The European release of a spiffy new version of the film—one that I cannot, as yet, properly watch, still!—spurs some personal reflections. A Very Special Foreign Blu-Ray Disc Report, at The Daily Notebook, as ever.
"Psycho" and me, 50 years on
You May Also Like
"Jeu" on
"Jeu" on
Marie Bell, perhaps about to demonstrate that blondes don't necessarily have more fun, in Jacques…
Glenn KennyDecember 28, 2010
Horrors, adolescent division
Horrors, adolescent division
Today, in Salon, I recount a brief history of the teen horror film. No, really.…
Glenn KennyMay 3, 2010
The Return of Jonathan Demme, Pt. 1
The Return of Jonathan Demme, Pt. 1
(Posted by Aaron Aradillas) One of the traps critics (including myself) sometimes find themselves in…
Glenn KennyAugust 29, 2008
Thanks for this, Glenn. I’m with you, and fell in love with this film the night I caught it one late night on WOR (complete with that black band to mask Janet Leigh’s cleavage). Ended up taping it off the TV with a dinky cassette player, even buying the Richard J. Anobile frame-by-frame book (’cause that’s what we used to have to do in the old pre-VHS days, never mind pre-foreign-region DVDs).
Just a programming note that the wonderful Bruce Goldstein at the Film Forum has booked PSYCHO for a whole week later this year – including screenings on Halloween.…
Nice post. Given that Psycho is 15 years older than me, it’s hard to imagine a time when it was actually brand new and audiences were watching it for the very first time without knowing what was coming. What a thrill opening night must have been.
Stunned your TV still isn’t fixed. Stunned! I was looking forward to reading about the transfer. Never mind, I shall find out for myself when I get my hands on it, in a steelbook case no less.
Such a treat to wake up and read this. PSYCHO holds a special place in my heart as my longest running “favorite” film. It’s also the first film that made me want to, in the words of Truffaut, “get closer and closer to films.”
I read Stephen Rebello’s book at least once a year and every-time I do I love PSYCHO a little bit more.
It’s even MORE perfect now that you can see Martin Balsam’s make-up.
Do you really like the second half? Aside from a few moments – the car being dredged out of the water, Arbogast walking up the stairs, Perkins’s monologue at the end – I don’t think the movie has anything to say, any real purpose, once Leigh is dead. Most of it’s not much better than a bad episode of Hitchcock’s TV show. I’m particularly thinking of would-be spooky scenes like, “if that’s not Mrs. Bates buried in the graveyard, who IS buried there???”, and John Gavin’s unintentionally comical dialogue with Perkins, in which Gavin sounds like he walked out of some D‑list noir, unaware that Perkins inhabits an entirely different universe. The first half, of course, is a masterpiece.
Not a big fan of the film, for reasons not limited to Asher’s comments above. Probably wouldn’t even make my Hitchcock Top 10. I understand what he was doing, but I just don’t like it very much.
Having just seen Peeping Tom for the first time about a month ago, it saddens me that Powell’s superior (and far more daring) work essentially ended his career, while Hitchcock’s took his to another level.
With the possible exception of Strangers on a Train, the best Hitchcocks (39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest) are romantic films, so that is why I agree with Asher and lazarus. Psycho is a lot of fun, but it’s missing what makes Hitchcock the master.
In college I had to do a paper/presentation, per my professor’s requests, on “Psycho”; edited clips together and everything. And of all the violence, the themes, the idea of vulnerability (in the bathroom where you’re pretty darn vulnerable), the references to “M” or “Le Corbeau,” all the iconic shots of the film, the music, et al, for some reason the thing that sticks with me the most then & now is the cop peering into the car window with his blank expression and mirrored sunglasses. Brr. His following her right before and after this moment gives me chills as well. And if I channel surf and it’s on, I hope to catch it around this time just to be re-creeped out. (Do you think Kubrick was inspired by this sequence for “Lolita” when they’re being followed? It gives me the same feeling.)
Looking forward to this Blu Ray and (as mentioned in the earlier thread) Criterion’s “Night of the Hunter”. Just got the Preston Neal Jones “Hunter” book and I’m enjoying it. Time to save some pennies.
The cop is indeed chilling—part of what makes the first half of PSYCHO so riveting is its vision of a pretty lady’s world in which every man is a threat, and the one man who’s a nice guy is the worst of them all.
