Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most celebrated and studied directors in film history. Taking the breath of the often cited in-depth interview with Francois Truffaut in which Hitchcock participated in 1966 and merging it with the laser-like focus of the scene-specific analysis of the documentary 78/52 (which, released the same year as this film, breaks down the famous shower scene in Psycho frame by frame, using it as a jumping off point to delve into how Hitchcock’s mind works), Mark Cousins, prolific director of such documentaries as The Story of Film and Women Make Film, has created a comprehensive overview not just surveying Hitchcock’s career but finding subtle and clever connections between them. In a nice change of pace from Cousins’ lilting Irish accent, he uses the framing device of having excellent actor Alastair McGowan narrate the film in character as Hitch himself (and McGowan nails it if I do say so myself). Additionally, the Cousins-penned script is absolutely dead-on in terms of capturing Hitchcock’s deadpan sense of dry, morbid humor (with some lines of dialogue pulled from actual Hitchcock quotes) and is a delight to watch for any fan of Hitch’s.

What I found so interesting about this film is that Cousins finds connections between films that felt very intentional, devices like using very similar shots in multiple films of people entering rooms with the camera following them in and having the door closed behind as if to indicate that we as the audience are now in the world of the film along with the characters; or, capturing the sparkle in an eye that mirrors the glint in the crystal of a chandelier. The film also spans his entire career, not just the heavy hitters (Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, etc.) but also including obscure films from his early days like his early silent film The Pleasure Garden and early sound films like Waltzes from Vienna and Rich & Strange to late-period neglected efforts like Family Plot and Topaz. With Cousins’ knack for finding little details in the nooks and crannies of Hitchcock’s filmography, even the most well-versed cinephile may find something enlightening here they hadn’t considered before.

Cohen Media has provided several nice extras for this one. The meatiest is perhaps the nearly 30-minute interview that Chuck Rose conducts with Mark Cousins about the film and is full of useful info on why Cousins chose the project, how he structured it around the Hitchcock narration and just on Cousins’ general love of film and of Hitch in particular (right off the bat Rose has them comparing editions of the famous Hitchcock/Truffaut book). We also get an alternate trailer of the film, Alastair McGowan’s voice test, some animation tests for the couple of animated sequences in the doc as well as a video of Mark Cousins introducing Notorious, Rope & Saboteur, which based on context, must have been shown at revival screenings of those three films.

My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock is a fun and illuminating documentary that will prove to be full of charm and useful information for film students and casual cinephiles alike. Definitely recommended!