Arbogast’s murder is done masterfully, and the suspense builds until the sheer terror of Mother's face. How can we, as the audience be so appalled by the murder and then eagerly hope that the murder isn’t discovered later?) (This scene, by the way, is perhaps one of the most puzzling of all movies. We watch anxiously as the car stops sinking in the river and sigh with relief as it finally disappears. #PSYCHO 1998 DVD UNBOXING MOVIE#With the main character murdered, the movie would have ended weakly. Most directors-if not all-would have fumbled this. Then Hitch smoothly directed the audience’s sympathy toward Norman Bates as he comes in and sees what “mother” has done. The stabbing scene in the shower is vicious, ruthless, cruel and sudden. “Mother…what’s the phrase? Mother’s not herself today.” Norman says, “It’s stuffy in here.” Then, “I think we’re all a little crazy sometimes.” It’s loaded, simply loaded with double meaning. And then, in perhaps one of the most significant scenes of the movie, Marion has dinner with Norman. But we try not to dwell on our losses,” he says. “Since the highway closed, we aren’t that busy. “Twelve rooms, twelve vacancies,” Norman says when she gets there. Hitch does it so well that our sympathy remains with Marion as she’s chased and haunted by a cop and finally stops at the Bates Motel. For the first thirty or forty minutes of the movie, we’re lead on a wild goose chase, watching as Marion Crane steals forty thousand dollars and escapes. That’s all.” And that’s a great reason by itself. When asked why he did Psycho, he said something like, “Oh, I just the suddenness of the murder. So thus we are practically thrust into Psycho. There are stuffed birds on the walls, the inspector is talking about birds and bird watching, and the word is used many times. In one of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes-which he himself directed-“Banquo’s Chair”, the theme of birds and bird-watching comes up repetitively. Robert Walker, cast against his usual type, plays a frightening, seduct ive and persuasive murderer who is dominated by his mother.Īnd in North By Northwest (1957?), we meet another man who, while not dominated by his mother, is definitely influenced him. With Strangers on a Train (1951), we have another mother-dominated character. This is made obvious when she persuades him to poison the woman he loves. Played by Claude Rains, the character-who is the head of some spy organization-is dominated by his mother. Then, in Hitch’s 1947 movie Notorious, meet another man dominated by his mother. Whenever he appears in the movie, he is always asked, “How’s your mother, Herb?” “Middling.” Herb, the father’s friend, is a weak, shy fellow. In Shadow of a Doubt (1943), another of Hitch’s masterpieces, we are first introduced to a character who is dominated by his mother. It is the culmination of all his great movies up to this point. Though it is now considered prototypical Hitchcock, its setting, pace, and emphasis on terror were major departures for the director at the time, coming after the more classically grand NORTH BY NORTHWEST. PSYCHO was initially received by audiences with shock and amazement-and it still terrifies today. But Momma doesn't like loose women, so the stage is set for this classic tale of horror-and one of the most famous scenes in film history. The young, well-intentioned Bates is introduced to the audience when Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a blonde on the run with stolen money, checks in for the night. Bates presides over an out-of-the-way motel under the domineering specter of his mother. However, Hitchcock's black-and-white original, featuring Anthony Perkins's haunting characterization of lonely motel keeper Norman Bates, has never been equaled. Alfred Hitchcock's choreography of elements in PSYCHO is considered so perfect it inspired a shot-by-shot remake by Gus Van Zant in 1998. Credited with inventing the genre of the modern horror film, PSYCHO has had its share of sequels and imitators, none of which diminishes the achievement of this shocking and complex horror thriller.
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