ecarle
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Post by ecarle on Feb 25, 2017 21:02:14 GMT
I disagree. Like said in comments above it was an interesting experiment, and it makes for an interesting maybe necessary debate about 'what makes a film good', and what elements are crucial to make a good film.
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This is the nature of the "experimental" quality of Van Sant's Psycho. It was a box office flop on wide release and perhaps would have done better if just released to art houses with advertising that CALLED it an experiment.
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While there are some differences, the script is essentially the same, as are the dialogue, characters and cinematography. So, from a purely objective point of view the two versions should be equally good.
But most people will say they are not. Why is that?
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And THAT is the nature of the experiment. Van Sant hoped that he could re-create the greatness of Psycho. But the experiment failed. So it succeeded -- because he tried, he took the experiment "all the way."
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Let's argue that the performances are inferior to the original, does this then imply that the cast is what gave the original its ultimate quality? Are Stefano's script, Hitchcock directional choices etc. not sufficient to make a really good movie?
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Great question. As Hitchcock himself might have grudgingly admitted, one reason Psycho IS great is because of great performances by a perfectly cast Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. Vaughn and Heche were fairly good actors...but very wrongly cast. Same goes for William H. Macy.
That said, Van Sant's Psycho is, IMHO, a GOOD movie. Because it has a great script and Hitchcock's great directorial choices and those made for at least a good movie.
Denzel Washington has been in a couple of remakes -- The Manchurian Candidate and The Magnificent Seven -- and he says, "Look, they remake Hamlet all the time. If it good enough for Shakespeare, why not movies?"
That's fair as far as it goes, but with a movie like "Psycho" the TIME IT WAS MADE seeps through every frame. Its not just a 1960 movie. Its a movie ABOUT 1960...Eisenhower giving way to JFK; the changing sexual morality, the coming of super interstate highways to render small towns obsolete..and a simmering violence that was about to explode nationwide.
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I am not saying this is the case, but it is Van Sant's Psycho that really put me on the path of trying to figure out why a movie impressed me, and try to reason beyond just saying it's good or bad.
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Well, that's what the experiment was meant to convey.
Remember this, too: the movie is in color(the original Psycho was in black and white) and, crucially, THEY CHANGED THE HOUSE. That seemed fatal to me. Its like showing us a gigantic bowling ball and calling it The Washington Monument.
As to the contention above, "they never should have made it" -- I can agree to that, too.
Imagine how enraged people would be if we got a new "Godfather" with new actors trying to be the stars that Brando, Pacino, Caan, Duvall , and Cazalle were. Impossible! This was the case with Psycho...and Psycho is up in that rarefied air where only big classics reside.
I daresay Psycho is the highest-ranked classic ever to get a remake, other than, maybe The Wiz.
They probably shouldn't have made it...but they did. Van Sant sacrificed a lot of clout and respect to make it. And so the experiment exists. I consider Van Sant's Psycho a VERY important film in movie history.
Oh, one more thing: what was "for the very first time" in 1960 -- shocking bloody slasher knife murders -- was old hat in 1998. Nobody screamed at the new Psycho, everybody screamed at the 1960 Psycho...in 1960. |
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ecarle
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Post by ecarle on Feb 25, 2017 21:14:02 GMT
Some odds and ends on posts above mine:
I don't seem able to reply directly to posts "way up there" , here. If I can be directed to, I welcome the advice.
I wanted to comment on:
ONE: The photo from Gubbio showing the massive "side of a building" poster of Psycho which adorned, I believe, the DeMille Theater in New York City in 1960. However small and low-budget Psycho may have been in the production, that building-sized poster -- with electric lights that turned on in various ways -- made Psycho very much a "BIG " movie.
Its interesting to think of a story set in backwater rural Northern California getting a poster the size of a building all the way on the East Coast of America.
And: somewhere on YouTube, there is a shot of the lights on this poster "doing their thing" on a night in Times Square in 1960, including a lightning bolt effect. Again, Psycho was BIG.
