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Post by kingkoopa on Nov 19, 2017 5:37:05 GMT
I'm a bit confused here, kingkoopa . Who piggybacked off Hitch's ideas and executed them better? To wit, who are his successors? DePalma? Zemeckis ( What Lies Beneath)? Branagh ( Dead Again, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit)? Bava ( La ragazza che sapeva troppo)? Chabrol ( Le beau Serge et al.)? I like a lot of these directors, but would you say they're superior or have made better-executed films? Speaking only for myself, I don't see anyone who has piggybacked off AH's ideas, innovative mise en scène and skill use of actors, and thematic purpose and made them better--but, either way, there aren't many candidates. The majority of modern thrillers seem more inspired by the movies the directors think Hitchcock made and not the movies he actually made (thus my repeated invocation of the "suspense vs. surprise" dichotomy that Hitchcock articulated so well and showcased throughout his oeuvre). Clumsy wording on my part. New directors didn't do it better, more like audiences were more likely to expect a certain kind of twist or turn fifty years later. So a viewer might watch Shyamalan's twists (he's about 50/50 for me) and find it groundbreaking, not knowing that Hitchcock did it first (and better) way back when. Hitchcock is comparable to Mozart in my eyes. For nearly a century after Mozart's death, composers were still imitating him. After a while, listeners no longer attributed such devices to Mozart and to whomever was the composer of the week. So when I said "a victim of his success" I meant his ideas were very original (especially in the then young medium of cinema) and many would go on to try and use his devices. They would be flashier and more star-studded in the modern age, but lacked the depth of Hitchcock's execution. He had more of a sleight of hand about him than many modern filmmakers. "The majority of modern thrillers seem more inspired by the movies the directors think Hitchcock made and not the movies he actually made"I think we're on the same page for this one. "Psycho" for instance is often imitated for its 'twist.' Modern storytellers may focus on the twist, though I feel like the roots of Hitchcock grew more towards manipulating the viewer/reader down a false road before spilling the beans. It's a slow boil I miss in modern thrillers. All in all, it's a difficult thing to put into words (for me anyway) but I think the pioneers of virtually anything tend to get the shaft once their ideas are out in the public. |
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Post by mslo79 on Nov 19, 2017 5:37:27 GMT
mslo79 As for the "overrated" question, this is what my friend mikef6 wrote on the subject (in discussing Citizen Kane on the Classics board), and I'm inclined to agree with him: You may like or dislike Hitchcock, and that's fine (though, as stated, in my opinion one should make a rational judgment after an analysis of the work at hand, not an a priori declaration about the quality of his work, positively or negatively), but those of us who do like his work have not overrated it ipso facto. To the contrary, in fact. Yeah, i would agree with that quote except the troll comment as trolls just ruin the forums in general and i think people using the term overrated does not automatically qualify them as a troll unless they are just going against majority opinion in a attempt to rile someone up etc. but if they are honest in that they feel a high rated movie on IMDb for example is rated much higher than they feel it should be then, to them, it's overrated. but anyways... what i said is still true (about how people use the overrated term), even though what's said there in that quote is still true as i would not ask someone to change their opinion because i feel a movie is overrated. because as long as someone is honest in their rating of a movie (and the like) i cannot fault them. p.s. but not long ago someone even basically admitted around here, i can't recall exact person at the moment, what i suspected in that they are influenced a bit by what's popular (or not popular) on ratings of movies as i always suspected this that some people are influenced by what they are told as if a movie is praised they inflate their ratings a bit and if a movie is generally dissed they might lower their ratings because of it instead of ignoring whether someone is in the majority or minority and just give my honest opinion of a movie straight up. so with this said, i would not be surprised if some people (who knows how many though(?)) praise Hitchcock because their 'supposed to' more than them actually thinking his movies are of higher enjoyment for them to watch. but i guess bottom line... people rate movies on IMDb and however things play out, they play out. sometimes my opinion is with the majority and sometimes it's not. I basically agree with that. but when it comes to movies... we ultimately judge them based on our interest/entertainment of a movie and rate them accordingly. basically it comes back to some type of emotional response a movie gives me and i rate based on that feeling as i think a persons emotional response to how a movie makes you feel is ultimately how they are judged by most people. i know that some movies can be equally great overall but in slightly different ways etc. i am sure you get the gist. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2017 5:43:46 GMT
A nice little documentary on Hitchcock:
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Post by Nalkarj on Nov 19, 2017 5:50:10 GMT
Clumsy wording on my part. New directors didn't do it better, more like audiences were more likely to expect a certain kind of twist or turn fifty years later. So a viewer might watch Shyamalan's twists (he's about 50/50 for me) and find it groundbreaking, not knowing that Hitchcock did it first (and better) way back when.
