An intelligent and interesting (if somewhat rambling) documentary about Hitchcock's first talkie (Blackmail (1929)).
This film is at its best when it focuses on Blackmail itself. This documentary offers great critical insight on Hitchcock's first talkie. Director and writer Laurent Bouzereau (who has directed many DVD special features for Stevn Spielberg films as well as documentaries about Natalie Wood, Faye Dunaway and John Williams) does a great job of examining how Blackmail fits into Hitch's larger filmography including themes that would appear in many of Hitch's other films. He also provides a great look at how Hitch approached sound in these early years. How he experimented with sound and used it in more abstract ways that conveyed the emotional state of the characters in a way that goes beyond the words being said. It also talks about how Hitch kept his vision of pure cinema (a story that is told through visual storytelling rather than through dialogue), while moving into talkies. In many ways parts of Blackmail feel like a silent film and these scenes are discussed in great detail here. This film also argues that Blackmail is the movie that solidified who Alfred Hitchcock would become as a filmmaker. This is an arguable point but one that this documentary argues very convincingly. Like any good film criticism this documentary often offers a different way of looking at a film that many of us have seen many times. You may not always agree with what it is saying but it is always easy to understand where each point comes from.
Two versions of Blackmail were made. One of them was silent and one was a talkie. Some of the most fascinating scenes in this documentary are the ones that discuss the differences between these two versions. I especially appreciate when clips from each version would be shown back-to-back so we can view the differences for ourselves.
This documentary may focus more on its film criticism than the history of Blackmail. However, that is not to say that it is void of any information. There is little here that longtime Hitchcock scholars don't already know but newcomers and causal fans will learn a lot.
This documentary does have its flaws though. One is that it rambles a bit much. For a documentary about Blackmail, this film does spend a bit too much time discussing Hitch's other movies. I appreciate that this movie talks about the reoccurring themes that would also appear in other Hitchcock films. However, the discussions about this should have been kept to a briefer length. When talking about how food is used in Hitch's films, Bouzereau goes on a long tangent listing many examples, when just a couple would have sufficed. I also find that Elvis Mitchell's narration can come off as too academic and dry. It is true that Hitch's films are brilliant works of art that will continue to be analyzed and discussed for as long as film criticism exists. However, this does not change that Hitch viewed himself first and foremost as an entertainer and this kind of dry narration simply does not fit the type of filmmaker Hitchcock was.
While far from perfect this is a smart documentary that works as a well-made piece of film criticism.
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