“For a man so interested in timing, his work is timeless,” says Director by A century after the debut of Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature, about Alfred Hitchcock. In his film My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, Cousins re-examines the vast filmography and legacy of Alfred Hitchcock, one of the 20th century’s greatest filmmakers.
In recognition that it was a century after the debut of Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature, Mark Cousins was asked to create a film about Alfred Hitchcock and brilliantly conceived of a film where Alfred Hitchcock himself would compare and contrast his films. This is now Alfred Hitchcock, through a new lens: the auteur’s own voice.
My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, which is playing at theaters in some parts of the country and scheduled to open in additional cities soon, looks at the auteur with a new and radical approach: through the use of his own voice. As Hitchcock re-watches his films, we are taken on an odyssey through his vast career – his vivid silent films, the legendary films of the 1950s and 60s and his later works – in playful and revealing ways.
The illusion that Alfred Hitchcock finally decided, from beyond the grave, to take us on a guided through his remarkable body of work, a labyrinth of pleasure and desire creates an amazing film.
In his day Alfred Hitchcock was a household name and his films were a gift to audiences who could not wait for what he would do next. Until I saw this film, I did not realize that his films began in the late 1920s and continued into the 1970’s, and I forgot that he was English.
Director Mark Cousins is a Northern Irish-Scottish filmmaker and writer. At the start of his career, he directed TV documentaries on childhood, neo-Nazism and Military training. In the mid-90s he and the Edinburgh Film Festival showed films in Sarajevo in defiance of the siege.
Cousins’ description of how this film came to be adds to the enjoyment of the film: “To be sure that there are new things to say about Hitchcock, and since it’s lock down, I decide to watch all the films in chronological order. At the same time, I’ll read some of the many books analyzing his techniques and obsessions, as well as his daughter Patricia’s book, Tippi Hedren’s and others. To direct my viewing, I choose some less expected themes to look for: loneliness, fulfillment, height, etc. I begin to watch and am immediately scribbling pages of notes. When you watch with fulfillment in mind, for example, The Lodger and The Lady Vanishes become subtly different. Earlier silent films start to feel like pre-echoes of Vertigo. I watch hours of interviews with Hitch and get to know his voice, his cadences. More pages of notes. My notebooks fill. A few months later, I’m ready to write. I take scissors to my notebooks, cutting them up into lines and paragraphs. I end up with about a thousand bits of paper. I then gather these into themes and use them to structure my writing. I got lost in the writing for several weeks. And then the script’s done and editor Timo Langer and I start to cut, initially using my own voice to stand in for Hitchcock.”
Soon Cousins’ voice was replaced by that of Alistair McGowan who is a British impressionist, actor and stand-up comedian. It is perfect.
In this film, seeing the snippets of Hitchcock films, with spectacular actors, cinematography that changed filming, stories that grab the audience and hold on, an in-depth view of Hitchcock is revealed. Brilliant works presented brilliantly. For anyone who loves movies, this is a must see.
Photos are courtesy of COHEN MEDIA GROUP.
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