... I think we're on the same page for this one. "Psycho" for instance is often imitated for its 'twist.' Modern storytellers may focus on the twist, though I feel like the roots of Hitchcock grew more towards manipulating the viewer/reader down a false road before spilling the beans. It's a slow boil I miss in modern thrillers. I concur for the most part, King Koopa, and many thanks for the clarification!  With that said, I'll only point out what I've tried point out before here, that Hitchcock rarely used twists. Indeed, we have it in his own words (to Truffaut, Spoto, and others) that he absolutely despised them, which is exactly why he exploded the twist early on in the movie in pictures like North by Northwest, Vertigo, and others, when he easily could have saved them till the end. (Indeed, the book on which Vertigo was based has the twist at the end; Hitchcock purposely moved it to the middle.) The reason, as he articulated well throughout his life, was that he disliked surprise; he preferred that the viewer know what was going on such that he could see and better understand the character's motivations. The major exception is of course Psycho, and it is for that reason that I think many critics and filmmakers associate Hitch with major twists, when throughout his oeuvre he argued for the complete opposite. (And, even in Psycho, Hitchcock and Stefano hint at the twist in the scene with Sheriff John McIntire, far earlier than would be expected.) Thus his famous "suspense vs. surprise distinction" and a point that makes him both more unique (hang the grammar!) and stronger than the majority of directors: it's a distinct part of the Gestalt that is his own directorial vision. It's something that many of his imitators--Bava, Donen, DePalma, Zebreckis, et al.--seem not to understand; indeed, only Fincher's superb Panic Room strikes me as a very Hitchcockian modern film (ah--and Branagh's Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. That's really an excellent film, too--far better than it had an right to be). That's not to say these other films are bad (I really, really like twisty thrillers and mystery films), just that they're certainly not Hitchcockian. |
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Post by poelzig on Nov 19, 2017 7:11:32 GMT
I'm a bit confused here, kingkoopa . Who exactly piggybacked off Hitch's ideas and executed them better? To wit, who are his successors? DePalma? Zemeckis ( What Lies Beneath)? Branagh ( Dead Again, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit)? Bava ( La ragazza che sapeva troppo)? Chabrol ( Le beau Serge et al.)? I like a lot of these directors, but would you say they're superior or have made better-executed films? Speaking only for myself, I don't see anyone who has piggybacked off AH's ideas, innovative mise en scène and skill use of actors, and thematic purpose and made them better--but, either way, there aren't many candidates. The majority of modern thrillers seem more inspired by the movies the directors think Hitchcock made and not the movies he actually made (thus my repeated invocation of the "suspense vs. surprise" dichotomy that Hitchcock articulated so well and showcased throughout his oeuvre). Oft imitated never duplicated. Several directors have "piggybacked" but none of those directors have surpassed Hitchcock or even came close. I say that despite being a fan of De Palma and Bava. De Palma was a shameless Hitchcock imitator but not even he was crazy enough to do a shot for shot remake of a Hitchcock movie. No one is that crazy. |
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Nov 19, 2017 7:42:00 GMT
The Birds is the only film of his that makes my favorites list but it has a lot to do with it being his only sci-fi film and that for me is a novelty. Not to mention it has a lot of interesting dialogue.
He's like Welles or Huston, a larger than life director who probably could have just been an actor--he has the charisma for it. His Psycho trailer is hilarious where he discusses how Martin Balsam's back is broken.
I read a remembrance on Psycho by a kid who saw it in 1960 and he described what a big impact it had at the time.
But have to give some extra credit where it needs to be placed: Bernard Herrmann. It's hard to imagine some of his films without Herrmann's music.
