Apologies for the unpardonable lateness of acknowledging and thanking you for your replies. I find I lose track of time and just don't have much to say these days. I'm sure I've exhausted my thoughts on mirror image films and clips.
And thanks also for your condolences on hubby David's passing. After 41 years, it's an adjustment, but I'm finding my way through it.
A Psycho-related story about him: nigh unto 30 years ago, I had fallen into a deep and extended depression and, try as he might, nothing he could do or say could pull me from it, until one afternoon when I was curled up on a sofa in the den in pretty much a fetal position, well on my way to becoming something like Scotty midway through Vertigo. David went into the living room and put on our LaserDisc of Psycho, and when Bernard Herrmann's urgent, staccato strains reached me in the other room, I was drawn to them and the film they heralded like a hypnotist's subject. For the first time in a week, I was able to emerge from within myself and begin to reengage with the world.
To paraphrase Carl Denham at the end of King Kong, it wasn't Mozart that swept away the cobwebs, 'twas Herrmann and Hitchcock who killed the ennui.
Smart cookie, David was.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
Very good to hear from you, Doghouse. You'd be surprised how often I will recall what you said about a movie or a star in your more lengthy posts from the past.
Reading your response above, I again wish to fight any accidental "glibness" about a subject of great seriousness and, I am sure, emotion to you. I'll stick my neck out a bit and say that 41 years is a significant part of anyone's life and I trust you value those years, very much.
You also offered an interesting testament to the power of Herrmann (and yeah, Hitchcock too) in their Psycho mode and how you were drawn to Herrmann's "urgent, staccato strains and the film they heralded like a hypnotist's subject."
And I will continue on this response in my next post, meant to be separate from this more personal one.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
This reminds me of two attritbutes attested to Psycho over the decades:
ONE: It is indeed "hypnotic' and in a most mysterious way, principally: how did Hitchcock GET that effect? Pretty much over he course of the entire movie?
Many reasons, its seems, all coming together:
ONE: Hitchocck's expert sense of timing. The scenes in Psycho are among the best timed I've ever experienced in movies. Not too long, not too short. "Just right." One scholar said the scenes are in "sets of 3": 3 minutes, 6 minutes, 9 minutes(the longest scene -- Norman's clean up of Marion's body.) Hitchcock was also said to use a metronome both on set and in the editing room to get a sense of rhythm. How? (I find the rhythm expresses iteself in scenes of characters looking, the POV, their reaction -- the first time Marion sees Mother in the window in the rain has this rhythm, from Marion to the house to Marion to the window to Marion...)
TWO: Hitchcock's sense of movement. In an effect I call "the magnetic porch," we get shots of Marion walking along the porch to look at the house; Norman walking along the porch to look at and WALK to the house; and Arbogast walking along the porch to look at the house and(on a later visit) WALK to the house. The movement of these appealing actors(two handsome men, one beautiful woman) are choreographed by Hitchcock(with Herrmann's music) in a musical fashion.
THREE: Hitchcock's sense of silence -- "air pockets of silence" as critic James Agee called them(he was writing of Notorious in 1946 -- little did he know that Hitchcock would have DECADES of this --including The Birds with no music. ) In Psycho, "talk scenes" (Norman and Marion, Norman and Arbogast, Norman and Sam) _ alternate with long silent sequences -- scored by Herrmann and...hypnotic.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
Also hypnotic: Marion's long drive -- morning, day, dusk, dark....rainstorm -- was captured in one essay as demonstrating how we ALL "become hypnotized when driving" -- we sort of blend into the comfort of the car inside and the fast motion of the car outside and...wrote this writer(a psychologist I believe) Marion WAS hypnotized in that car. (Funny: we have Herrmann's ever-more-urgent music driving her drive -- what if, in real life, Marion was playing Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin OR...Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry and Little Richard on that 1960 car radio?)
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I just saw Psycho on the big screen a few days ago(Halloween) in fact, and I noticed -- not for the first time in recent years -- that it is rather an "out of body experience" now. Something about how it is programmed in my brain. It moves way too fast -- even though it is the same length it always was. It seems to be over as soon as it starts. And 1960 is so far back in time now that the movie feels like a long ago, and very PLEASUREABLE memory of...a more innocent time?
PSYCHO?
Yep. I read a female critic in the past couple of years who wrote: "Psycho doesn't scare me anymore...it makes me feel quite warm about it. Comforting."
