It's been more than 43 years since the death of Alfred Hitchcock, but the legacy of the master of suspense and psychological thriller doesn't just continue to feed the ravenous appetites of moviegoers, fans, and future filmmakers. His work is a continuous source of style and learning, full of small details that will have gone unnoticed by many in a constant game of surprises that the filmmaker proposed to the viewer. “I love my audience. I love playing with you", we heard him say in the documentary My name is Alfred Hitchcock, which premiered today in Spanish theaters.
And it is that the Irish filmmaker Mark Cousins, creator of the bibles of modern cinephilia The history of cinema: An odyssey or Women Make Film, has been in charge of resurrecting the plump author of Vertigo by exhaustively examining through his own voice (which is not is another than that of the actor Alistair McGowan) his vast filmography, made up of 53 feature films.
From his debut in 1922 with the unfinished Number 13, which was never released, going through other more unknown silent films such as The Farmer's Wife (1928) to Rebeca, Psycho, The Birds or Frenzy, with the intention of analyzing it with a new and radical approach. “I liked the idea of him speaking to us in the first person. I did a documentary about Orson Welles and I was talking to him, but I thought it would be interesting to approach Hitchcock in a more intimate way, so that we could get closer to his thoughts. It is true that much has been said and written about him, so at first it did not seem necessary to film another story. But my producer asked me if I wanted to make a documentary about his figure and the first thing I did was write down a series of words: evasion, desire, loneliness, time, fullness and height, which became the chapters in which I structured the film and that were some of his obsessions”, explains Cousins, who last year already delved into the personality of producer Jeremy Thomas, in conversation with La Vanguardia.
The first image we see is that of the British director looking at the viewer with his characteristic cigar in his mouth and addressing the audience. “Do you see me among the trees?” he asks, mischievous. He talks about the monument that was erected in his honor 20 years ago in the old Gainsborough studios in Islington (London). "I was an artist, a daredevil, a fairground", he defines himself. Since his death “many things have changed” and he invites us to take a close look at some of his most memorable work to find new data, new perspectives.
“There is much more to say about me”, comments this film perfectionist while revealing that he does not close the doors in fiction for the viewer to act like a voyeur in his films. And he summons us to escape from our routine, just as he did, fleeing from the predictable, from conventions, in an incessant search for surprise: “In the last century we were restless, we liked to fantasize [...] I want you to enjoy the unexpected". That escape is one of the recurring themes in his film universe. It is present in 39 Steps, Sabotage, With Death on its heels, Frenzy... just like the use of visual metaphors in Vertigo, Tippi Hedren's "electrifying" loneliness in Marnie, the thief or the identification with the character of James Stewart in Rear Window.
Cousins' admiration for Hitch began as a child. “As a child I loved scary movies and when I saw Psycho at 9 I realized that it was not only terrifying, but that there was something else, an atmosphere, a visual richness that I had not seen in any other film of the genre. It was a very exciting moment for me.” This expert in reformulating the history of cinema from an experiential perspective admits that the film starring Anthony Perkins is not his favorite – “I prefer Sabotage and the one that makes me cry the most is Notorious” – and that “we all have our own relationship with Hitchcock” .
He confesses that he has seen titles such as Vertigo, Psychosis or Strangers on a train several times, but that he had only seen the rest of the works that are examined in detail in the documentary once. “I have a good visual memory,” she says with a mischievous smile. From there he has been pulling the thread with the complicit voice of McGowan in command of a narration that plays with the viewer in a nod to Hitch himself. “I needed a very good actor and Alistair is the best. It is not an imitation what he does. He gives the feeling that we are listening to the real Hitchcock”.
In fact, following his voice carefully, he allows himself to entertain the respectable with an object to make us fall into the trap. Hitchcock never stops manipulating to his heart's content. Not even dead! Between film footage of him, archival photos and himself hogging the camera, this man who never leaves anything to chance talks about his health problems and the need to disappear from his own self. He also fondly remembers his wife, Alma, editor and reviewer of his stories: “We looked at life through the same lens,” he says.
Cousins maintains that she was "very important in his life" and that in many countries there is a perception that the director was a misogynist. “With the exception of Tippi Hedren, who he treated very badly, he loved collaborating with women. Janet Leigh and Teresa Wright adored him, and he became friends with Carole Lombard. He believes that Hitch would have adapted easily to today's digital world and that he "would be delighted with the resources of technology in cinema."
What would you like to ask him if he were alive? “I would like to know what he thought of Picasso. He was interested in painting and I think they are two of the most influential image makers of the 20th century. Of course, it seems to me that Hitch was much more cordial ”. But that is an opinion that he would give for another documentary.