I mean, watch Obsession and feel the strong Hitchcockian vibe just by the score!
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Post by Doghouse6 on Nov 19, 2017 18:19:16 GMT
Doghouse6 The only way that makes any sense is if you feel he deserves about as high of praise as one can get and you must be a huge fan. because he's already beefed up quite a bit as it is as it's hard to say someone would be underrated when they are more on the higher praised side already. it's much easier for someone to claim something is overrated when it's already generally praised or something is underrated when it's generally so-so ratings etc vs when something is already praised and trying to praise it some more. I don't know that I'd characterize it entirely in that way. While the term "overrated" acknowledges wide praise, it simultaneously discounts that praise, suggesting that you don't think as highly of his work; ergo, you rate him lower on whatever your scale happens to be. And without the context of what constitutes "over," "under" or "properly" rating anything, it becomes meaningless. Admittedly, I was employing a bit of dryly humorous wordplay to suggest such a point. And Nalkarj has one too: it's impossible to evaluate the totality of a body of work on the basis of only one example. Had you said, " Psycho is overrated," there probably wouldn't be much questioning or pushback. Even the most highly thought of or best loved films leave some viewers cold. Certainly among Hitchcock devotees, there's disagreement about "favorites" or "bests." North By Northwest, one of his most popular, is nothing at all like Psycho, nor are Rear Window, Notorious or Strangers On A Train, to name three others often garnering those designations, anything like it or each other, beyond techniques or themes that unify the styles of his work and identify it as uniquely his. Indeed, I've encountered any number of viewers who adore The Lady Vanishes or To Catch A Thief, but can't abide Psycho or Frenzy. Quite apart from the subject of Hitchcock himself, "it's pretty safe for me to claim what I did about him" would seem an astonishing remark to make about any director's films after having seen only one. I simply don't know what else can be said about such an assumption. |
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Post by Nalkarj on Nov 19, 2017 21:07:23 GMT
What Doghouse6 wrote. Exactly. (Thankee as usual, m'friend!) I am not a particular fan of Psycho either--though I appreciate it a great deal--but I think that pointedly irrelevant. As Doghouse put it, "Quite apart from the subject of Hitchcock himself, 'it's pretty safe for me to claim what I did about him' would seem an astonishing remark to make about any director's films after having seen only one. I simply don't know what else can be said about such an assumption." Nor, indeed, do I. Primemovermithrax Pejorative wrote: Well, I suppose one could argue that all three were indeed actors--certainly more so than Hawks or Ford, for example. Welles and Huston often acted in others' films, and, if Hitchcock didn't, then he at least acted under his own and others' direction both for his in-film cameos and for his television show introductions and conclusions. |
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Post by mslo79 on Nov 20, 2017 1:12:19 GMT
Doghouse6Well that is the context in that it's all personal opinion basically. obviously there is no definitive way to measure these things because movies are subjective. so if someone claims a movie is overrated or underrated they can basically do it and be correct about it in their opinion. although... about the only time i would question someone saying that is if a movie is already well praised and then they try to claim it's underrated. at that point i would make a argument saying it's hard to be underrated when it's already praised. sure, i guess technically if someone gave a movie a 10/10 and a movies average score is say something like 8.5-9/10 or so then to them it could be underrated (because it's below a 10 or at least below a 9.5/10 since that would round down etc) but looking at the wide scheme of things that 8.5-9/10 is still a VERY high score around here for a average. hence, not underrated. you could even apply that to the reverse although this might start to vary a bit on where someone draws the line but i generally see IMDb wide opinion in that anything 7.x/10 or higher (for the average score) is clearly on the more positive side of things and probably enough to claim something is overrated on some level (if you feel the movie gets too much credit) but i figure once it gets into the 6.x/10 range for the average, since i see that as more of a mixed-opinions range on IMDb(5.x/10 and lower i see as generally negative opinions), then it would be hard to claim a movie is overrated unless of course you think it's total crap etc but even in these cases if a movie is not that praised to begin with then it's more difficult to say it's overrated. at least i would not claim something is overrated until it reaches a certain level of praise either by critics or general word or theater $$$ etc. just some thoughts. but anyways... outside of the context thing i agree with all of what you said there. That's another thing i think is pointless as they are the same to me. because movies