Yep...maybe because it IS for a more innocent time in America(its a film ABOUT American life) and for all its horror, its happening when Eisenhower was President and things were just more "nice" even with Vietnam looming ahead and the charnelhouse of WWII and Korea not that long ago. "Stateside" -- it was innocent. I was there. It WAS. At least on the surface(to me as a kid, but among the adults, there was church going and things like bridge parties at home, that I remember as well.)
---
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
I've run afield of Doghouse's OP here but it is meant to respond as to how and why Psycho CAN have that grip on people, even now.
Doghouse wrote:
To paraphrase Carl Denham at the end of King Kong, it wasn't Mozart that swept away the cobwebs, 'twas Herrmann and Hitchcock who killed the ennui."
Well, stated!
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Smart cookie, David was
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It sounds like he surely was!
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Doghouse (447)
6 months ago
"I've run afield of Doghouse's OP here but it is meant to respond as to how and why Psycho CAN have that grip on people, even now."
- - -
By all means, run afield. Turnoffs, tangents, detours and diversions are parts of what make boards like this so lively and fun.
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Doghouse (447)
6 months ago
"You also offered an interesting testament to the power of Herrmann (and yeah, Hitchcock too) in their Psycho mode and how you were drawn to Herrmann's 'urgent, staccato strains and the film they heralded like a hypnotist's subject.'
It is indeed "hypnotic' and in a most mysterious way, principally: how did Hitchcock GET that effect? Pretty much over he course of the entire movie?
ONE: Hitchocck's expert sense of timing.
TWO: Hitchcock's sense of movement.
THREE: Hitchcock's sense of silence"
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I believe the subtitle of F.W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu was "A Symphony of Terror." And I've no doubt you recall Hitchcock's remarks about "playing" audiences' emotions like the keys of an organ. Very interesting and telling about the metronome. Director King Vidor spoke of doing the same thing on 1925's The Big Parade.
These musical allusions are so appropriate. I remember a convo on another board about "what's missing in films today" from which something emerged about senses of rhythm and tempo. Hitchcock's approach - and indeed those of other great directors - was virtually symphonic, wasn't it: andante here, allegro there; from crescendo to decrescendo and so forth.
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"Funny: we have Herrmann's ever-more-urgent music driving her drive -- what if, in real life, Marion was playing Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin OR...Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry and Little Richard on that 1960 car radio?"
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There you go again, disarming with the agility and creativity of your thoughts. Funny indeed, certainly in this context. Yet, I remember John Carpenter doing something very much along those lines in Christine with recordings of Bad to the Bone or Little Richard's Keep A-Knockin' emanating from the possessed Plymouth's radio, rendering them scary.
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Doghouse (447)
6 months ago
"...a female critic in the past couple of years who wrote: 'Psycho doesn't scare me anymore...it makes me feel quite warm about it. Comforting.'"
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On yet another thread on another board was a solicitation of lists of "films that cheer you up." Some of mine must have seemed positively perverse to some participants: from Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd to Sweet Smell of Success and Chinatown. So much base human motivation and behavior. So many downer endings. But what cheers me are things like their dazzling craft and execution.
Of course, Psycho was among them. Along with the foregoing attributes, it's become a dependable old friend. We know it so well...and it knows us. It entertains and fascinates, never letting us down, no matter when it drops in.
"Warm" and "comforting" are apropos descriptors. I called my list on that board "comfort films."
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Doghouse (447)
6 months ago
"Reading your response above, I again wish to fight any accidental "glibness" about a subject of great seriousness and, I am sure, emotion to you. I'll stick my neck out a bit and say that 41 years is a significant part of anyone's life and I trust you value those years, very much."
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No need for concern about any glibness. Those are lovely thoughts, sensitively expressed, and I value them. As well with your generous remarks about things I've written here and elsewhere (which are returned festooned with all possible bells and whistles).
Who doesn't like learning they've left an impression* here or there? That can make one's day.
*EDIT for a further thought: on one of the other boards to which I've made passing reference, I've quoted you at least a half dozen times over the years as an illustration of given films' differing impacts upon individual viewers: "My Psycho is not your Psycho." It's been very useful.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
I believe the subtitle of F.W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu was "A Symphony of Terror." .... Very interesting and telling about the metronome. Director King Vidor spoke of doing the same thing on 1925's The Big Parade.