TWO: I remain fascinated by the "German uncut version" of Psycho and the three clips that go with it. An issue for me: two of the clips seem "unassailable." This is definitely footage that is not in the current DVD/cable versions of Psycho: (1) More of Janet Leigh's bare back and breast top as she takes the bra down in front of her and (2) An extended shot of Perkins blood stained hands as he moves into the bathroom. Uncontrovertible.
Its the footage of Mother's knife in the air over Arbogast that seems a little suspect to me. There is a "glitch" in the film that suggest the "one stab" in the DVD version of Psycho has simply been "repeated" in some way to create three stabs. But I stared at this clip for awhile and...I'm not sure. It could be NEW stabs that were cut out. The way I figure it, now, if the two other clips are clearly genuine...this one must be, too.
I salute the poster who shared this with us. Definitely NOT a liar!
PS. The search for the missing footage began, I believe, when someone noticed that the still frame of Janet Leigh pulling off her bra in "Hitchock/Truffaut" had all that bare back visible. THAT sent somebody searching for the footage in question. |
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rick220
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Post by rick220 on Feb 25, 2017 21:18:17 GMT
Good thoughtful points, thanks.
I would love to see a remake. In fact I am all for remakes, exactly because what Denzel Washington said. A good story deserves a retelling. Directors and actors should have the opportunity to work with classic material. It's not a competition, it's about different perspectives, an alternative focus. How would GODFATHER 2 work out with more focus on Fredo? I'd love to see that.
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Post by geode on Feb 25, 2017 23:38:38 GMT
I actually like the Freudian psycho-babble, very much a time capsule of the movie's day. The actor who delivered it, Simon Oakland, did a masterful job of delivering. I find his performance hypnotic. So did the director apparently, as when the scene was finished Mr. Hitchcock walked over to Oakland, shook his hand and said "thank you, you just saved my movie" (or words to that effect). But yes, a lot of people are divided where that scene is concerned. I agree with you about Simon Oakland in this film, one element I liked better than other more celebrated aspects. Actually this is one of my least favorite Hitchcock films even though I acknowledge there is real talent in play in Hitchcock's direction and some of the performances. |
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Gubbio
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Post by Gubbio on Feb 26, 2017 12:39:24 GMT
"ecarle," Check your messages in the Top Banner.
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carolynk
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Post by carolynk on Feb 26, 2017 13:18:09 GMT
I just recently rewatched the original Psycho, and it really hit me how scary and creepy the movie really was, and still is, to this day.
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ecarle
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Post by ecarle on Feb 26, 2017 15:31:07 GMT
I'm old enough to have seen it in the theater when it was first released,
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That makes you a treasure to any Psycho board! I think those of us who were not old enough to see it(me) and others who weren't even born yet(zillions) have a certain yearning to have been there and to have lived through its heyday.
I was alive then, but not old enough to experience the release of Psycho. That DID happen for me, over a decade later, with The Godfather, The Exorcist, Jaws, and Star Wars...and even with those I find myself meeting younger folks who weren't there and envy those of us who were.
Still...to have seen Psycho on first release!
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Do you recall how that worked? Did you wait in a long line?
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Loved Perkin's performance and the great score by Bernard Herrmann.
Not my favorite, but a brilliant Hitchcock film, undeniably terrifying.
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Do you remember folks screaming in the theater?
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(Maybe not if you see it for the first time at home; not sure and I'll never know.)
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I can't imagine anyone see it for the first time at home getting that same feeling. I will note that I once watched Psycho all alone at someone's house that I was sitting, late at night...and it DID kinda work the way it was supposed to. I was tense in the watching of it. |
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ecarle
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Post by ecarle on Feb 26, 2017 15:32:17 GMT
Gubbio Avatar
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2 hours ago
Quote like
"ecarle," Check your messages in the Top Banner.
Done. Understood. Probably still not ready to learn.....but thank you!
