Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, London, England on August 13, 1899. He entered the filming industry at Islington Studios in Hoxton in 1919 – as a title card designer. Six years later he was directing movies. His first was Number 13 for Gainsborough Pictures in England. There is a good chance that you’ve never heard of this movie and that is understandable since that silent movie was never completed. But that invisible film was just the start of Hitchcock’s success. Decades later, who hasn’t heard of The Birds, Psycho or North by Northwest? Whether they admit it or not, some directors of movies like Disturbia, Buried, Stoker, and Shutter Island had to have been inspired by him.
As a way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of that first work, film director Mark Cousins released the British documentary film, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock at the Telluride Film Festival in 2022. And as it turns out, he’s pretty good at what he does too. The film currently holds an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Finally, Americans get the chance to the see this movie this fall which takes a different approach from most other documentaries.
How to Watch Hitchcock
Not everyone is a fan of Alfred’s work. The length of his movies tend to be long and drawn out. The often have a slower pace than what we are used to these days. But sometimes it’s good to slow down a bit and just really enjoy a good story says Cousins.
“When you watch with fulfillment in mind, for example, The Lodger and The Lady Vanishes become subtly different,” says Cousins. “Earlier silent films start to feel like pre-echoes of Vertigo.”
Hitchcock’s first completed feature film was the silent The Pleasure Garden (1925) about the love lives of two chorus girls working at The Pleasure Garden Theatre. This doesn’t sound like Hitchcock at all. However, his first foray into suspense happened just a short time later. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) is about a mysterious lodger who claims to be innocent, but he just might be a murderer.
Both a commercial and critical successful film, The Lodger was also Hitchcock’s first movie to feature a cameo appearance of himself, which began a tradition that he continued for another 39 films.
Who is Mark Cousins
Mark Cousins has been an award-winning filmmaker known for Women Make Film, The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, and The Story of Film: A New Generation, but when this project came about, he wasn’t so sure about tackling the topic of Hitchcock.
“Though I once made a movie about Orson Welles, I usually avoid the big cinema beasts,” states Cousins in a press release for the film. “They’re well covered and I prefer to explore less well-known territory. But the films of Alfred Hitchcock seem inexhaustible for me.”
Cousins began his task of writing for the documentary during the COVID lockdown. Since he had time on his hands, he decided to watch ALL of the film works of Hitchcock in chronological order to thoroughly become a student of Hitchcock.
The Best of the Best
In 1939, Hitchcock moved to the United States. Ironically, his first American film, Rebecca (1940), was set in England. The movie won the Oscar for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock was also nominated for Best Director for the first time but lost. it wouldn’t be his last.
Hitchcock was nominated four more times for a Best Director Oscar for Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960) but sadly never won for that category. Although he did win the lifetime achievement award (known as the Cecil B. DeMille Award) in 1972 which was given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Telling a Familiar Tale a Different Way
Wouldn’t it fitting to tell the story of an unconventional film director in an unconventional way? Cousins decided to let Hitchcock speak for himself even though the filmmaker has been dead since 1980.
“In the opening credits I say, ‘Written and narrated by Alfred Hitchcock’. This is not true of course – and in the end credits we tell the audience who really did the voice – but we want to create the illusion that Alfred Hitchcock finally decided, from beyond the grave, to take us on a guide through his remarkable body of work, one of the great image systems of the 20th Century, a labyrinth of pleasure and desire.”
According to Cohen Media Group, which begins releasing the documentary to theaters on October 25, 2024, Hitchcock “rewatches” his own movies from his silent films to his last works. He provides colorful commentary throughout with the help of Alistair McGowan, an English impressionist who has done spot-on impressions of likes of David Beckham, Tony Blair and Prince Charles. When Cousins heard McGowan’s take on the famed director, he knew that they had found their Hitchcock.
To no surprise, Hitchcock’s most successful film was Psycho, but what is surprising is that it was made on a tiny budget. He wanted the film to look like it was a “B” movie, so it was filmed in black and white (even though many movies were being filmed in color during that time), and he used crew members from his TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents which also saved money. These were simple but very creative choices which made for a better movie.
Today’s film students (and a few studios) still have plenty to learn from this master. We can only imagine what our movies today could turn out like if they were being made by Hitchcock. And now we’ll get a better insight into what he was thinking.
Theater locations showing My Name is Alfred Hitchcock are listed here.
Leave a comment