The documentary as a facade that holds layers of truth is well-trodden ground. From Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1971) to F for Fake (1974), experimentation has been embodied in the genre since documentaries became a popular and formal mode of cinematic expression. It’s not always so heady. William Greaves and Orson Welles directed like transgressive iconoclasts who reshaped the box, then thought outside of the new spaces they defined, but that’s not a prerequisite. We can experiment with form and function and also be forthcoming about the experiment to the audience, too, as in Mark Cousins’ My Name is Alfred Hitchcock.
Mark Cousins helps us see film in a new way. The Cousins modus operandi is to produce narration-focused documentaries, usually in his own signature unmistakable cadence (listen to our interview with Mark Cousins to fully enjoy more of that) — ever since his remarkable A Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011), Cousins has expanded film for his audience. My Name is Alfred Hitchcock is no different in the sense that it is a story about how to look at film. What is different, and jarring, about the presentation is that it’s voiced by actor Alistair McGowan doing a jazzed-up Alfred Hitchcock impression.
Documentary as pantomime is also interesting, viewing an auteur’s work as though they could communicate with us almost fifty years beyond the grave. What this accomplishes is a rooted immediacy and presence for the collected works of Alfred Hitchcock which span multiple generations of film history, from silent pictures to the modernization of movies, an evolution that the filmmaker was at the forefront of pushing forward, never settling, always playing with audience perception and how to direct a movie.
My Name is Alfred Hitchcock keys into the director’s restless playfulness, as he expressed himself in sarcastic interviews and in the clever host segments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955 – 1962); staying roughly in this register for the entirety of the runtime. It’s a trick, not as needling as those of Greaves and Welles, but an on-going gimmick that allows us proximity to works we already have a relationship to, and in Cousins’ expert way, pulls us even closer in.
While the performance of Alistair McGowan is assured and perhaps even the definitive impression of the Master of Suspense, after time passes and the narration drones on, we have to wonder if it’s the right method for the story being told about film. Hitchcock was notably reticent to explore the themes and meanings of his movies, which is why he cultivated such a playful persona, as a method of abstraction, but in My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, while the work is largely focused on theme and meaning created by the camera, it still feels like imparting meaning and ascribing thoughts to a figure who would likely not have presented them from his own voice, not this didactically and instructively.
The value remains immense. Mark Cousins is one of the best purveyors of the stories cameras tell us about film. As a documentary about what Hitchcock’s camera means and how he has effectively, as he’d describe, directed the audience, Cousins’ latest is a single-package film class that ought to be of great value to enthusiasts. It’s not a masterclass itself in documentary sleight of hand and the one trick it has does wear thin, but any audience should want to get through it, and will learn something more about cinema, and how to watch it as a more active participant. That is, in itself, a terrific value for any documentary about film — and besides François Truffaut’s Hitchcock/Truffaut interview-book, this is perhaps our most enlightening resource on his filmography. If only Mark Cousins presented it in his usual flair and style it would be truly great but the contents remain essential if you want to learn more about how to watch movies.