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Gubbio
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Post by Gubbio on Feb 26, 2017 16:05:53 GMT
Done. Understood. Probably still not ready to learn.....but thank you! Glad you understood. (I'm just happy you found my message!)    |
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Mr_K_Pratt
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Post by Mr_K_Pratt on Feb 27, 2017 17:58:15 GMT
I just recently rewatched the original Psycho, and it really hit me how scary and creepy the movie really was, and still is, to this day. It is, especially when watched under the right conditions. Late at night, alone and with the lights low or off! "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..." |
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Post by telegonus on Feb 27, 2017 20:02:11 GMT
I wonder if anyone here is old enough to remember just how big a deal Psycho was in its time. It was literally the movie of the year in terms of box-office, which speaks volumes, and I remember the trailer for it but was too young for the buzz. I was old enough to remember the buzz for The Birds, and there was a lot of it.
The mass media were different then, though. When big horrors hit years later they got more coverage than I think Psycho did. In the case of non-horrors that enjoyed comparable success,--The Godfather comes to mind--it's like everyone who was in the movie at all became, for fifteen minutes or so a superstar, appeared in Merv and Mike, got cast in other major films.
In the case of horror, The Exorcist was also a huge moneymaker and did, for a few months anyway, kick off a few fads and trends. It also led to a series of other, similarly theme modern horrors. Psycho didn't seem to have that big an effect. It didn't catapult its stars into the front ranks, and while it influenced B and exploitation type films it didn't appear to have much effect at the A level, at least not initially.
One possible major influence: the Thriller TV series. It was already in the works before Psycho's release, however it premiered as a crime and mystery series, not a horror show. The move toward horror began mid-season, 1960-61, and maybe this came about due to a Psycho influence. Psycho seems to me a near stand alone phenomenon, a film with, in its day, no real follow-ups or imitations (A level, that is).
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swanstep
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Post by swanstep on Mar 2, 2017 14:10:25 GMT
@telegonous. I think there was definitely A-level follow-up to Psycho. Consider for example Blake Edwards's Experiment in Terror (1962), Aldrich's Baby Jane (1962). I'd say that these are unthinkable without Psycho's enormous success, and are exactly equivalent to Star Trek and Superman films etc. being green-lit after Star Wars. And if you cast your net a little broader then borderline A-listers like Sam Fuller and future A-listers like Polanski turn to horror/madness in the early '60s. This is no coincidence I think. Beyond that Psycho really did blow a lot of Hollywood insiders' minds. People like Dmytryk and Preminger make more violent films after Psycho (and conversely people like Ford and Capra basically decide it's time to retire because they weren't prepared to head in that direction themselves). And everything from rom-coms to Disney films to Jerry Lewis movies in the early 1960s show signs of learning fast from Psycho on technical levels if you look closely. See, for example, this old blog post of mine on Psycho's visual DNA turning up in Breakfast at Tiffany's: tinyurl.com/mqentbd |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2017 22:32:18 GMT
Now this is one of the few movies that I actually like.
It isn't like the modern horrors which pander to left-wing, PC, feminist imbeciles. This movie creates tension and atmosphere and the payoff is so creepy and very effective even all these years later. One of my favourite movbies and some of the sequals are pretty decent too. The remake was atrocious as is the TV show Bates Motel, but this movie remains of of the most effective in the genre.
Despite being parodied and imitated to death, that shower scene still gives me chills. Especially when you know it's Norman doing it.
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ecarle
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Post by ecarle on Mar 3, 2017 2:25:38 GMT
I wonder if anyone here is old enough to remember just how big a deal Psycho was in its time. It was literally the movie of the year in terms of box-office, which speaks volumes,
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Especially for the career of Alfred Hitchcock. He had a hit TV show and had a lot of hit movies, but surprisingly few of them landed in the Top Ten of any given year. In the fifties, his films I Confess, The Trouble With Harry, The WRong Man, and Vertigo were not flops, but not big box office. Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest were. Which was a fine track record.
