September 2003

Psycho

• Starring: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, John McIntire, Simon Oakland, Frank Albertson
• Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
• Theatrical release: 1960
• DVD release: 2003
• Video: Widescreen (anamorphic)
• Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
• Released by: Universal Studios

François Truffaut: Would you say that Psycho is an experimental film?

Alfred Hitchcock: Possibly. My main satisfaction is that the film had an effect on the audiences, and I consider that very important. I don’t care about the subject matter; I don’t care about the acting; but I do care about the pieces of the film and the photography and the soundtrack and all the technical ingredients that made the audience scream. I feel it’s tremendously satisfying for us to be able to use the cinematic art to achieve something of a mass emotion. And with Psycho, we most definitely achieved this. It wasn’t a message that stirred the audiences, nor was it a great performance or their enjoyment of the novel. They were aroused by pure film.

François Truffaut: Yes, that’s true.

Alfred Hitchcock: That’s why I take pride in the fact that Psycho, more than any other of my pictures, is a film that belongs to filmmakers, to you and me.

A little history

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s professional career was at an all-time high. In the prior ten years he had made some of the best suspense movies in film history, including North By Northwest, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, and Strangers on a Train. Alfred Hitchcock Presents was one of the top-rated shows on television. Seemingly, everything he touched became a hit.

After all the success, Hitchcock was searching for a new challenge, a way of bypassing the brain and hooking straight into the audience’s fearful subconscious. He wanted to transcend simple stories and use all the knowledge he had gained over the years to scare people with his photography, editing, scene selections, and choice of music. Hitchcock found a book that he thought might serve as a palette for his concept: Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, Psycho, based loosely on the life of Ed Gein.

For those unfamiliar with Ed Gein, he is the basis of dozens of films, including Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. His M.O. was to rob fresh graves, skin the corpses, and to run around his house wearing their flesh as if it was clothing. He also made unique furniture, including chairs with arms, legs, and feet that had been anthropomorphized with troubling authenticity. Deeply deranged, Gein spent years in tiny Plainfield, Wisconsin, playing his ghastly games and never attracting a single concern from his neighbors. In 1957, the grave robbing lost its allure, and Gein started killing local women. By the time of the second murder, Gein was bragging to people at the local bar that he had the women at his house. The law-enforcement officers went to check and found the most grotesque house of horrors imaginable. I won’t go into the gory details, but for those interested in how the characters of Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb all came from one crazy human being, do a Google search on "Ed Gein."

Hitchcock was fascinated by the sleazy, pulp-fiction aspects of Bloch’s story, thought it would fit nicely with the new challenges he was setting for himself, and decided to option Psycho for a movie. But had Bloch known Hitchcock was interested in filming the novel, his price would have gone through the roof -- just as yours would if you found out the guy trying to option your little sci-fi novel was George Lucas. So Hitchcock had an intermediary approach Bloch and offer $5000 for the rights. Bloch negotiated hard (or so he thought) and got $9500.

Hitchcock had just finished making the big-budget North By Northwest. Instead of taking that crew and making another blockbuster, Hitchcock decided to film Psycho using the crew from his TV show. Because part of Hitchcock’s pulp-fiction vision was to make the film look like TV, he filmed it on the Universal back lot, financed it with his own money, and shot it on a budget of $800,000 -- cheap even in 1960. Psycho made $15 million in its first release and has continued to make money every year since.

Hitchcock filled his cast with promising young people and experienced character actors. The biggest name was one in a long line of Hitchcock’s gorgeous blonde protagonists, Janet Leigh (mother of Jamie Lee Curtis). Leigh was a good actress with an appealing look, and it helped that she had the courage (by the standards of the day) to let people think she was naked in the shower. Future ambassador to Mexico John Gavin played Leigh’s wooden lover, and the central role was awarded to 28-year-old Anthony Perkins as mama’s boy Norman Bates.

As usual, Hitchcock had everything meticulously planned before anyone set foot on the set. By the first day of filming, everything was ready -- the "pieces of the film" he mentioned to Truffaut were already clear in his mind. The centerpiece would be a 45-second scene involving more than 70 camera setups. Psycho was made quickly, coming in on time and under budget.

