Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 12 March

Fifty greatest films #31: Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

What I know about Alfred Hitchcock really only comes from two sources.

In the 2015 documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut, Kent Jones uses eight days of interviews that the French director François Truffaut did for his 1966 book (also called Hitchcock/Truffaut) to tell the story of the legendary filmmaker. Hitchcock thought of himself as an engineer or architect, a constructor of popular entertainments, but in the interviews Truffaut makes the case that he is a considerable artist and you can see on Hitchcock’s face the realisation that Truffaut is correct but that it’s too late in his career for him to do anything with that information.

By this time, Hitchcock has become something of a caricature of himself – a brand – and while his later films are always interesting, neither audiences or critics were taking him very seriously.

The other source is Sacha Gervasi’s 2013 film, Hitchcock, which served neither its subject or its lead actors terribly well – Anthony Hopkins in a fat suit and Helen Mirren under-used as the secret power behind the great man, his wife and editor Alma Reville.

That film is ostensibly the story of the making of Psycho, the film that changed the world of horror movies by bringing the showmanship techniques of the roadshow independents into the mainstream.

Hitchcock was not popular with his studio, Paramount, at the time with two of his projects being cancelled in pre-production. Frustrated, Hitchcock bought the rights to Robert Bloch’s pulp sensation (according to legend, buying all the outstanding copies of the book, too, so audiences wouldn’t know the twist) and went to work with the energy of someone with a point to prove.

He used a cheaper television crew (from his show Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and existing backlot sets. He was determined to show the suits that he knew more about the business than they did and the result was the most profitable (and probably best known) film of his career.

It’s impossible now to divorce Psycho, the film, from its enduring cultural impact. Elements that were revolutionary at the time – the implied violence of the shower scene, the shocking reveal of the truth about Norman Bates – have become clichés. Hitchcock’s skills deliver the tension – shot by shot and scene by scene – but it’s also a playful film, relishing the unexpected twists and turns, the audience having its expectations confounded time and again.

Do you need a plot summary? Secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals a lot of money from her real estate agent boss and leaves town. In a rainstorm, she holes up at the remote Bates Motel, not realising that she won’t be leaving. When the authorities trace her to the motel, mild-mannered Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) tries to throw them off the trail but the net is closing in.

Editor’s note: Over the past couple of years, I have been on a quest to watch (or rewatch) the top 50 films in Sight & Sound’s 2022 list of the greatest films of all time. The films from 50 to 36 were written up for RNZ Widescreen and, when they told me that this project was a bit too obscure for them, I moved it here.

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Where to watch Psycho