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MizhuB's Replies
The ONLY QT movie I've liked is 'Jackie Brown'. I HATED Pulp Fiction.
And I've read so many pros and cons about this film (including a scathing review by Sandy Kenyon, EyeWitness news), I'm kind of conflicted.
I don't know whether I want to see it or not, and that's a rare occurrence. The story sounds interesting, but it seems the execution is severely lacking. And overlong.
And I'm not one who generally listens to critics.
From my experience, I think it's just that although PSYCHO is the more famous of the two films, more people nowadays have actually seen The Birds.
PSYCHO: It's so old.
The Birds: At least it's in color, and once you get past that boring first part, it has more action.
It sounds to me like you just saw an article about the bird attacks, but I saw clips of them on the news. (Sorry if I'm wrong).
They looked like that shot of the Seagull dive-bombing Tippi Hedren in the boat.
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Maybe a lot of people don't know him, but a few still do. A few.
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What surprised me was that all of the newscasters are YOUNGER than me.
but he hadn't won a Best Director Oscar yet, and I think that the "important themes" of The Birds were part of Hitchcock's campaign(yes, an OSCAR campaign) to be taken more seriously. Alas, the Academy only nominated The Birds for Best Special Effects...and gave the win to Cleopatra.
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I'll admit, I've never seen Cleopatra, and although I like The Birds, I can't imagine why Hitch thought it was Oscar-worthy. That hour-long story about the relationships when most people just wanted to see bird attacks? Even back then, before the short attention spans of today, I can imagine people in the audience thinking, 'Just get to the attacks already.' That's how it was promoted, anyway.
It should have won for Special Effects though. For the time, they were amazing.
I saw both of those stories on the news.
The one about the bird attacking, they said it was probably protecting its young 'uns from people who were getting too close. They had video of it. The newscaster said, 'Or it might be a scene by Alfred Hitchcock.' And they actually all laughed. So at least THEY knew who he is.
Both stories reminded me of Hitchcock.
On YouTube, you can find a series(well, different people make them) of "gaffes in movies." Many movies have a LOT of gaffes.
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I love watching those YouTube gaffes. Even for movies I haven't seen.
It's seemed to me that many movies made in the 40's or 50's are full of them. There are a lot shots including things like a close-up of a man scratching his head, and in the very next shot, his hands are at his side.
From the look of it, my surmise has always been that, in the end, it was aided by some in-the-lab "fog effect" work in post.
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I agree. As much as I love the movie (and I do), that shot has always looked very fake to me. But I just go with it. Hitch was always mostly about the visuals. I've read that he always saw movies as 'Pictures without words.'
I'm veering way off topic here, but I also remember a story about Hitch filming 'Saboteur' with Robert Cummings.
In one scene, he's locked in some room, and figuring a way to get out, he puts a match to the sprinkler head, which pops and starts to spray water all over and (I think) sets off the fire alarm for the building.
Someone in production asked him, 'But how will that explain to the audience exactly how he got out of that room?'.
Hitch replied, 'They'll never ask'.
Tippi Hedren asking what her motivation would be to go upstairs into that attic alone. 'Your paycheck/Because I'm telling you to'. I've heard both stories.
Aaah, Hitch. Sometimes he was right with us, and sometimes he forgot about us. The explanation of 'It's only a mooooovie' can only go so far when that 'mooooovie' starts to defy logic.
Let's keep in mind that, on Psycho, rather than send the second unit crew back to Phoenix to film the streets without Xmas decorations, Hitchcock simply slapped the title "Friday December 11" on the film and Psycho rather instantly became "wrong" -- no other Xmas decorations in the movie, no Xmas trees, nobody talks about Xmas. Hitchcock "could live with that."
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And let's not forget the fact that when Lowrey enters the office, he says, 'It's as hot as fresh milk! You girls oughtta get your boss to Air Condition you up! He can afford it today.'
I've never been to Phoenix, but I doubt that in early December, nobody would be walking around wearing so much as a light jacket, and a day being referred to 'As hot as fresh milk.'
Yes, I can understand all of those things, but me being a kind of a pain in the butt, I can't help wondering, 'Then what is the CONTINUITY person for?'
Most of the examples you guys have cited are the director not liking the shot and doing it over again. And that makes sense. But they don't always involve mistakes, just do-overs.
But for the continuity person to miss something as obvious as a relatively big, pink reading lamp, I just don't understand. Guess I'm a schtickler for details. At least the ones I catch.
I've read that many, if not most directors are more than willing to let things like that go (the collar first inside, then outside), in order to use the best takes. It just bugs me ;)
Case in point: There's a big mistake in Fatal Attraction that many people have noticed. When Douglas and Close are arguing in her bedroom, there's a close up of her under the blankets, and her breasts are exposed. Then cut to a side view, and they're suddenly covered.
I remember the director being interviewed and he was specifically asked about that 'goof'.
He said, 'Of course I saw it. But those were the best takes.'