But Psycho lands almost at Number One. Some say Ben-Hur, a 1959 release, topped it. Other lists show Disney's(natch) Swiss Family Robinson did. But anyway you cut it, Hitchcock's "cheap little horror movie" made enough to make him $5 million personally in 1960 dollars(add a few zeros today.)
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and I remember the trailer for it but was too young for the buzz.
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I remember no buzz for Psycho in 1960. Oddly I DO remember buzz -- and trailers -- for William Castle's 13 Ghosts the same summer. I must not have understood what the word Psycho meant. Or something.
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I was old enough to remember the buzz for The Birds, and there was a lot of it.
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Yes there was. As a kid, I took The Birds for a Godzilla/Them sort of movie, and my parents took me accordingly. Didn't scare me at all! (Except for the farmer with the pecked out eyes, but I was warned to cover MY eyes and not watch.) I realized later that The Birds had extra buzz as "Hitchcock's next after Psycho."
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The mass media were different then, though. When big horrors hit years later they got more coverage than I think Psycho did. In the case of non-horrors that enjoyed comparable success,--The Godfather comes to mind--it's like everyone who was in the movie at all became, for fifteen minutes or so a superstar, appeared in Merv and Mike, got cast in other major films.
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Yes, Psycho came out a crucial ten years or so to soon for a burgeoning, youth-driven movie culture that was, ironically enough, based heavily on now-grown kids who loved Psycho. And THEY took over the filmmaking AND advertising business.
I"ve seen no evidence anywhere of this, but I wonder if Hitchcock, Perkins and Leigh "made the rounds" of what few TV talk shows there were back then. Carson didn't show up until 1962. So we're talking Jack Paar or Steve Allen maybe. I recall The Birds getting a lot of cover on the Today Show...but Psycho may have been too sick for mornings.
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In the case of horror, The Exorcist was also a huge moneymaker and did, for a few months anyway, kick off a few fads and trends. It also led to a series of other, similarly theme modern horrors. Psycho didn't seem to have that big an effect. It didn't catapult its stars into the front ranks,
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Weirdly, it seems that Tony Perkins and Janet Leigh found their careers rather hurt by the film -- short term. He was considered too weird for American leads(off to Europe he went) and she found herself "peaked" and aging even as a beauty. She had The Manchurian Candidate, Bye Bye Birdie and Harper ahead of her...but not much after that.
Came the 80's and ever after, however, Tony and Janet were enshrined and feted for Psycho. And he made the sequels.
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and while it influenced B and exploitation type films it didn't appear to have much effect at the A level, at least not initially.
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I will take swanstep's point elsewhere that a fair number of "A" pictures followed the lead of Psycho..but few of them were willing to match it in the violence of the murders or the sickness of the backstory. Greg Peck, announcing his production of "Cape Fear," for instance, promised that it would not be as violent as Psycho. (It wasn't, but in its sexual menace by Robert Mitchum of adult and teenage women...it was kinda worse.)
Robert Aldrich took Psycho as the inspiration for Baby Jane and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Only the second one trafficked in Psycho-type violence, though.
I always felt that in 1960, Psycho was as much of a creative dead end as "influential." Nobody could quite get all the elements that right again(horror, drama, a touch of comedy.) And nobody could really beat the murder scenes.
In short, the slasher film slowly drifted out of the American studio system, and returned to the Bs. William Castle, in making Homicidal and Strait-Jacket, rather ruined Psycho anyway. THOSE movies are what Psycho would have been without Hitchcock's quality control on script, acting, production.
But there can be no doubt that Psycho "opened the gates" for more violent and provocative thrillers -- often with big stars: Experiment in Terror(where Mancini's music does the scaring and the violence is minimal); The Manchurian Candidate, Charade, Mirage, all the way to Wait Until Dark(maximum screams from minimum blood.)