are ultimately about how much one enjoys watching them which means those two are the same thing. because trying to make those "best" lists basically just boils down to taking a guess on what people will kiss up to as 'favorite' is the only one that matters because if you personally don't like a movie then it's simply not that good at the end of the day as we all have our opinions on a movie as personal opinions are all that matter and you tally them up and that basically determines whether a movie is more good than bad amongst the masses as those critics seem to try to kiss up to movies because they might have been ahead of their time etc more than just being a movie they personally enjoy watching a lot etc. You make a good point here (normally i would agree looking at things from some sorta math type of perspective) but since i know my taste in movies pretty well and given there is only about 9% of the total movies i have seen (i.e. 196 out of 2,150+) that i score a 7/10 or higher the odds seem to be in my favor in that what i claimed would likely hold had i seen more of his movies (even if i mildly liked all of his other more popular movies etc, i would still be able to claim he's overrated given it seems he's praised by a fair amount of people and in my opinion he's simply not THAT good). but like i said, i did not write off that it's possible i could 'mildly like' (as in say 6/10) some of his movies it's just that it's unlikely i would score them in the 7/10 or higher range (basically anything i score a 7 or higher is amongst My Favorite Movies) and especially 8/10's and higher just given my general experience with movies from the past for a while now as i might stumble into a 7/10 range movie once in a while that i have not seen from the past but finding 8's and higher are borderline non-existent or non-existent. i would have to check but i imagine it's been quite a few years since i last found a movie from the past (from the past as in say a movie more than 10 years old) that i had not seen that i gave a 8/10 on IMDb. could i be wrong on that estimation above?. sure, it's possible, but not likely. with that said... i should get around to seeing at least a couple more of Hitchcock's movies as then i could start to really form more of a stronger opinion that way where as now, given i have only seen one of his movies, it's much easier for people to question my opinion like you and others have with the one movie thing on Hitchcock.
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Post by Nalkarj on Nov 20, 2017 1:42:07 GMT
(OK, OK, I'm breakin' my own rule, but I've just got to say this.) mslo79, I'd like to point out that one (certainly not the only) distinction between Doghouse6's and my position on the one hand and your position on the other is that I don't rate movies out of 10 (or anything), and as far as I know Doghouse doesn't either. (Now, I have participated in polls here just for a goof, but I'm not serious about saying, "I like this as a 5/10, and like this slightly more as a 6/10." It's contrary to every belief I have about evaluating film, literature, or anything else--it's simultaneously too simplistic and too complicated for me.) I haven't counted all the movies I've ever seen. God knows I don't have the time or desire to do so, but--heck--I've probably seen fewer movies than you have. I also like the movies I really like and tend to re-watch that which I know I love (especially around Christmas, in light of how that's coming up soon; a Christmas without It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas in Connecticut is rather unusual for me). Speaking only for myself, I like film, but it certainly doesn't drive my life. That factors into this discussion thus: we're not coming to this from a perspective of "huh, what are the mathematical odds that it will fit into M-Slovak79's list of favorite movies, which he gives a 7/10?" I just--to say the least, that's not me, and that's not my perspective on film. I don't do scores out of 10, I don't usually write lists of "my absolute favorite films." (I tried it once just to see if I could, set myself to a limit of 100, and then found myself easily going past it. Oh, well, not my thing.) We're coming from the perspective (correct me if I'm wrong, Doghouse) of "you can't judge until you've seen them for yourself, and overrated tends to be used erroneously and for snap-judgment purposes." We're talking critically, not mathematically; I don't know what the mathematical odds are that you will or will not like the next Hitchcock picture you see (though I'm happy to read that you're open to seeing another one or more). But--and I mean this as nicely as possible--I just don't think complicated mathematical odds matter one bit. You either like a movie or you don't, sure, but then you have to try to have logical reasoning behind it. And you certainly can't do any of that if you haven't seen it, whatever the math says. |
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Post by darksidebeadle on Nov 20, 2017 2:30:51 GMT
He has great films in ever decade he worked in, he is one of the great masters
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2017 2:35:40 GMT
He was a hack but he was the most talented hack since Edgar Allan Poe.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2017 3:24:45 GMT