I don’t really have much of a problem with the film’s second half, although I fully admit it simply cannot, by definition, play as powerfully as the first. Robin Wood, in his “Hitchcock’s Films Revisited,” defends it, or rather contextualizes it (he sees no reason to defend it, at least not in the sense of special pleading with respect to some of the specific objections raised above) far better than I could. Here’s one bit that does, obliquely, address some of those objections: “The other characters (Sam, Lila, Arbogast), perfunctorily sketched, are merely projections of the spectators into the film, our instruments for the search, the easier to identify with as they have no detailed individual existence.” It’s worth remembering that there was a time during “Psycho“ ‘s existence when not everybody knew what the ending was. Hitchcock’s nods to narrative convention in the second half were, one is obliged to admit, necessary, and I don’t think poorly or inaptly executed.
@Fuzzy -
“The cop is indeed chilling—part of what makes the first half of PSYCHO so riveting is its vision of a pretty lady’s world in which every man is a threat, and the one man who’s a nice guy is the worst of them all.”
Well…she HAD just stolen a bunch of money.
I can see having certain issues with Sam and Lila, but where can the objection to Arbogast possibly come from? Perfunctorily sketched, maybe, but Balsam brings such everyday authenticity to the role, and such doomed intelligence. He’s smart enough to know something’s up, and that’s why he dies.
I just re-watched Peeping Tom last week, after first seeing it about a decade ago, and my reaction was that it really doesn’t hold up well (to me). Hitchcock weaves his ideas firmly into a gripping narrative and a subtle yet forceful visual scheme, and Powell tends to be blatant with his statement-making (“Get it? He literally kills them with a camera!”)
I’ll also stand up for the second half of the film. Yeah, Vera Miles doesn’t have anything to do and John Gavin is a big old piece of wood, but the whole second act feels to me like the echoing repercussions of the first half – as Wood said, a search for meaning in a universe in which the protagonist is dead, the narrative has become undone, all stability is undermined. In other words, whereas the first half of the movie is full of tension, for me the second half is full of mourning.
PSYCHO was actually the first DVD I ever looked at. When I bought my first player, around 1997–98, I also bought several discs of all-time favorites I’ll never forget – A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, 2001, GOODFELLAS, CASABLANCA, and PSYCHO.
And it was the Hitchcock that I chose to put into the machine, not so much to watch it, but to try out all the buttons, figure out what they did or could do, the details of whatnot – “learning to drive” the machine, as it were. As a result, I think I spent a whole evening “watching” not much more than the opening scene.
In addition to what Mr. McMahon said, here’s the other thing about the second half of PSYCHO. The first half and the shower scene have so shaken the foundations that everything, even the most banal activities, is now fraught with tension and menace.
Hitchcock famously described “suspense” (not speaking specifically of PSYCHO in that context) with the image of the audience knowing about the ticking bomb under the table. Under such circumstances, he said, even the most rote conversation – “let me go back inside to get an umbrella,” I think was Hitch’s example – becomes suspenseful.
The whole second half of PSYCHO has a ticking bomb placed under the table.
A pleasure to read, and unlike some of the above, I do think the second half stands up, granted on the foundation of a much stronger first half…
But that said, I wonder why this is in the foreign region DVD report? Okay, this European edition might have preceded the American release by a few weeks, but this is basically a port of the upcoming US version in every way. Might this section be better served by bringing attention to those release that don’t enjoy identical release in the states?
yes, perfect film. i love the 2nd half of PSYCHO as much as the first. hitchcock’s audacity to pull out the rug and leave the audience stranded (more or less), still exhilarates me. so does janet leigh’s performance in general and ‘not inordinately’ in particular.
also groundbreaking: a toilet!
@ bp -
“hitchcock’s audacity to pull out the rug and leave the audience stranded (more or less), still exhilarates me.”
I don’t want to be the pedant of this thread, but it does always bug me when Hitchcock gets the full credit for this. The same thing happens in Robert Bloch’s novel. It may be that Hitchcock/Stefano built up Marion Crane a bit more than Bloch did (I honestly can’t remember), but she still dies, early on, unexpectedly, and in the shower.
Oh, never mind. I just checked the book, and she doesn’t last very long there, in comparison to the film, so there’s clearly a big difference in the way she’s presented in the two versions.
Aw dang—the comments on SCOTT PILGRIM are closed?!?!? Damn you, LexG! I just saw it, and was going to say how thrilled I was to see a movie that was both formally inventive *and* genuinely thoughtful. I was expecting a couple hours of sugar rush, and got it, but the way the film sets up and then subverts the Shy Guy Meets MPDGirl scenario—exposes the whole Michael Cera character, really, as not sweet but just weak (*not* Cera himself, who seems to be a very smart, funny guy)—makes it both the best-directed and the smartest teen movie in quite a while.
