Psycho (Hitchcock): Blah... (1 Viewer)

[Jack Briggs]

Yes, it's possible Holadem. But Psycho wasn't made with the sole reason of being scary--and certainly not to show a "bloodbath."

Are you familiar with some of the techniques of cinematography and editing? There's a word for the rapid-cutting technique employed in the shower scene: montage, which was pioneered by the great Segei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin). Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated absolute mastery over montage with that powerful, unforgettable scene. As Crawdaddy noted earlier, we are seeing a young woman on the lam, seeking refuge, during a vulnerable moment--naked and in the shower--when she is brutally attacked and murdered.

It's precisely because you don't see the knife penetrating her that the scene resonates so profoundly--among other things. Yet that image of the blood draining in the shower, of Leigh's lifeless, staring eye, leaves one with an irrevocable sense of death, of a young life ending suddenly and brutally.

Today's almost parody-like explicit scenes of cinematic carnage and brutality are nowhere near as powerful as witnessing that one woman being slashed down in her prime while thinking she was alone in the bathroom taking a shower.

Alfred Hitchcock knew how to push the buttons--and he did so for resonance, not cheap, knee-jerk reactions.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Quote: "Is it possible to see why it was groundbreaking, and yet not find it scary?"

---

I think that is very possible. The shower sequence doesn't really scare me either, but I can appreciate it - scary or not. That moment when we get to se the mother did scare me a bit, though. Scary or not - I appreciate Psycho as a whole - just like most other Hitchcock movies I've seen.

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

As expected, I entirely agree with this.

It may not be the only reason some people don't like certain classics, but I believe it does have a lot to do with it. I don't think any of us expect everyone to like Psycho. We all know that no film is universally adored.
At the same time, without an understanding the context of a film's place in history one can dismiss a film like Psycho as just a cheap 1960s horror movie when it is much more than that. The same could be said of Citizen Kane. Unless one knows the artistic and technical acheivements of that film, they might not fully realize why it is considered the greatest film of all time by many critics, film historians, and film makers.
Forty years from now, young people may be reacting the same way to the classics of our era. I suspect that many of them will watch a film like Pulp Fiction and wonder what the big deal is. After all, isn't it just a mob movie
told in a mixed-up fashion? They won't have the same context we have today to understand why that film has become so widely regarded, and we, the old farts of film will have to explain it to them.
Punks!

 

[Seth Paxton]

Holadem, I find Hitchcock to be far overrated as a SCARE master... he made THRILLERS, and it's not the same.
Psycho, while jump starting the "slasher" genre, really is still a Hitch thriller, that's what he made. He just touched a bit too far into the "killer/murder" aspect and the film ended up being seen as somehow different from The 39 Steps, yet I don't think it is at all.
So, probably because of Psycho, he became famous as the master of horror. You don't make 20 spy films as the horror master. Hammer Films are horror masters, James Whale is more of a horror master.
Psycho has it's shock scares, but it's a lot more about creepiness and a detective/investigation story, not unlike M in many ways.
I think Birds is much more of a horror film and one of the few Hitch films that has little investigation in it (though the first part of it does).
But I can assure you that even around 20 seeing Rear Window for the first time I was anything but bored, even though it was well past the slasher era in modern film by that time and old enough to be jaded. North by Northwest, boring?? I rarely hear anyone of at least college age say this upon a first viewing. It may seem different than the films they were raised on, but it doesn't bore them.
I would say that Hitch films mostly make me feel DREAD and WORRY for the characters, and this is true in both his spy films and murder/"horror" films. But I rarely feel the same way watching any of his films that I do watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no matter how many times I've watched any of them (TCM just scares the s**t out of me no matter what).
Master of Horror = John Carpenter
Master of Thrillers = Hitchcock
And Hitch films have superior character depth to most films. But there was a time in the world when THRILLS were enough to also induce FEAR. I think that time has passed which is a big reason why I suggest Dressed to Kill for anyone that wanted more "gore/fear" out of Psycho.
DtK is not better than Psycho and certainly derivitive in almost every way. HOWEVER, DePalma did have a touch for making the films more HORROR than THRILLER. And it has it's own highly memorable shower scene, though just a bit different. hello Angie!

