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You are bound to enjoy this movie.
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Apr 21, 2007
16
of
18 people found this review helpful
Alfred Hitchcock may have been the best director who ever lived. It's a bold statement, to be sure, especially since I don't have any of his films in my top 10. But from the 1930's to the 1960's, he made a string of films that were both entertaining and intellectual. It took a special kind of talent to make films that the mainstream could enjoy, while still giving plenty for the film theorists to talk about. His films were visually appealing, suspenseful and witty, with a dark sense of humor that few other films of their time possessed.
For me, the big appeal of Hitchcock was his willingness to experiment. Sure, I enjoy his films as entertainment, for they certainly are entertaining. Yet I enjoy watching what he's doing with the camera just as much.
So with that in mind, let's talk about Psycho. It is easily Hitchcock's most famous film, and yet a huge number of people have only seen about 30 seconds of the film. I speak, of course, of the shower scene. If you mention the words "shower scene", just about any random person on the street will think Psycho. But ask why she was killed, and I suspect you'll find a dramatic drop in responses.
Yet, there is so much more to this film than showers and knives.
To begin with, I should mention the re-make. Any doubt of Hitchcock's talent can be erased with a viewing of the re-make. Following the script and storyboards to the letter, the filmmakers still ended up with a second-rate thriller. This exercise in futility should never have been undertaken. What was the point?
Of course, the point was that people don't want to see black and white films. Yet, this was the film's biggest mistake. I know that people like color, and Ted Turner's crayons ruined many a fine film. So a re-make is preferable to colorizing. However, another option is to just not watch the film. If you can't stand black and white, stick to the color films.
The original was in black and white for a reason, and it wasn't technology. Hitchcock had been making color films since 1948, and this film was made in 1960. It was a one-time switch in film stocks that was intentional. To me, this film only works in black and white.
In black and white, shadows can be used to greater effect. Consider the scene with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, in the parlour. The lighting makes the stuffed birds look quite menacing. While this could be accomplished with some success in color, the black and white makes the shadows more defined, and furthermore, gives the scene a bit of surrealness. We see in color, and therefore can identify more readily what is causing the birds to look that way.
In addition, consider the interplay between the characters in this same scene. The talk shifts from pleasant to uneasy when Norman talks about his mother. As his anger grows, the lighting on his face changes slightly, but the effect is magnified in black and white. His eyes look sunken, his cheekbones are more defined. He looks like he may snap at any moment. And the effect is all lighting.
One more quick point. Black and white films have been shown to cause a different reaction in people than color. Hitchcock was no doubt aware of this, which is perhaps the reason he chose this medium in the first place. Color tends to change your focus from the minute to the whole, while black and white tends to cause you to focus on immediate details. Even if you don't notice this, your sub-conscious does.
Before I continue, I should mention a bit about the plot. The film opens with a couple in a motel room. They are obviously in love, but the man has many debts, including alimony. They could marry each other if those debts were gone.
The woman, played by Janet Leigh, returns to her job at a real estate firm. She is given $40,000 to deposit in the bank. She suddenly decides to run away with the money. After arousing suspicion along the way, she ends up at the Bates Motel. This is where she is killed, and it occurs fairly early in the film. The rest of the film involves her friends trying to unravel the mystery. And what a mystery it is.
Now, let's turn to the camera work. In general, the camera has two positions: the point of view of a character, and the impartial observer (the POV of the audience). This is way over-simplified, but it's basically true.
In Psycho, the camera follows this convention (obviously), but it does something else too. At times, it ceases to be an impartial observer and becomes a character itself. For example, let's consider the scene between Leigh and Perkins again. After she has checked in, Perkins says he's going back to the house to get dinner ready. As he round the corner to go up to the house, he stops. His eyes look troubled. He doesn't want to go up there. Suddenly, the camera starts panning toward the house, very slowly. Just as Perkins is about to exit the frame, he goes. It's as if the camera was forcing him to go; as if the frame bumped his shoulder, and he had to move. This adds an extra bit of tension to the scene, even if you don't really notice what the camera itself is doing.
I won't comment on the shower scene, as most people are familiar with it. I will mention that this was the "experimental" part of the film, standing as Hitchcock's ode to Soviet Montage (for more information on Soviet Montage, read about Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin).
Anyway, I particularly like the aftermath of the shower scene. First, the camera follows the trail of water and blood down the drain. Then, the drain dissolves into a shot of Janet Leigh's eye, rotating slowly. The camera pans back to reveal her dead on the floor. After that, the camera pans and tracks into the motel room itself, and to the nightstand where the $40,000 is. Yes, folks, she's dead. But the movie isn't over yet. After the rapid editing of the shower scene, this un-edited sequence is a nice change-up.
I would be remiss if I didn't say anything about Anthony Perkins' performance. it's truly remarkable, even if it had the unfortunate side-effect of typecasting him for the rest of his career.
Much of the brilliance is found in the little mannerisms of Norman. Besides the fidgety way he moves about, he has a nervous laugh that punctuates just about everything he says. It isn't forced; it's just there. It makes him appear to be a harmless idiot, and at the same time, quite dangerous. he seems like the schoolkid everyone avoided because there was a possibility that, if crossed, he would kill you without a second thought.
At any rate, these are just a few things to get you thinking about this amazing film. No matter how much, or how little, you know about film theory, you are bound to enjoy this movie. And if you are very much into film...well, I would think you'd have analyzed this one by now. To all of you out there, if you haven't seen Psycho, don't pass up the opportunity any longer. For there is much more to this wonderful film than a shower... |
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