When Psycho was released on March 8, 1960, even the cast had not seen the final cut. Hitchcock had forbidden any previews, for fear the details would get out to the public. Cast, crew, studio bigwigs -- all had to see it in the theater. When the power-wielding critics found out that they would have to sit in a theater with the hoi polloi, they were furious; many of them panned the film. The viewing public had to deal with Hitchcock’s notions as well. He didn’t want anyone strolling into the theater after Janet Leigh’s demise -- uniformed guards prevented anyone from entering after the film had started. He set up life-size cardboard cutouts of himself with a message attached, instructing viewers to keep the plot details to themselves.

All this secrecy was important: In 1960, Psycho was considered a feral, vicious, salacious film. From the opening scenes, in which Leigh is lounging around in her underwear, to the brutal shower scene, audiences were not prepared for such sex and ghoulishness. Psycho created an uproar that viewers in the 21st century might not understand. As Stagecoach was for westerns and Blade Runner was for sci-fi noir, Psycho was so powerful that no subsequent horror film has been able to escape its influence. After a four-decade diet of its bastard stepchildren -- Halloween, Friday the 13th, most of Brian DePalma’s films -- today’s audiences have been inured to Psycho’s original intensity. But in 1960, everything about Psycho was new, daring, and dangerous. Hitchcock broke all the rules.

Hitchcock’s genius

Imagine Steven Spielberg hiring Cameron Diaz to star in a film, then killing her in the first 40 minutes. Or imagine George Lucas deciding to make an indie, low-budget film using 35mm black-and-white film. How about M. Night Shyamalan making a snuff film? The risks Hitchcock took are similar. Psycho’s greatness is built on the fact that Hitchcock took these chances as a personal challenge, then breezed through them with cocky self-assurance.

To get an idea of Hitchcock’s genius, and to see what he meant when he said that audiences were "aroused by pure film," watch the shower scene. No one can deny its frightening power, even today. Now, watch the scene again, using the Step function on your remote control to step through the scene, shot by shot. You’ll see that Hitchcock left everything to the viewer’s imagination. You might think you were seeing detailed nudity and knives ripping flesh, but if you watch closely, you never see the knife touch skin, you never see a nipple or a pubic hair, and you never see any blood other than the dark liquid (actually, Bosco) rushing down the drain.

What you do see is the visceral power of the knife breaking the water, the cold, blank body language of the killer, the look of abject fear on Janet Leigh’s face, and then the look of blank amazement as her life slips away. Hitchcock told Truffaut, "It took us seven days to shoot that scene, and there were 70 camera setups for 45 seconds of footage. We had a torso especially made up for that scene, with blood that was supposed to splurt away from the knife, but I didn’t use it. I used a live girl instead, a naked model that stood in for Janet Leigh. . . . Naturally, the knife never touched the body; it was all done in montage."

Hitchcock originally wanted to do the scene without music. Without music, the scene is grisly. But composer Bernard Herrmann was convinced that music was necessary, so he wrote a piece and played it for Hitchcock. As soon as he heard it, Hitchcock changed his mind. If you’ve ever wanted to understand how much good music can contribute to a film, check the new DVD edition’s bonus materials, where you can watch the shower scene with and without music. What is merely grisly without music becomes terrifying with it.

The DVD

Universal’s DVD features a clear picture and distinct sound. The extras are superb, crowned by a 95-minute "Making of" feature nicked from the 1998 laserdisc release. It features just about everyone involved in the picture who was still alive at the time, and all have fascinating stories to tell. We also get Hitchcock’s zany seven-minute theatrical trailer, re-release trailers, a newsreel from the premiere, promo photos, storyboards, and pictures of the lobby cards and posters. The best extra is the shower scene, with and without Bernard Herrmann’s disquieting music.

I wish a commentary track had been included. Directors Brian DePalma and John Carpenter, both serious students of Hitchcock’s art, could have provided keen directors’ perspectives on Psycho. I wonder who owns the tapes of Truffaut interviewing Hitchcock for Truffaut’s book Hitchcock. I would love to hear their conversations matched up with the scenes discussed. Maybe on the next release.

Final thoughts

Psycho changed film. It paved the way for every subsequent horror movie, and created the slasher genre. Psycho proved that little indie films could be well made and make serious money, and that pulp fiction and exploitation films had an entertaining place in cinema.

More than anything, Psycho proved that a director with Hitchcock’s talent and vision could make an artistic statement with limited tools. Psycho is among Hitchcock’s best -- which, by definition, means it belongs in every serious film collection.

...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com

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