Balsam’s questioning of Perkins is one of Hitchcock’s finest collusions of image, metaphor and performance.
Let me address Mike Mazurki’s question: “Why why this is in the foreign region DVD report? Okay, this European edition might have preceded the American release by a few weeks, but this is basically a port of the upcoming US version in every way. Might this section be better served by bringing attention to those release that don’t enjoy identical release in the states?” Yes, it might. Except I think I would be doing a disservice to releases that don’t enjoy identical releases in the States a disservice based on reviewing them after watching them on a computer, which is the only way I can watch foreign-region discs with my plasma display being currently on the fritz. Yes, the “Psycho” notice is a write-around, such as it is. I apologize. But next week, there’s probably going to be no Foreign Region DVD Report. And the week after. And on, and on, until the goddamn part comes in from Japan, gets shipped to the TV repair lab, etcetera, and so on.
Thanks Glen, I wasn’t trying to be assy about it, I just look forward to your reviews of new releases from labels like BFI, MOC, Second Run, Carlotta, etc..releases that I’m not always sure whether to go the extra mile and check out for myself. In any case, I hope Japan comes through for you soon.
@ Mike, I don’t think you were being assy. Did I sound like I thought you were being assy? Now that I’ve been accused, in a private e‑mail from the very unpleasant real person behind Lex G (a contact I idiotically initiated, hoping to find a common thread of humanity…talk about the abyss staring back!), of being unfailingly condescending to my readership, I“m kind of paranoid about that.
Anyway, my tone was meant to reflect my frustration at the situation, not any irritation with you. Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to get back to what I’d been doing with the Foreign Region Report. There’s a Blu-ray of “Paranoiac” sitting on my coffee table, mocking me. And a lot of other cool stuff, too.
Glenn, if you were unfailingly condescending to your readers, I think you would have been called on it long before Lex’s e‑mail. Just consider the source.
Shucks no, Glenn! I re-read my own post and thought I came off as a bit of an ass is all. Nothing to do with your tone, which has never struck me as condescending in the least!
I meant to post a comment after your Abbey Lincoln tribute a few posts back, but sadly it’s now closed, no doubt due to LexG’s pissing in the swimming pool and spoiling it for everyone. Just meant to say thanks for highlighting the passing of a great jazz talent (I’m a big fan of her work with Max Roach & Booker Little), as well as great performance in “Nothing But a Man”.
LOL, while you’re at it why not mail LexG copies of your apartment keys and some travelling money, tell him he’s welcome to pop round for a chat anytime?!
Glenn, one of lex’s favorite bizarro tacts is to accuse everybody of being “condescending” – after he’s scrawled a paragraph on why you’re a douchebag and everybody is stupid etc. A right-wing bully trick.
Oh, man, a Blu-Ray of PARANOIAC? I feel your pain (especially since I have yet to acquire an HD TV). That flick has one of the most amazingly lurid plotlines ever, and it looks great. Hang in there, Glenn. Cover it with a magazine or something so it doesn’t mock you too much.
Christian, give the “right-wing” thing a rest, why don’t you? I don’t see how it applies here. I know Lex claims to lean that way, but he also clearly has no political POV whatsoever, since he doesn’t care enough about anything.
I agree, it’s pretty clear Lex is apolitical and just claims to be right-wing because he knows it’ll annoy people.
Pardon me, excuse me… if you kind folks wouldn’t mind, could you keep the Lex stuff in the Lex thread and the Psycho stuff in the Psycho thread? (Yes, I’m aware of the “no fighting in the war room” irony of that request.) Just throwing that out there. Not my place.
I’d be interested in some more insight on the film at hand. Why do people specifically dislike the second half so much? Was the narrative really that conventional at the time? Where else could/should Hitch have taken it? I guess they could’ve gone “L’Avventura” with it and forgotten about Marion altogether. Doesn’t the second half somewhat parallel the first in terms of what it has to say? Enlighten me, it’s too dark ’round hyeah.
I’m not sure where else Hitchcock could have taken it. Well, one radical change he could’ve made is to not make Perkins’s split identity a mystery. It’s because he does that he’s forced to leave the most interesting thing in the film (once Leigh’s dead) off screen for so much of the second half while two complete ciphers go searching for the missing Mrs. Bates. He gets his shocking plot twist at the expense of turning the second half of the movie into a conventional, thematically vacuous whodunit, one that he’s then forced to explain to us at great length with Oakland’s ridiculous monologue at the end. A smaller change that he ought to have made would be to give Gavin and Miles’s characters some actual qualities. Like, say, being attracted to each other. Or perhaps he, inappropriately given the situation, would proposition her, further blurring the line between healthy and perverse desires.