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One possible major influence: the Thriller TV series. It was already in the works before Psycho's release, however it premiered as a crime and mystery series, not a horror show. The move toward horror began mid-season, 1960-61, and maybe this came about due to a Psycho influence.
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Agred there. Thriller was more Psycho-ish than Hitchcock's own show( and used the Psycho house as a prop more often.)
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Psycho seems to me a near stand alone phenomenon, a film with, in its day, no real follow-ups or imitations (A level, that is).
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I'll engage swanstep a bit elsewhere on this, but I tend to agree with the above. Movies got more violent and provocative, but a "new Psycho" never really appeared. Aldrich's "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte," for instance, despite the meat cleaver murder of Bruce Dern, was way too overlong and overplotted and silly to match Psycho as a work of art.
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ecarle
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Post by ecarle on Mar 3, 2017 2:36:52 GMT
I think there was definitely A-level follow-up to Psycho. Consider for example Blake Edwards's Experiment in Terror (1962), Aldrich's Baby Jane (1962). I'd say that these are unthinkable without Psycho's enormous success, and are exactly equivalent to Star Trek and Superman films etc. being green-lit after Star Wars.
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I'll agree with that, swanstep, even if elsewhere I agree with telegonus that Psycho was a bit of a dead end that didn't really generate enough copycats (at least of true quality.)
My guess is that even as major studios greenlit more violent fare and big stars agreed to act in such fare(I'll use Charade with Grant and Hepburn as a key example)...studios were not REALLY comfortable going all the way where Psycho went. There is no murder as violent as the shower murder in Charade. And for the most part...heroines went back to surviving their movies.
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And if you cast your net a little broader then borderline A-listers like Sam Fuller and future A-listers like Polanski turn to horror/madness in the early '60s. This is no coincidence I think.
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Agreed. Did you know that Sam Fuller's film "Shock Corridor" had its script copyrighted as "Psycho"(before Hitchcock started work on his film.) Hitch's lawyers said nope, Sam, the Bloch novel had that title first.
The print ads for Repulsion quoted one critic: "Makes Psycho look like a Sunday school picnic." Perhaps -- but Repulsion played the art circuit and lacked the "boo!" stagings of Psycho.
Still...no Psycho, no Repulsion.
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Beyond that Psycho really did blow a lot of Hollywood insiders' minds.
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Walt Disney and Jerry Lewis, for two, were Hollywoodians who attacked Hitchcock(in person, in Jerry's case) for making this "sick, disgusting film."
But evidently a lot of other directors were more inspired.
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People like Dmytryk and Preminger make more violent films after Psycho
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Yes. Dmytryk's 1965 film Mirage went out on a double-bill WITH Psycho.
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(and conversely people like Ford and Capra basically decide it's time to retire because they weren't prepared to head in that direction themselves).
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True. Capra in particular railed, if not at Psycho specifically, at the type of movie it was ("Rape! Murder! Perversion!" his autobio screamed about the 60's movies he hated, and hey, he had a point. Hitchcock was John Waters in some ways.)
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And everything from rom-coms to Disney films to Jerry Lewis movies in the early 1960s show signs of learning fast from Psycho on technical levels if you look closely.
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Agreed. I've always seen the transparent but visceral effect of Keenan Wynn's bad guy bouncing up and down into the sky wearing his "flubber shoes" in The Absent Minded Professor(1961, one year after Psycho) to be a rough analogy to Arbogast's fall. Hitchcock and Disney both knew from "artistic you-are-there fake effects." The process shot may have been fake...but we FELT the effect.
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See, for example, this old blog post of mine on Psycho's visual DNA turning up in Breakfast at Tiffany's: tinyurl.com/mqentbd
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That's great, and it makes sense. Blake Edwards was at Paramount and had a Psycho star(Martin Balsam) on his film; influences had to be found.
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Now, will I/can I choose?
a. Psycho DID inspire Hollywood to make more such films.
b. Psycho did NOT inspire Hollywood to make more such films.