 

[Seth Paxton]

Forty years from now, young people may be reacting the same way to the classics of our era. I suspect that many of them will watch a film like Pulp Fiction and wonder what the big deal is. After all, isn't it just a mob movie told in a mixed-up fashion? They won't have the same context we have today to understand why that film has become so widely regarded, and we, the old farts of film will have to explain it to them.

This is an EXCELLENT POINT. For any film fan here of age 21 or under, roughly. Be prepared to have to stand up for Matrix, Pulp Fiction, Requiem for a Dream, Gladiator, American Pie (you will have much to explain here), Something About Mary, Fight Club (boy will you), any Pixar film, Big Lebowski, Run Lola Run, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, Memento, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon....
People will no longer find Mary funny, see anything "cool" about Fight Club, get what was so scary about Jurassic Park (or why the dinos were supposed to be so near).
YOU are headed toward Jack Briggs status. As someone halfway between I can already see it, and it showed up a hella lot sooner than I expected.
(no offense Jack, but by my accounts you have a few more years of "refinement" on me )

 

[Jack Briggs]

They won't have the same context we have today to understand why that film has become so widely regarded...

Context, though, may not be the issue. If any sort of art is truly art--and good art--it transcends its time of origin by speaking to the larger issues. However, one's appreciation for the greatness of an individual piece of art is enhanced by reading about and understanding the circumstances that led to its being created. In Psyco's case, that's akin to trying to view a supernova while also trying to detect any orbiting planets: One vastly outshines the other. Psycho is a major point of departure in filmmaking.

 

[Eve T]

Psycho is one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. I remember my father telling me that his mother took him to see it when he was quite young. I believe it scared the crap out him.
I myself found it to be a very creepy movie. I enjoyed it a great deal and sometimes watch it on rainy nights.
My favorite Hitchcock movie is Vertigo by far. I watch that about once a month.
All of Hitchcock's movies are great IMHO. He was a great artist and his work is timeless.

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

Context, though, may not be the issue. If any sort of art is truly art--and good art--it transcends its time of origin by speaking to the larger issues.

I also think this is true, Jack. I also think Holadem acknowledged that Pyscho did play out rather well. It just didn't blow him away like it did the audiences when it first came out. Part of this may be that he just didn't think it was good movie--which is a very likely possibility--or it may have to do with the fact that landmark films tend to get copied, duplicated, Xeroxed, redone and spit out a thousand times by admirerers, wannabes, and hacks without a creative hair on their head. Furthermore, great films tend to become the subject of countless spoofs these days. Look at how many Bullet Time effect spoofs there have been since The Matrix's release. It's been a little over three years and I'm so sick of seeing that effect that I almost hope they don't do it in the two upcoming sequels.
Eventually, all of this will dilute the initial impact of the film on young audiences. Mind you, I'm not saying that the influence of such a film is no longer as important. I'm simply saying that young people may not be able to grasp the film's importance because they have seen it copied and spoofed in satire so many times before they even see the real thing. It's hard to take serious that which was once nothing more than a gag in a Simpsons episode.

 

[TheoGB]

Be prepared to have to stand up for Matrix, Pulp Fiction, Requiem for a Dream, Gladiator, American Pie (you will have much to explain here), Something About Mary, Fight Club (boy will you), any Pixar film, Big Lebowski, Run Lola Run, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, Memento, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon....

I will never 'stand up for' The Matrix - it's just a piece of fun!!! And Something About Mary really isn't that funny you know - it's hardly in the same continent as Airplane! (for example)...
I'm not sure how much you'd have to stand up for Fight Club any more than you already do. It has a niche audience but I think that audience will very likely still be there in 40 years...