He was a hack but he was the most talented hack since Edgar Allan Poe. I've got to believe that is the first time that sentence has been uttered by anyone, anywhere. |
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Post by mslo79 on Nov 21, 2017 11:19:50 GMT
Nalkarj There is nothing too simple or too complicated about it. the 1 through 10 rating scale basically conveys your overall FEELING about a movie because as i have said before movies ultimately come back to some form of emotional response they give you as the ones that do this better tend to stand out more than ones that don't. Yeah, i understand not counting everything you have seen. only reason i know how many movies i have seen is because it was not long after i started to increase the volume of movies i had seen that i made my IMDb account and log stuff as everytime i see a movie ill rate it and then that's basically a way to log movies i have seen. with that said... i am sure there are some movies i have seen (or mostly seen) that i don't have rated but i can't imagine there is more than about 100 movies beyond what i have rated of which my current total of titles rated on IMDb stands at 2,193 but not all of those are movies but nearly everything is so i just claim 2,150+. so counting movies i have seen or pretty much seen in the past before i had my IMDb account i can't imagine there is more than 100 or so movies which probably means i have not seen more than 2,300 tops. but if you count re-watches of movies i have seen before that figure would increase a lot(i would not be surprised if it was roughly doubled) since i tend to re-watch more movies than movies i see for the first time and it's been like this for years now as i know for a fact since i been logging everything i see which is Dec 27th 2011 to date and every single year i have re-watched more movies within those years (this counts ALL movies i see regardless of release year) than movies i have seen for the first time. Also, i found a better way as when you strictly try to limit yourself to only 100 movies it's simply too difficult. so what i do is don't put any limits on things and if i want to have say a Top 50 or Top 100 movies i can basically get close to those in that i just say 'Top 50-ish' or 'Top 100-ish' movies because i can do those in that i have 58 movies i score a solid 8/10 or higher and 107 movies i score a 7.5-8/10 or higher which would make up those two categories and i simply don't try to rank anything precisely other than my 10/10's rank higher(basically more overall enjoyable to watch) than my 9/10's and my 9/10's rank higher than my 8/10's and so on. also, when i made 'My Favorite Movies' list i don't have any specific order as i simply list my 10/10's first then down to my 9/10's and so on as all do do is bunch each grouping together but i don't have any exact order on things outside of that. doing that stuff makes things MUCH easier to make a favorite movies type of list  Yeah, it's not that complicated for me either. no real math involved. it's just i know my tastes etc in movies pretty well to make the claim that i did and it's likely to remain true had i seen more of Hitchcock's movies is all. I agree with the basic "you either like a movie or your don't" as this is where my general scoring system comes into play... -6/10 or higher = Thumbs Up (will re-watch) -5/10 or lower = Thumbs Down (won't re-watch(with rare exception)) (NOTE: but a 5/10 is not a bad score but since a 5/10 range movie for me is ultimately not worth re-watching i consider it a negative score) that's pretty simple for me as when i type of all of these numbers on movies it might appear complicated but it's pretty simple as when you break things down to very simple terms movies are ultimately one of those two categories for me. also, there really ain't no logical reasoning on why i like or dislike a movie as it's all about a emotional response/feeling a movie gives me and based on that feeling it's not that difficult for me to translate it into a number on the 1 through 10 scale especially once you have seen many movies you can tell about where a movie will score as when i rate a movie it's in comparison to everything i have seen as i don't try to compare to a genre to inflate a movies score but comparing to everything makes more sense since when scoring movies when up against everything i have seen, when a movie scores high, it's really something special. basically that 1 through 10 scale tells someone what i think of a movie in a very basic sense because since i don't hand out high ratings 24/7 like some people seem to do around here that means when i do score a movie higher it's something special for me. to be clear i never restrict a movies rating just to limit the number of 10/10's or 9/10's etc i have given out, it's just simply that there are not many movies i enjoy enough to warrant those very high ratings is all. sure, Movie A and Movie B could both score a 7/10 but it's possible, while i like both about equally overall, that they could provoke different types of feelings/emotional responses. personally i think feeling/emotional response is likely the core behind how most people rate movies because that's basically at the core of ones overall enjoyment of a movie.
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