Kent Jones
2015
80 minutes
This is a straightforward documentary...about a book. It has a lot of famous film people talking about the book and/or about the two directors who made the book happen (namely Francois Truffaut interviewing Alfred Hitchcock). Like all your least favorite documentaries, it's like having a bunch of famous people read a Wikipedia article at you for ninety minutes while making you wish you were spending half an hour reading or skimming a book or an especially meaty article on the topic instead.
You spend most of the film feeling like you're supposed to have an emotional reaction to the same famous people telling you over and over what a genius Hitchcock was and being rewarded for recognizing them even before reading the text on the screen saying who they are. "Whoa, that's Woody Allen! Hey, that's Martin Scorsese. Oh no way, they got Wes Anderson to comment on this. Nice, Richard Linklater! I like his stuff! David Fincher! Of course David Fincher would love Hitchcock! I can see how influential Hitchcock is on all these people! I should really get around to watching Vertigo one of these days! Is that Bob Balaban narrating this?"
You could read this book pretty easily since you're sure you have multiple friends who have it on their bookshelves somewhere. To the film's credit, they do a pretty good job discussing what makes Hitchcock suspenseful and how careful he was at composing shots. And you suppose it's pretty exciting to hear some of the tapes the famous book is based on. There's disappointingly little Truffaut in this, but oh well.
You withhold judgement on this and leave it to people who like to learn about things through talking head documentaries. There are worse ways to spend ninety minutes on the couch, you suppose.
Time to choose something different: