My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (2022) – M. Cousins

Film critic Mark Cousins (creator of The Story of Film TV series, 2011) typically narrates the documentaries (that he writes and directs) in his lilting Belfast accent, relaying his unique insights and film analysis over clips from the relevant films.  But here, tackling the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Cousins instead has professional mimic Alistair McGowan narrate the film as if the voiceover were delivered by the Master of Suspense himself.  This is peculiar, even off-putting (when Hitch talks about mobile phones and screentime), but works as a conceit that allows Cousins to suggest certain motivations on the part of Hitch, motivations that allow Cousins to impose some thematic unity across diverse films.  The themes (organised into chapters) include Escape, Desire, Loneliness, Time, Fulfillment, and Height.  These sorts of analyses (of the kind you often find on youtube) are fun – and its great to see all of the parallels across Hitchcock’s films – but as a whole the themes don’t add up to anything deeper, even if they are imagined to come from the horse’s mouth (not always believably). Hitchcock’s films do lend themselves to analysis, a seemingly endless wellspring, so it’s great to see Cousins manage to provide a novel take on this well-trodden ground.