One of Hitchcock's undisputed masterpieces in which the Master reached new heights of psychological terror and suspense, Psycho is both hugely influential and filled with iconic scenes. Janet Leigh is the secretary who decides to make off with her boss's money. On her way out of town she turns off the highway and happens on the Bates Motel, whose sign reads 'Vacancy'. She decides to take a room for the night and in a little while, Norman Bates welcomes her.
Future filmmakers dedicated to their profession can use "Psycho" as a textbook. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then "Psycho" has no peers. Hitchcoc... more >
Future filmmakers dedicated to their profession can use "Psycho" as a textbook. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then "Psycho" has no peers. Hitchcock always intended it to be a film for audiences but it's much more than that. Like myself, it has influenced countless filmmakers and writers throughout the years. I will never get over (nor do I want to) the impact that this film has had in my life. I watch it every six months or so and I still enjoy every second. I've shown it in college film classes and the reaction has always been amazing. Everything works in the film from the brilliant Bernard Herrmann score to the haunting performances by the entire cast. I wouldn't change a frame. I only wish I'd seen it when it first opened in 1960. How I envy those who did! I've certainly made up for it ever since. Alfred Hitchcock claimed that he had always wanted to be Cary Grant. Can anyone imagine cinema without Hitch? Thank God he didn't get his wish!
“It wasn't a message that stirred the audiences, nor was it a great performance...they were aroused by pure film."
“Psycho” was one of the first intimations of a new mood in Hollywood. It was a formally dazzling and brilliantly perverse film, oriented to a new generation of moviegoers, and more erotic, violent, and macabre than any of Hitchcock's previous work. In this bleak black and white film, Hitchcock, working with his usual obsessions (i.e., guilt, voyeurism, Oedipal complexes, and misogyny), utilizes the iconography of the horror film an isolated motel, an old, forbidding Victorian house, a sensational murder sequence (using an Eisenstein-like montage) that arouses feelings of terror, and a chilling musical score. "Psycho" marked the introduction of the formula thriller "which redefined the limits of sex and violence in films", and would in a decade or moreover run the theaters with mediocre slasher films.!
“Psycho" begins with one of Hitchcock's favorite devices for making the audience an accomplice in the action. The camera pans past the Phoenix, Arizona skyline and seemingly picks out a window of a hotel, then glides in to watch two people, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Sam Loomis (John Gavin) involved in an adulterous affair. But if they are guilty of a sexual indiscretion, we are guilty of voyeurism. Their affair—sordid and sad, since the man cannot afford to pay his ex-wife alimony and marry his lover—was itself a mild shock, for it was still unconventional for movie stars to play such unglamorous roles. But Hollywood convention would be flouted even more strikingly in the next sequence: Marion compulsively steals a large sum of money at the real estate agency where she is employed as a secretary, hurriedly packs her belongings, and drives in the direction of Los Angeles, where Sam lives. When Marion checks in at a roadside motel, she meets the somewhat shy young proprietor, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who offers her sandwiches and milk and stimulating conversation.
"Psycho's" impact derived from its demonstration of Hitchcock's perceptive view of the upcoming decade. Our old enemies were gone: the fascists of the Forties and been replaced by the threat of the Communists in the Fifties, but even the Russians seemed somehow less dangerous in the Sixties than the forces of potential violence within our own society. In "Psycho", the threat comes from that nice clean-cut boy down the street. The theme would be re-echoed throughout the next ten years, not only in Hitchcock's films, but in those of other American filmmakers as well.
In its own time, "Psycho" was certainly controversial. Initially, the film was burdened by misguided marketing attempts that hyped the idea that no one could be admitted to a showing anywhere once the movie had begun. In particular, this scheme created havoc at drive-ins all across America, but, in general, there arose a kind of carnival atmosphere aroun!
d this movie, which deserved to be taken very seriously. The stabbing
scene in the shower was considered excessive and shocking in 1960 and it attracted negative commentary, as well as calls for its censure and possible prohibition. An unsigned review of "Psycho" published in Esquire in 1960 commented, "I'm against censorship on principle, but that killing in the shower makes me wonder. And not because of the nudity; I favor more nudity in film." Six years later, in 1966, CBS television canceled a planned national broadcast of the movie shortly after the kidnapping and murder of the daughter of U.S. Senator Charles Percy (R Illinois).
At the time, however, most critical and industry attention was given to the film's unusual dramatic elements rather than to the powerful new visual aesthetic that was created in the shower scene. The story line of "Psycho" was seen as subversive of the values that had been traditionally advanced in classic Hollywood movies, because the central idea of the film was that horror could come from the heart of an American family and could be perpetrated by a superficially harmless and likable character such as Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).
Nonetheless, "Psycho" was truly important aesthetically because the shower scene was shot and then edited so as to give the sequence a ragged edge that, in hindsight, could be assessed as "Stravinsky like" in its impact on the modern American cinema. In its thrusting and jabbing power, the sequence was for the American feature film in 1960 what the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" had been for modern music and dance. Although there were no riots outside the cinemas in 1960, as there had been in 1913 outside the theater in Paris where "The Rite of Spring" premiered, "Psycho" nonetheless marked the arrival of what was to become the dominant motion picture aesthetic of the late twentieth century. This aesthetic, honed and polished subsequently by Hollywood, constituted a cinema of sensation that emerged and grew up separately from the previously dominant "cinema of sentiment" that had
characterized classic Hollywood production.
Also included on the DVD is "The Making of 'Psycho'", a fascinating 95-minute documentary that's worth the price of the DVD alone. Every aspect of the production is covered in great detail and DVD documentary giant Laurent Bouzereau once again proves his mastery of Hitchcock. Janet Leigh talks at length about her scenes and her working method with Hitchcock, as does screenwriter Joseph Stefano who details the changes he made to the original story (which was written by Robert Bloch). Most of them involved some psychotherapy Stefano was undergoing at the time and the many allusions to mother are from his pen. This documentary is created mainly from a combination of modern interviews interspersed with production photos and clips from the movie itself. We hear from Leigh, Stefano, assistant director Hilton Green, wardrobe person Rita Riggs, Hitchcock's delightful daughter Pat and his assistant Peggy Robertson. Although he didn't work on "Psycho", editor Paul Hirsch also appears; he relates some anecdotes about his experiences working with composer Bernard Herrmann and also tosses in an interesting story that relates to his experience on "Star Wars". In addition, filmmaker Clive Barker offers a few facts about real life Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, the inspiration of the story. Although this method has some limits due to the deaths of many of the film's creators - most notably Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins - it works extremely well and offers a nicely comprehensive portrait of the creation of the film. Despite the absence of many key main figures, I can't imagine that the piece would offer any more complete a picture of how the film was made. We start with issues connected to the adaptation of the original novel and then go through script development, casting, the shoot, post-production and the film's reception. All of these areas receive a lot of attention, and we learn a dazzling amount of great details and trivia. It's an absolutely terrific program that entertains as it informs. I only wish all "making of" movie documentaries where as good as this one is.
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This is pure cinema at its brilliant best. Almost every scene is a stunning set-piece; the precise opening, Marion Crane's unsettling journey to the Bates Motel, the l... more >
This is pure cinema at its brilliant best. Almost every scene is a stunning set-piece; the precise opening, Marion Crane's unsettling journey to the Bates Motel, the legendary shower scene and the equally gruesome and brilliantly filmed murder on a staircase, whilst Anthony Perkins' indelible performance and Bernard Herrmann's music score - all nervous twitches and jagged strings - rank with the finest cinema has to offer. < less