 

[Seth Paxton]

or at any in my age bracket in general

This one.
The change into someone who thinks "whippersnappers" is truly a devilishly subtle one. When I was 18-20 I thought a lot of this was due to the older folks having a chip on their shoulder. Of course I also thought everything going on at the time was just the most important thing ever and that possibly they just couldn't deal with time passing them by.
Now I realize that a lot of it has to do with a mellowing that occurs as you realize most of your shit was actually nothing new, and that happens as you start to find out about earlier stuff. It's nothing wrong with being young, it's simply getting the time to actually see, read, hear more stuff. One can only watch so many films by a certain age.
Of course it's also funny when you first hear someone talking about the "new" bands like Santana, Beastie Boys, Queen, etc. Same with whatever medium as people discover someone thanks to some new release. Then you will overhear things like "I don't know, I think it's actually some old guys who did some old CDs too". That'll put things into perspective for you in a hurry. Truly a bizarre experience when you realize just how different the life experiences for the generations after you are...but you also then understand that from generation to generation a lot of the basics are actually the same though we each thought ours were somehow unique to us.
But I sympathize with where Holadem is coming from. It is HARDER to come at a film (or other art) from AFTER it has existed and be able to appreciate it in the same way. It's not like I'm so old that I am past this point. I can never be since some 70 years of serious film was done before I was old enough to appreciate it.
Just like there is simply no way I can understand something like Brotherhood of the Wolf, Run Lola Run or Bicycle Thief in the same way as someone from the native country can (especially without speaking the language).

 

[Seth Paxton]

I will never 'stand up for' The Matrix - it's just a piece of fun

But seriously, I think Holadem's biggest problem was NOT that Pyscho was bad, just not SCARY.
So you actually might have to stand up for Matrix one day when you show your 16 year old and he says "Eh. This is fun?? Whatever. I'm off to see a GOOD film..."
But I do find great films timeless and enjoy them in at least some of the context. Yet I doubt that Frankenstien scared me as much as the original audiences.
Horror is the most suffering of all genres due to time I think, simply because it involves out doing the previous films so that shock, gore, explicitness just grows and grows so that going back down the line leaves you with cutting edge films that seem tame.
Look at the body count in Halloween for example. Yet to me it is clearly the best of the slasher genre (imo), partially because it was still a horror film that simply stepped into slasher...much in the same way Psycho was a thriller that simply stepped into horror.
I should add to that there are kids that will come along 20 years from now that will be raised in a world not only post-9/11 but possibly post a lot of other world changing events.
It's hard to appreciate why a film like Red Dawn had any appeal to audiences after the Berlin Wall fell for example. But the world I grew up in had us certain that it was only a matter of time before US and USSR blew each other to hell. So many good and bad events to come will be certain to change the outlooks of future audiences, not only in social context but emotional as well.

 

[Kevin M]

Note that the legendary shower scene never once shows the knife making contact.

Actually if you freeze-frame it, there is a brief cut-away in "The Shower Scene" that shows the knife beginning to "press" the skin of her stomach/abdomen (looks to me like this was filmed in reverse action, the knife was pressed against the skin then pulled away, then the film was run backwards).
Hey, the dvd asked for scrutiny of this particular scene so scrutinize I did.
P.S. I went back and got the exact time, 47:29, and I have to admit I don't think it was reverse action after all, the water flow is correct, so either it was just a simple rubber knife or they added the falling water in optically later. Either way it is disturbingly realistic, it Looks like the knife is really going into her body....brrrr.
Oh, by the way, Strangers on a Train is one of my favorite Hitchcock films & I definitely didn't find it to be "boring" in the least. But since I am a AH fan maybe I am slightly biased.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I have never thought of Psycho as a horror flick. Telling me that it doesn't scare you is like telling me that Schindler's List didn't make you laugh. That's not the point.

I just love the fact that Psycho is the only movie I can think of where the "shower scene" refers to a murder.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Is there a more devious, sinister villian in all of cinema than Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train? Man, I love that movie.

 

[TheoGB]

Seth...I hate to break it to you man, but The Matrix is just not much of a film. It's enjoyable and I like to stick it on when I have a spare 2 hours to disengage my brain but...Why it has any real status beyond an average action flick when the Gap commercial and BBC ad had already milked 'bullet time' to extinction is kind of beyond me. But I guess this isn't a Matrix discussion. Suffice to say I own it and it wouldn't be out of my collection given the choice.
I understand the point your making - I just don't think The Matrix is a sufficiently landmark or brilliant movie to use as an example. Psycho is not just a movie that was popular when it came out and people often stick on in a casual way.