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I've read of Hitchcock using the metronome both on set during filming (what? did the actors HEAR it? Or was Hitchcock WATCHING it? _ and in the editing room (less intrusive, but the bottom line is -- I don't really know how a metronome works in music, let alone for movie shooting and editing.)
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These musical allusions are so appropriate. I remember a convo on another board about "what's missing in films today" from which something emerged about senses of rhythm and tempo. Hitchcock's approach - and indeed those of other great directors - was virtually symphonic, wasn't it: andante here, allegro there; from crescendo to decrescendo and so forth.
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Yes. Recall how Hitchocck told Truffaut that when Mother runs out at Arbogast in Psycho "it was like sudden high violins and then a big cymbal crashing on the shot of Arbogast's big head." Which was odd because REAL violins are there on the soundtrack but I think Hitchcock meant that "metaphorical violins" were screeching even as metaphorical cymbals were crashing on the huge close-up of Arbogast's face and head. Not to mention: cymbals crashing to cover a gunshot was the big deal of the great set-piece in BOTH versions of The Man Who Knew Too Much.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
Against Hitchcock's great sense of timing , I will dismissively bring up the LACK of good timing I found in Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds." The movie is my favorite of 2009 pretty much in spite of itself -- the good scenes outweigh the bad and the dialogue is great as always -- but:
I found two scenes in particular -- The Jew Hunter's initial questioning of the farmer that opens the film and the long scene with Nazis and closet resistance fighters in the cafe basement -- overlong and shapeless getting to their good climaxes. Tarantino just went on and on and ON where Hitchcock -- at least at his Psycho peak -- would not. (The opening with Barbara Harris and Cathleen Nesbitt in Family Plot IS this slow, but Hitchocck was old.)
Hitchcock works with his film editors on these things , but there is surely "music to his cutting." Here's one from a lesser Hitchcock, but not a lesser scene: in Topaz, Rico Parra grabs a doorknob and thinks about having his henchman kick in the door to "get" pepole on the other side. Hitchcock builds the suspense here "per usual," and it IS musical when Parra gives the nod and the henchman kicks in the door and we get his POV: men photographing secret documents on a hotel room bed, caught like pornographers! Musical.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
And I've no doubt you recall Hitchcock's remarks about "playing" audiences' emotions like the keys of an organ.
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Yes, Psycho sure is built that way -- and must have been great fun to watch in 1960 the SECOND time around to see exactly how Hitchocck played the game, and...
...I recently watched two different female "reactors" react to Psycho and I found that there is this one part of the where Hitchocck plays his game with the audience so fast and furious that our heads spin and...
ONE female reactor figured out the twist but the OTHER female reactor figured out the twist and then rejected it. Here's where:
SCENE ONE: Sheriff Chambers' living room in the middle of the night.
Sheriff Chambers tells Sam and Lila that "Mrs. Bates has been dead and buried in Greenlawn Cemetary for the past ten years."
BOOM. EACH of the female reactors said(on different YoutTube plays): "The mother's dead. Norman must be doing the killing! He dresses up as her?"
But then Sheriff Chambers utters this GREAT line:
"Well, if that old woman up at the house is Mrs. Bates...who's that woman buried in Greenlawn Cemetary?"
This could be the greatest "misdirection line" in movie history. Brilliant. The Sheriff's line here in the book -- which closes the chapter -- is "Hell, I was one of her pallbearers!" Nice little line but Hitchocck and Stefano(and WHO actually came up with this?) went so much further.
Now our reactors went a different way: "Wait a minute, Mrs. Bates COULD still be alive, and she killed that other woman and had her buried in her place."
SCENE TWO:
Norman carrying Mother downstairs(as per a great overhead shot and dialogue):
One reactor said: "No, wait there she is with Norman -- she's alive alright."
The other reactor said; "That's a dummy. I think the mother is dead and Norman dresses up as her.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
On the reveal of Norman in the fruit cellar as Mother
One reactor said: "I called it! I SAID he wsa the killer. But wait, then I UNcalled it when he carried her down the stairs. Damn, I got fooled.
The other reactor said: "See? Just like I said early on -- I always knew Norman was the killer and dressing up."
Hmm...consider audiences in 1960 -- likely fooled -- versus today: likely NOT fooled.
Still what a game Hitchcock played:
"Mrs. Bates is dead and buried."