(Getting back on topic…)
One other aspect of the second half of the film that just KILLS me is when Vera Miles is poking around through the Bates house – the things she sees (Norman’s room, that eerie sculpture of the clutching hands) are deeply affecting and tragic to me.
@Jeff,
Yes, love the details of the grubby bed, the stuffed animals. And the fact that Miles picks up what looks like a journal, opens it and – Hitchcock never shows us what’s actually in it.
As if almost to say – yes, there’ll be a big speech later on, “explaining” all of this for the people who want that. But you will never really, REALLY know what was going on here
@Asher – I never thought it to be remotely about Gavin or Miles, so their qualities didn’t matter. They’re just the trade-in vehicle (tee hee) to Norman’s secret, so maybe you’re right they could’ve revealed it sooner without suffering thematically. I don’t know. But with that second half and Norman’s story we get themes of not only duality, but gender stereotype (First half – women eating like a bird or “Do anything you’ve a mind to, being a woman you will.” Second half – Heh. What if you’re a man pretending to be a woman?), self-delusion (1st – Marion dreaming up the conversation as if it were actually happening; 2nd – Norman’s), choices/consequences/karma and self-control… was Marion *more* in control of her actions than Norman and therefore suffered a greater consequence? You can go on and on. Of course, some are a stretch and others are English 101-ish analyzing. Fun, though.
“He was simply doing everything possible to keep alive the illusion…” Remind you of another film released this year?
@Jeff – Yeah, the Buddy Lee doll is particularly disturbing.
bill, no, i won’t. sorry.
“a conventional, thematically vacuous whodunit … that he’s then forced to explain to us at great length with Oakland’s ridiculous monologue at the end.”
And what comes AFTER that?
See … I’ll even Oakland’s ridiculous speech AS a ridiculous speech. Hitchcock was a profound skeptic of psychoanalysis and therapy, which was sweeping America in the 40s and 50s (most especially also in VERTIGO and SPELLBOUND, the campy opening scrawl in the latter aside). He’s giving us a canned speech that is a dramatic letdown … and then an OOOOMPH image that makes the speech some so, so silly even if true.
@Christian – No, I didn’t figure you would. It’s your whole deal, after all.
Though the shrink’s long speech has often been criticised as overly, demystifyingly expository, actual case histories aplenty prove that even the most abberant psyches can be spawned from mundane occurances (the hernia operation undergone by 6‑year-old Jeffrey Dahmer, for instance), however ‘demystifying’ these may sound.
Furthermore, surely the concluding monologue of Bates himself — or should that be, *herself* — contradicts, in whole or part, the diagnosis just provided? The unnerving implication (at least to this fan of Hitch) is that, for all the ostensibly reassuring psychoanalytic pronouncements, Bates’ madness remains unfathomable.
And besides what Oliver says, SPELLBOUND is a two hour version on the shrink speech, so whatever problems that scene introduces into PSYCHO (hardly any, I’ve always thought) it pales in comparison.
True, Bill, and I’d argue that Rebecca is also guilty of too much late exposition that for me sinks the film. But I wonder how many people who are okay with the final monologue in Psycho criticized Shutter Island for the same thing?
Personally I think Marnie’s conclusion is easier to roll with than Psycho’s, although I like that whole film more than Psycho.
Glenn- I gather that you and I are about the same age, and fondly remember catching classic flicks on the NYC stations (Channel 5 had the rights to the classic WB films, while Channel 9 had RKO and Columbia, as well as Universal, which is probably how that got “Psycho” and “Touch of Evil”, the first place I caught them back in the 1970s).
And i can relate to your story about running home to catch “Psycho” on TV. Back in the pre-home video days, I used to scour TV Guide looking for movies to catch. I even recall a late 1970s evening when I chose to stay home and see “A face in the Crowd” (which was rarely shown back then on TV) rather than go hang out with my buddies…
Probably a bit late now, but out of curiosity what do you chaps think of Psycho II?
It probably should never have existed but even so I think it’s an effective and hugely enjoyable thriller. I liked the scenes showing a shy Bates nervously returning to society and trying to hold down a menial job, and it’s impossible not love Perkins as the stammering Bates.
It could have done with a little of that Hitchcock class, but it’s good, trashy fun in an 80s sequel kind of way, I think.