I'll choose (a) but with a twist: nobody really made Psycho again. The proof: none of the films til The Exorcist came close to its blockbuster earnings as a shocker.
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rick220
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Post by rick220 on Mar 3, 2017 8:44:09 GMT
It isn't like the modern horrors which pander to left-wing, PC, feminist imbeciles. It's comments like these which led to the ultimate demise of the IMDb boards. I don't care which wing people are affiliated with, but can we please avoid ad hominems like this in the (classic) movie boards? Thank you. |
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Mr_K_Pratt
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Post by Mr_K_Pratt on Mar 10, 2017 20:47:48 GMT
Just a heads up about another board that seems to have everything archived. link |
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Post by telegonus on Mar 11, 2017 9:11:09 GMT
@telegonous. I think there was definitely A-level follow-up to Psycho. Consider for example Blake Edwards's Experiment in Terror (1962), Aldrich's Baby Jane (1962). I'd say that these are unthinkable without Psycho's enormous success, and are exactly equivalent to Star Trek and Superman films etc. being green-lit after Star Wars. And if you cast your net a little broader then borderline A-listers like Sam Fuller and future A-listers like Polanski turn to horror/madness in the early '60s. This is no coincidence I think. Beyond that Psycho really did blow a lot of Hollywood insiders' minds. People like Dmytryk and Preminger make more violent films after Psycho (and conversely people like Ford and Capra basically decide it's time to retire because they weren't prepared to head in that direction themselves). And everything from rom-coms to Disney films to Jerry Lewis movies in the early 1960s show signs of learning fast from Psycho on technical levels if you look closely. See, for example, this old blog post of mine on Psycho's visual DNA turning up in Breakfast at Tiffany's: tinyurl.com/mqentbdBelatedly, and true, Swanstep (not sure how I missed your response  ): indeed Experiment In Terror was very much in the Psycho mode. Aldrich's Baby Jane, too; and both did well. I don't think it's a stretch that the Freudian themed Manchurian Candidate, though adapted from a novel, owed something to Psycho as well. The casting of Janet Leigh is significant. From the same year (man, 1962 was a big year for super spooky mainstream thrillers), Cape Fear, which also featured a Psycho alum in Martin Balsam. |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 11, 2017 17:09:09 GMT
@telegonous. I think there was definitely A-level follow-up to Psycho. Consider for example Blake Edwards's Experiment in Terror (1962), Aldrich's Baby Jane (1962). I'd say that these are unthinkable without Psycho's enormous success, and are exactly equivalent to Star Trek and Superman films etc. being green-lit after Star Wars. And if you cast your net a little broader then borderline A-listers like Sam Fuller and future A-listers like Polanski turn to horror/madness in the early '60s. This is no coincidence I think. Beyond that Psycho really did blow a lot of Hollywood insiders' minds. People like Dmytryk and Preminger make more violent films after Psycho (and conversely people like Ford and Capra basically decide it's time to retire because they weren't prepared to head in that direction themselves). And everything from rom-coms to Disney films to Jerry Lewis movies in the early 1960s show signs of learning fast from Psycho on technical levels if you look closely. See, for example, this old blog post of mine on Psycho's visual DNA turning up in Breakfast at Tiffany's: tinyurl.com/mqentbd, which also featured a Psycho alum in Martin Balsam. And another: offscreen Psycho alum Bernard Herrmann. |
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Post by shawshanked on Mar 11, 2017 20:32:14 GMT
Are any of the sequels worth checking out?
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): indeed Experiment In Terror was very much in the Psycho mode. Aldrich's Baby Jane, too; and both did well. I don't think it's a stretch that the Freudian themed Manchurian Candidate, though adapted from a novel, owed something to Psycho as well. The casting of Janet Leigh is significant. From the same year (man, 1962 was a big year for super spooky mainstream thrillers), Cape Fear, which also featured a Psycho alum in Martin Balsam.