But I can also tell you (as delicately as I can) that the audience in the theater immediately laughed and pretty much said, 'What happened to her T*TS?'
There's a story that while watching the rushes for Arbogast climbing the stairs, in Psycho, a crew member told Hitchcock something he already knew: the background on Arbo went out of focus for awhile. Said Hitch: "I can live with that." And he did. The soft focus is in the finished film -- but helps create the idea that Arbo is in a "netherworld."
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I've noticed that, but I always ignore it because my focus was always on Arbogast, and what he was about to face.
But I will say, as a kid when I first saw PSYCHO the first few times, I DIDN'T notice it. I was too filled with suspense. The shower scene was slashed to pieces (pun intended) so wasn't that bad, but from the very first time I saw it on TV, Arbogast's murder was intact. I remember saying to my school chums, 'He gets slashed at the top, then sort of falls backwards like a leaf falling from a tree'. The way we put things when we're kids.
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PS. I've seen Vertigo many a time...and I never caught that detail with the lamp.
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To me, it was always a big Goof. Even if Hitchcock filmed it two or three times, what did he do? Strike the set in between then put it back together again? And HOW would they miss such an obvious prop? It's a big, pink reading lamp on the headboard. It doesn't make sense to me.
I do love Vertigo though. I've often gone back and forth through the years about which film was my favorite Hitchcock. Vertigo OR Psycho.
Performances are so often measured by big dramatics, but I always find myself noticing little, ordinary, non-verbal things that scenes call for actors to perform ("business" in theater parlance) and to make look impromptu and genuine. One of my yardsticks is anything, verbal or otherwise, that tells me not what the actor is thinking, but what the character is.
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I absolutely know what you're talking about. And now that you've reminded me of the actual sequence of events, I agree that Perkins' performance in that scene still keeps the attention, even though he has nothing to say.
In fact, he says nothing during that entire scene, starting from when he first bursts into Marion's room until he sinks her car in the swamp. But you don't take your eyes off of him.
If he'd overacted it, I don't think it would have played as well. He played it very naturally. He behaved as Norman would. Not as Perkins playing Norman.
The picture staying off the wall for some time demonstrates how Hitchcock filmed this part in sequence(I'm guessing.)
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Very likely, considering the quick shooting schedule and budget.
But it reminds me of a goof in 'Vertigo'.
When Kim Novak emerges from the bathroom in that sort of ethereal green lighting, it cuts back and forth between Novak and Stewart.
There's a pink reading lamp on the headboard of her bed. In one shot, it isn't there. The next shot, it's back again.
So obviously they shot it at least twice, although Novak looks the same. So does everything else.
What was the reason for it to be filmed twice? And HOW could they miss something like that?
Especially considering Hitchcock's known attention to detail.
If you'll permit, he doesn't hang the picture back up until after he's wrapped up Marion's body and taken it out to the car, and has re-entered the room to remove all of her belongings.
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I WILL permit, absolutely. Even as much as I supposedly "know" Psycho(frame by frame? no, not really), I can't remember everything in it.
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Same here. As many times as I've seen PSYCHO and think I remember it, there's always someone else who remembers more. Doghouse is absolutely right. As soon as he mentioned it, I thought, 'Yes! That's how it went...'
I haven't watched PSYCHO in 4 or 5 years. I guess I don't remember things as precisely as I thought I did.
The spindly, boyish lead(Dennis Christopher) was friends in real life with Anthony Perkins.
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Just a correction. The spindly, boyish lead was Bruce Davison, not Dennis Christopher.
Hitchcock said "that's a lovely idea" and that's what we get in the movie. A "bit" that requires a second camera set-up (for the close-up)...
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Wouldn't that also include at least a CHANGE in the next camera set-up.
Norman sits on the bed, seemingly to compose himself for a few seconds. Then he gets up off the bed and before he enters the bathroom, he hangs the picture back UP on the wall. Or am I mistaken?
Note in passing: are the zombies in Night of the Living dead ever CALLED zombies? Or are they just "living dead"?
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I'm 99.9% sure they're never called Zombies. I've even heard and read that on sites about the movie. I haven't seen it in years, but I recall that the news reports in it only say something like, 'These people aren't staying dead. They're somehow coming back to life and attacking the living'. Something like that.
I had forgotten about 'See No Evil'. I saw it when it first came out and thought it was boring, without an ounce of suspense.
But just for the heck of it, I looked it up on IMdB, and found this under 'Taglines':
If You Liked "Psycho", "The Birds" and "Willard", You'll Love This Suspense Thriller!
WHAT? Not only did it lack any of the suspense of those films, it was nothing like any of them!
I remember this one from 'The Bird with the Crystal Plumage'. It was only 10 years after PSYCHO, but you wanted comparison-to-PSYCHO advertising.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065143/mediaviewer/rm1853547520
I have no idea when the comparisons stopped.
Where can you watch Bates Motel online?