My Name is Alfred Hitchcock Review – A Spellbinding Masterclass in Direction, A Must See

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, from Cohen Media Group, brings to the screen a mesmerizing and absorbing masterclass in the various film techniques needed, at the time, to create tantalizing emotions which could not be spoken.

The film opens as the camera zooms in on a massive stone sculpture of Hitchcock, outside Gainsborough Studios in London where many of his first films were made. The narrator, Alistair McGowan, who assumes the first-person personification of Hitchcock. When seeing the statue he talks about how in life, he was told he had an enormous head, and oddly, in retrospect it made him one of history's most recognized film directors.


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My Name is Alfred Hitchcock doesn't settle into the usual chronological explanation of his life, but he explains he was compelled to make film. By chance he read an advertisement saying that Paramount would be making a film in London. It was 1922, he created some drawings, sent them to the studio and they hired him. We begin to understand as we walk through the film, with Hitchcock, that many of his early films included passions, such as trains, and areas, he possessed a familiarity, enough to know the nuances.

The film is divided into five sections, love, desire, time, fulfilment, and escaping and through his own films, he presents scenes to highlight his techniques in delivery these emotions.

The Master of suspense walks viewers through his filmography, and along the way, we understand his methodology in utilizing technique to create emotion, that at the time, could not be conveyed in the same manner as it is in contemporary film.


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Spanning his five decades, he reintroduces audiences to his more well-known films, "Psycho," Rear Window," "North by Northwest," "Vertigo," and "The Birds," and "To Catch a Thief."   He explains his use of light and shadows to represent temptation, in "To Catch a Thief."  We are entertained with voice over as we are treated to a montage of beautiful and handsome film stars of the Golden era.

He uses humor to escape the seriousness of the conversation in the film "Murder" made in 1930, as in this section of escapism, he uses a common technique to create both a sympathetic and charming character in the wealthy homeowner, as he doesn't allow his dinner guest, who doesn't know which spoon goes with what, to feel like she didn't belong, so when she choses the wrong spoon, he mirrors her actions. And the audiences love him for it.

He was also asked to create a documentary, after World War II, as the doubts of the atrocities began to reverberate, as the world couldn't wrap their minds around the inhumane treatment. He explains, he was asked by his friend Sydney Bernstein, to oversee a documentary as detractors would say "film can lie, it couldn't have been that monstrous." He directed his "cutter" to edit as little as possible so the German Government could see what was allowed in their name. The scenes of unearthed mass graves and dignitaries standing, hat in hands, a dull reverence for the dead. He ends this scene with sometimes "you must not escape; you have to see with your own eyes."


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What would a film about Alfred Hitchcock be without a montage of his films? My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock presents scenes from more than 50 films including Strangers On A Train, Saboteur, 39 Steps, Spellbound, Paradine Case, Trouble With Harry, The Ring, Torn Curtain, Blackmail, Downhill, Lodger, Topaz, Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat, Marnie, The Lady Vanishes, The Man Who Knew Too Much1930s Version, Waltzes From Vienna, Rope Frenzy, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, Pleasure Garden, Young And Innocent, Notorious, Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, Sabotage, The Farmer's Wife, I Confess, Dial M For Murder, Number 17, Champagne, Rich And Strange, The Manxman, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Juno And The Paycock, Stage Fright, Shadow Of A Doubt, Under Capricorn, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, The Last Laugh, Suspicion, and Family Plot.

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock is an entertaining Golden Age of Hollywood trip back in time with the beautiful leading ladies and handsome, suave, leading men, that revolutionized the filmmaking experience. A masterclass for students of cinema, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock has something for everyone and will spawn film retrospectives.

A must see, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock will be released exclusively in theaters Friday, October 25, 2024.


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Country: U.K.

Language: English.

Runtime: 120 minutes.

Director: Mark Cousins.

Producer: John Archer.

Executive Producer: Clara Glynn.

Writer: Mark Cousins.

Narrator: Alistair McGowan.

Haute Tease

Arts / Culture