I’ve been a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock for most of my life, and now I’m pleased to find out that Mark Cousins is an even bigger fan.

Mark Cousins is the fellow who produced that magisterial 15 hour documentary on The Story of Film: An Odyssey and its accompanying book, which should be must viewing (and/or reading) for anyone who is interested in films.

He has now created a two hour documentary entitled My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock, which explores nearly the totality of the Master of Suspense’s feature length films using the conceit that Hitch has been brought back to life and is narrating the film himself.

Alas, I learned about the film a bit too late, and it’s no longer playing at a theater within walking distance, or I might very well have gone to see my first movie in a theater in years, so now I’ll have to wait for the blu-ray to be released.

I the meantime, I contented myself with a podcast and a YouTube video.

The podcast, Alfred Hitchcock, Master of Fear and Desire, features an interview with Cousins conducted by Sonny Bunch.

Here’s a taste:

Q: Because I do hear that from time to time that Hitchcock is cold. He doesn’t care about people. It’s a similar knock that you hear on Nolan sometimes and Fincher and other directors. But I think with Hitchcock in particular, I mean, his movies are so frequently love stories, like actual love stories, that it has always felt like such an unfair, weird knock sometimes.

A: Yeah, I think it’s partly due to him. He marketed himself as this sort of detached observer of the death wish. But yeah, you’re totally right. They are love stories. Like Rear Window is a love story. Notorious is a love story. I would say Saboteur is a love story. Well, it is a love story.
So Hitchcock, and you remember that um Hitchcock’s relationship with Alma, his wife, was so powerful and and Patricia Hitchcock, his daughter, wrote a beautiful book about his relationship with his his with her mother and so we forget about the more human side of Hitchcock, I think, and it’s there in the movies but we’re so ex we we just loved him for scaring us that we sometimes miss the more human qualities. Like there’s a scene, you know, when Janet Leigh first gets to the house in Psycho, there’s a, you know, they’re really, those two people are really communing with each other, talking about loneliness a lot, loneliness and odd, and then of course, you know, the terrible thing happens in the shower, but there’s a lot of humanity in Hitchcock.

Then there’s the YouTube video which has really whetted my appetite to see his movie.

I can only hope the blu-ray comes out soon.