tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post7697326892430170138..comments2024-03-27T23:53:59.771-04:00Comments on SleuthSayers: Psycho at the TheaterLeigh Lundinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-38095515273581377122015-11-06T21:18:48.866-05:002015-11-06T21:18:48.866-05:00I'm also a believer in B&W if that's w...I'm also a believer in B&W if that's what the movie was originally filmed. Some things shouldn't be messed around with.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-56127813784798925422015-11-06T20:41:51.428-05:002015-11-06T20:41:51.428-05:00Great piece. Eve, VERTIGO is my favorite movie, p...Great piece. Eve, VERTIGO is my favorite movie, period, and you are right that it is full of 3D-feeling moments from the first scene - hands grabbing a ladder - to the last. There is also that dizzy-making scene in the bell tower which, if I recall correctly, Hitchcock created by dropping a camera down the full height while moving the focus in the opposite direction. Yow!<br /><br />Hitch started as an artist, and then went into silent films, so he was all about expressing things visually. He said, approximately, that after he finished storyboarding (drawing the scenes on paper) he considered the movie finished and it was a great disappointment to have to rely on actors to bring an approximation to life.<br /><br />I feel like I mentioned this in the comments of another piece recently, but when I was in college I saw Hitch's THE LADY VANISHES in a campus theatre and when the great shock moment comes in the luggage car I saw every head in the place jump up six inches. That's when I realized that watching a movie in a crowd is very different from watching it at home on a TV!Robert Loprestihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08844889305615182897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-66832911241536751522015-11-06T17:47:06.735-05:002015-11-06T17:47:06.735-05:00One of my friends can’t understand why I don’t lik...One of my friends can’t understand why I don’t like to watch movies on my computer, where the screen is even smaller than a television (which I barely tolerate). I feel badly for a friend with damaged hearing who won’t go to theatres because their screens don’t have subtitles.<br /><br />Now you have me wondering, Dixon. Psycho and The Birds are way down of my list of Hitchcock favorites, which date back to his earliest days and definitely includes Vertigo. But now you have me wondering if I also was shortchanged by television viewing. I”d be willing to give it a try in a theatre. Thanks, Dixon!Leigh Lundinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-21766568126216354432015-11-06T16:25:52.993-05:002015-11-06T16:25:52.993-05:00Eve, I’d love to see Vertigo on the big screen. I...Eve, I’d love to see <i>Vertigo</i> on the big screen. I’ll bet it’s amazing. I’d also love to see the 3D version of <i>Dial M for Murder</i>. I wound up loading Fandango onto my cell phone, so I can see updates of coming special engagement films.<br /><br />John, that does sound like a good title! LOL I noticed that scene you pointed out, but—being a stupid lug—I missed the summary it implied. Gotta say, I think you’re right though. <br /> <br />David, I believe your comment about “the spell it casts” is spot-on! I hadn’t thought deeply enough to move my point of thinking that far, but when you point it out I can’t help agreeing. Seems to me this is another benefit theatrical films enjoy over books, because books can be interrupted all too easily. I wonder, however, if short stories also enjoy this benefit due to the shorter period of time required for reading. Maybe this also helps explain what I’ve heard about the resurgence of novellas (i.e.: long enough to fully develop character and plot, but short enough to cast an uninterrupted spell over the reader).<br /><br />P.S.: Did you write about seeing <i>Psycho</i>, in an earlier post on SS? I thought you had, but couldn’t find it when I was thinking about writing this one.Dixon Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11220791609338404147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-89809543526265268802015-11-06T13:07:48.702-05:002015-11-06T13:07:48.702-05:00Dix - I had much the same experience when I saw PS...Dix - I had much the same experience when I saw PSYCHO a couple of years ago in a revival house (College of Santa Fe, where the theater actually has the biggest screen available in town). Image size aside - which of course makes a huge difference: you've never seen LAWRENCE, in effect, if you haven't seen it theatrically - the big thing is that you're watching the picture, PSYCHO or any other, in real time. In other words, at the pace the director intended, without stopping the movie for a pee break or to get something out of the fridge. And it seems to me that PSYCHO in particular benefits from that relentlessness - you don't get the opportunity to escape from the spell it casts. David Edgerley Gateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05302818835018859164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-57311975589642091752015-11-06T11:26:22.490-05:002015-11-06T11:26:22.490-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484601842945269685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-64833768680990736472015-11-06T10:14:10.015-05:002015-11-06T10:14:10.015-05:00I Agree With Eve. (Sounds like a good movie title...I Agree With Eve. (Sounds like a good movie title in itself, doesn't it.)<br /><br />Interesting column, Dix. <i>Psycho</i> is indeed one of the best. If I remember right, about twenty or thirty minutes into the movie there's one long, uninterrupted shot, just after Janet Leigh's unfortunate shower, when the camera looks out the window of J.L.'s room and up at the house on the hill (from which we can hear Norman's mother screaming at him for what he'd done), and then it tracks slowly all the way across the inside of the room to come to rest on J.L.'s folded newspaper with the money she had stolen sticking out of it. (At least that's what I think I remember.) Sort of a dark summary of what had happened so far in the story. Hitchcock was a genius.John Floydhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04001712728130488485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-73843837969991327122015-11-06T09:53:49.235-05:002015-11-06T09:53:49.235-05:00Try Vertigo on the big screen: those scenes were ...Try Vertigo on the big screen: those scenes were Jimmy Stewart is sweating will have you sweating, too. If not losing your lunch... <br /><br />And the old classics, Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, the original Far From the Madding Crowd, 2001 A Space Odyssey - if you've never seen them on the big screen, you've missed half the movie.Eve Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03015761600962360110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-37344285804816588872015-11-06T09:33:07.969-05:002015-11-06T09:33:07.969-05:00I have to admit, I was completely shocked when I r...I have to admit, I was completely shocked when I realized that I had just ducked my head and turned away in order to allow a two-dimensional person on a movie screen to get past me into a shop that I was not really inside of! I think you are right about those panoramic shots too. I once saw a an episode of Siskel and Ebert in which they discussed the loss of the panoramic magnificence of the film Lawrence of Arabia when it went from this large screen down to the small screen. but I had not thought about westerns, & I think you are quite right about them.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07484601842945269685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-24251091391146300542015-11-06T08:57:22.953-05:002015-11-06T08:57:22.953-05:00You know, scary movies make me uncomfortable and P...You know, scary movies make me uncomfortable and Psycho has always creeped me out. But now you make ME want to see it on the big screen! I wonder how much more we've lost by going to small-screen venues. Think of all the panoramic shots of deserts in the old Westerns, for example. Now those places are largely destroyed in one way or another. It might be nice to experience them again with something like the impact they have on a big screen. Of course, that's not the same thing as Hitchock making the viewer move out of a character's way. That's simply brilliant! Wow.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com