The phrase "Making of" conjures up images of behind the scenes footage, in-depth interviews with people directly involved in the production, fascinating stories and anecdotes and stuff like that. Expect none of that in this 28-minute pile of garbage. What you get instead is a bunch of obsequious talking heads spliced with the occasional movie clip; a collection of 'critics', filmmakers, and 'historians' (so-called) who provide precious little insight, and instead eagerly, almost cultishly devote their time to deifying the director Alfred Hitchcock at the expense of simultaneously engaging in a passive aggressive character assassination of producer David O. Selznick.
The criterion collection DVD for 'Rebecca' that featured this documentary also included a series of letters Selznick wrote full of suggestions to Hitchcock, nearly all of which seem to have been taken into consideration, to great effect, in the final product of the film. When you read directly from the primary source, you can see that what he was saying made a lot of sense, and that his ideas contributed greatly to the success of the film. That's the impression I got, anyway. But the sacred high priests of the Auteur that they cobbled together for this documentary don't leave any room for such nuance. They brush it all aside as executive meddling that unjustly got in the way of Hitchcock and his Hitchcockian (they are really fond of using that word) genius. Well, I must say, if the brilliant Hitchcockian vision that we were deprived of is anything like the treatment as it was described in Selznick's letter, we should be very glad that Selznick was there to nip that in the bud, because it sounded terrible.
As you may have gathered, I vehemently disagree with the opinions espoused by the people featured in this documentary. But what disgusts me even more than that is the fact that this so-called "making of" documentary is so almost entirely comprised of opinion. Where's the "making of" part? Instead of going into depth about the actual production history, they just use the production as a bare framework on which to hang their heavily lopsided judgments on the character of two men, one of whom they practically worship, and the other who they only begrudgingly afford a smidgen of respect in the final few minutes after spending most of the short "documentary" tarnishing the guy's reputation. Even if I did agree with these guys, why would I find that interesting? I watch documentaries because I want to know what happened, not how I should feel about it.
There's precious little new information of any substance to be found in this dreck. 1/10. Not worth 28 minutes of your life.