"Then who's that woman buried in Greenlawn cemetary."
(Norman carries the arguing Mother down the stairs.)
Bim..boom..bam! Yes..no...maybe?
Critic Raymond Durgnat offered another angle on all this, for the part at the climax where Lila is running for the front door, sees Norman coming up the hill and decides to head for the fruit cellar:
Durgnat wrote: "As the audience can't decide if the danger is in front of Lila(Norman) or behind Lila(Mrs. Bates in the cellar)...we yield to a helpless hysteria."
That's about right.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
"...a female critic in the past couple of years who wrote: 'Psycho doesn't scare me anymore...it makes me feel quite warm about it. Comforting.'"
- - -
On yet another thread on another board was a solicitation of lists of "films that cheer you up." Some of mine must have seemed positively perverse to some participants: from Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd to Sweet Smell of Success and Chinatown. So much base human motivation and behavior. So many downer endings. But what cheers me are things like their dazzling craft and execution.
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Exactly! Along with the nostalgia for the past in which they were made. For me, the past is before me and beyond my reach with Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, but "within my experience" with Chinatown. They are ALL nostalgic, but in different ways.
And there can be a nostalgia for ANY movie which strikes one as "well made, well written, well acted -- well nigh perfect."
With Sweet Smell of Success(co-written by Ernest "North by Northwest" Lehman) the nefarious doings of two major stars -- Lancaster and Curtis -- are filtered through that late fifties b/w NYC atmosphere(its sort of Peter Gunn-ish, even if the score is by Elmer Bernstein), with Chinatown -- that's a movie that joins Vertigo and some others as a "had to end badly" tale: an inevitable tragedy no matter how much we hoped for a happy ending.
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Of course, Psycho was among them. Along with the foregoing attributes, it's become a dependable old friend. We know it so well...and it knows us. It entertains and fascinates, never letting us down, no matter when it drops in.
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Always for me. The problem is, frankly, to NOT watch it -- usually for about in year in my case -- so as not to ruin the magic.
I have watched it in bits and pieces recently on some of these "Youtube Reactor Channels" because I'm interested in those channels pro and con and I'll post on them eventually...
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
"Warm" and "comforting" are apropos descriptors. I called my list on that board "comfort films."
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Yes they are. For some of us of a certain age...they are a guidepost to our lives.
This is not a new concept. I'll watch old Johnny Carson shows or Jonathan Winters or Don Rickles on Youtube and the comments section are crammed with folks saying how 'great it was to have them and now they are gone." This turns into "they were the greatest and today is terrible" which I can't quite validate but ...they were OUR shows, OUR comedians, etc.
I like to think its a little more complicated with Psycho and Chinatown but in the final analysis: no, its not. These are great works that became a part of our inner lives and stayed there.
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roger1 (2394)
6 months ago
on one of the other boards to which I've made passing reference, I've quoted you at least a half dozen times over the years as an illustration of given films' differing impacts upon individual viewers: "My Psycho is not your Psycho." It's been very useful.
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Well, I'm glad to hear that.
Some time ago, I settled on writing two topics "for the last time and for history's sake." They seem to be disappearing backwards in time on this board. I expect that I shall only try to salvage one of them and bring it back.
That's the one about "The Biggest Lie in Movie History" or whatever I called it. Because I still not only think the Psycho history has the biggest lie in movie history...I think it is one of the most profound lies in HISTORY.
But the other topic -- and it took a few posts -- was "MY Psycho is Not Your Psycho." Because I'd like to think that EVERYONE has a movie that is THEIR movie based on THEIR personal history.
We will do bigger things with our lives personally than just "like a movie" -- but there must be SOMETHING to be said for how THAT movie grabbed me at such a young age and just held on forever. But it was those first five years when I could NOT see it that mattered most.
That and that billboard -- circa November of 1967. When i try to "bring back the feeling" I try to focus on the EXACT memory of that billboard. Everything about it was terrifying and mysterious to me: what went ON in that movie? Look at that HOUSE! Look at that Frankenstein figure standing in front of it on the hill? Look at that MOTEL!(which turned out to be in my mind from hearing about the movie -- it wasn't in the billboard.) And look at that terrifying slashed logo: PSYCHO.
That billboard conjured up a mystery that took years to solve and Psycho as we have it now -- will never be THAT Psycho. MY Psycho.
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