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Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 7:35 pm
by mfunk9786
Wow, where is the narrative drive going to be in this series aside from soul-sucking nagging and cruelty from mother to son until he starts offing people?
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:48 pm
by Roger Ryan
I believe this was already accomplished with
PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING and it only needed 96 minutes to do it.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:51 pm
by colinr0380
But will it have the late night talk show wraparound/flashback structure that Psycho IV had? (I wonder if Psycho IV was taking some cues from that Midnight Caller TV show? I suppose we could have a CCH Pounder vs Gary Cole face off over who is the most believable late night talk radio host! Though Eric Bogosian would probably win with a last minute ranting monologue!)
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:09 pm
by mfunk9786
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 2:45 pm
by kingofthejungle
It's an interesting idea conceptually (particularly since the film deals so directly with ideas of multiple personalities), but I think the execution is a little on the dull side (at least until the shower scene).
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Feb 26, 2014 5:05 pm
by colinr0380
It works better in the slow moments but I liked in the shower scene that you kind of get ghostly, double vision afterimages that only adds to the impression of violence.
It also hadn't really dawned on me until that video that Van Sant does a rotating spiral out of the eye rather than a slow zoom out that hangs on the final stare longer: inspired homage to Vertigo or a wish to keep the pace of the scene visually interesting on the assumption that modern audiences might get bored?
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 9:59 am
by TMDaines
Discovered the
German TV edit of Psycho today. It seems that our friends in Deutschland are often treated to a slightly longer cut that has
a few more lingering shots on the violence and undressing. Is there any truth to the claim that the rest of the world is watching a cut version that isn't Hitchcock's vision?
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:26 pm
by Jonathan S
There's a more detailed account in
this earlier article (though its introduction is misleading).
The cuts in the domestic US version, to which Hitchcock was persuaded to agree, are mentioned in Universal's very long making-of documentary, and a clip is even included. I doubt the extra footage is exclusive to the German version - it's just that the framegrabs from the German TV copy highlighted the issue. I'm sure I've seen at least some of the cut material either in 16mm UK prints or BBC broadcasts in the 1970s & 80s (as with the German TV version, these were open-matte transfers so from different masters than the widescreen ones used now).
Of all the films that might benefit from a Director's Cut edition this is surely one of the most important, but I'm surprised there's relatively little interest. I raised the issue with a US Hitchcock fan and he replied: "As long as it's the domestic release version I saw in 1960, I really don't care."
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:34 pm
by Roger Ryan
Since it's pretty clear that the shots were trimmed or deleted for censorship reasons, I'd say it would be safe to assume Hitchcock would have preferred to retain the footage in the general release version even if he agreed to the re-editing. The loss of the "undressing" and "bloody hands" shots create only a mild discontinuity, but the abrupt fade-out on the low-angle knifing of Arbogast really undercuts (pun literally intended) the horror of that scene.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 1:56 pm
by TMDaines
It's interesting, how Jonathan says, how little apparent interest there is in getting a Director's Cut of the film. Even though I've watched all the Psycho extras, I completely forgot about all this until I stumbled upon the German version on another site today.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:50 am
by domino harvey
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:54 am
by swo17
For those without time to click, it's just 30 seconds of shower scene followed by six minutes of explanation from the shrink at the end
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 5:33 pm
by GaryC
Jonathan S wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:26 pm
There's a more detailed account in
this earlier article (though its introduction is misleading).
The cuts in the domestic US version, to which Hitchcock was persuaded to agree, are mentioned in Universal's very long making-of documentary, and a clip is even included. I doubt the extra footage is exclusive to the German version - it's just that the framegrabs from the German TV copy highlighted the issue. I'm sure I've seen at least some of the cut material either in 16mm UK prints or BBC broadcasts in the 1970s & 80s (as with the German TV version, these were open-matte transfers so from different masters than the widescreen ones used now).
Of all the films that might benefit from a Director's Cut edition this is surely one of the most important, but I'm surprised there's relatively little interest. I raised the issue with a US Hitchcock fan and he replied: "As long as it's the domestic release version I saw in 1960, I really don't care."
Apparently the BBC2 showing on 5 October 1984 was the last time the uncut version was shown in the UK. That was actually the first time Psycho.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 7:52 pm
by colinr0380
Red Letter Media's take on Psycho and Psycho II, with the other sequels, remake and TV series coming up.
EDIT: And
here's the second half dealing with Psycho III, Psycho IV: The Beginning and briefly the remake and TV series.
I especially like the moment in the video where they describe Psycho II as "believing in rehabilitation, whilst Psycho III does not". Approaching Psycho III from that perspective, as well as having moments of seeming homage to giallo and Blood Simple (making Anthony Perkins quite well versed in thriller tropes!), makes it seem a lot more interesting!
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:24 am
by domino harvey
Has anyone seen 78/52? The Blu-ray.com review makes it seem interesting, and the disc kind of sounds like what I was previously proposing labels do where they don't bother to license a movie at all and just release a disc of supplemental extras. I was also surprised to learn from the review that apparently Guillermo Del Toro wrote a 500+ page Spanish-language book on Hitchcock!
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:29 am
by dda1996a
Its OK. It veers from academic analyzation of the filmic ti a talking head of some bad horror movie talking why he likes it.
Probably my favorite part gets five seconds, showing how that scene influenced Scorsese's Raging Bull's Sugar Ray fight akmost verbatim.
I'd say its worth a watch but nothing wirth getting excited about
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 4:10 am
by domino harvey
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 1:59 pm
by Mr. Deltoid
Interesting to see how deep
Psycho had buried itself into pop-culture by that point, thirty years since it's release. Surely by now (2018) it must take the title for the most parodied/spoofed/homaged/referenced film in cinema history*? The shower-scene alone (the subject of the aforementioned 78/52 doc) inspired so many comedy piss-takes - in sit-coms, advertising, cartoons, etc. - that you could create an interesting collage-type film (similar to that art-installation film
The Clock) just depicting all the references!
*I can't think of another title that can really challenge it, except maybe
The Wizard of Oz?
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 2:38 pm
by Feego
I'd argue that Star Wars may be more frequently parodied and referenced in general, though the shower scene may be the most parodied/referenced of any specific scene.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 3:38 pm
by domino harvey
The shower scene is surely up there with the plot convention of It's a Wonderful Life in terms of being utilized or parodied in other mediums, but there's prob no way to know for sure what reference is most pervasive
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 4:28 pm
by Roger Ryan
I'd say that Herrmann's slashing violin cue ranks at the very top for parody or reference even if the scene itself doesn't.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:13 pm
by knives
domino harvey wrote: Wed Oct 31, 2018 3:38 pm
The shower scene is surely up there with the plot convention of
It's a Wonderful Life in terms of being utilized or parodied in other mediums, but there's prob no way to know for sure what reference is most pervasive
If we're talking plots then
Yojimbo as well.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:17 pm
by swo17
How many of those have there been--maybe a dozen?
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:19 pm
by knives
In terms of actual remakes sure, but television versions probably number in the hundreds. Even Pokemon had a Yojimbo episode.
Re: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:20 pm
by domino harvey
If any Kurosawa film had a wide-ranging impact, it was Rashomon, not Yojimbo-- I'll see your Pokemon and raise you a Garfield and Friends parody! But none of these are in the realm of an American movie that aired on TV for decades in terms of reference potential