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Double Take  This marginally entertaining, somewhat scattershot cinematic essay connects Alfred Hitchcock and his films to the atmosphere of paranoia during the Cold War period. A Hitchcock look-alike, Ron Burrage, arrives onscreen, and he surely resembles Hitchcock in not only his facial features, but also when it comes to the shape of his body and his posture in ways that will cause you to do a double take if were to pass by him on the street. Mark Perry impersonates Hitchcock’s voice through a voiceover that has the same effect as Burrage’s impersonation as if Hitchcock were brought back to life. Writer/director Johan Grimonprez, who previously directed the short film Looking for Alfred and the feature film Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, combines faux documentary footage with archival footage of Hitchcock introducing his show entitled “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”, actual clips from a few of his films, reenacted scenes from those films, and footage from the famous televised Kitchen Debate between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon where the two argued about communism. Grimonprez also interjects amusing commercials for Folgers Coffee, the sponsor of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Unfortunately, Double Take bombards the audience with the titular double takes and potpourri of footage that blurs the line between what’s real and what’s fake---for instance, you never really know for sure whether Hitchcock’s own voice is narrating or his doppelganger. In principle, it’s alright that Grimonprez doesn’t choose to spoon-feed info audiences thereby letting them infer insights on their own, but the links between Hitchcock, the Cold War and even today’s sociopolitical climate are drawn so loosely and weakly that they fail to enrich the viewer intellectually even through the process of inference. At a running time of 1 hour and 20 minutes, Double Take is mildly entertaining, stylishly edited, but neither synthesized nor provocative enough to be a truly enlightening experience.  Main Page Alphabetical Menu Chronological Menu ______________________________________________________ |
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