Double Take August 31, 2010

An ingenious and utterly unique hybrid, DOUBLE TAKE is part mockumentary, part conceptual provocation, and altogether a thought-provoking, hugely entertaining cinematic creation that does for Alfred Hitchcock what Orson Welles did for himself in his myth-making classic F FOR FAKE.
Using a zippy assemblage of TV and newsreel material, artist/filmmaker Johan Grimonprez stylishly muses on the dark inner workings of the Master of Suspense, examining Hitchcock’s very distinct persona and humor, reading his films of the late ’50s and early ’60s against the climate of Cold War, Bomb-era political anxiety. And what to make of Hitchcock's infamous fear/fascination with dopplegangers and the very bizarre (but true?) story about Hitch encountering his own double during production of his 1963 suspense classic THE BIRDS, leading to the great Hitchcock quote, "If you meet your double, you should kill him?"
Thrilling, provocative and undeniably strange, DOUBLE TAKE traces the global rise of fear as a commodity, examining modern history through the lens of mass media, advertising and Hollywood, leaving viewers to draw their own conclusions about identity, filmmaking, power and paranoia. But the film’s love of Hitchcock — revered artist, larger than life personality, TV clown – is unmistakable and highly infectious.