Thursday 2 February 2017

bates motel

One of the documentaries premiered at the Sundance Film Festival is managing—called “78/52” after the number of takes and how many ended up on the cutting-room floor as the director sought perfection for the iconic two-minute shower scene—to bridge that duplicity that the film Psycho has offered audiences since 1960 by deconstructing that very scene. The dual nature of the Hitchcock classic, which is explored by interviewing contemporary directors and actors who would gladly acknowledge the inspirational debts owed, comes as it was witness to such a departure in how we understood and consumed horror. Prior to Psycho, the monstrous was portrayed in the movies as something external—even if so allegorically, and one has to wonder what it was like for those first audiences to experience psychological terror and confront the realisation that it was all in a sense psychosomatic.  I doubt that the experience could ever be replicated for those who followed.  I want to check this out and the idea makes me think of the documentary Room 237 that also had a narrow focus and tales from behind the scenes with blocking that Stanley Kubrick limned for a particular suite at the Overlook.