark Reviews Movies
ALL IS NOT LOST...

Instead of wasting two hours of your life on Mark Cousins' latest fever dream, why not explore the Master’s work yourself? Eleven years ago, I wrote a “Director Essentials” column on Hitchcock’s work. You can find that column here.

The Pope of Film also wrote two columns on Hitch: one on North by Northwest, the other on Psycho.

TV's Rob DiCristino offers his insight into the Hitchcock film Lifeboat here.

If you need more Hitch in your life, I recommend this 2020 4k release of The Alfred Hitchcock Classics collection.

Hitch was notoriously hard on his actors—but directed many to terrific performances. Erika B and I take a look at two great horror performances, from Martin Balsam and Tony Perkins, respectively.

Happy reading, happy viewing! And keep it real... for Hitchcock's sake.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't even know this existed until just now. I went to YouTube and watched the trailer, and... I'm stunned, bewildered and confused. And from the director of The Story of Film? I mean, why?

    ReplyDelete