Tuesday 23 February 2010

Psycho II


There's something special about
Psycho. It has been written about perhaps more than any other film and a morbid curiosity has overtaken many a film-maker, inspiring them to try and grasp its beating heart. In 1998 Gus Van Sant released a fascinating experiment, an almost shot for shot remake of the 1960 original in which he seemed to pose the question : where lies Psycho's soul? In 1993 Douglas Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho slowed the film down so that it would take a day to play, trying perhaps to capture flickers of genius between the frames. These films, however, do not dare build on the sacred ground, they dare not write another chapter to a story deemed complete and completely brilliant. In 1983 Director Richard Franklin, working from a script by Child's Play's devilishly clever writer Tom Holland, did dare.

Suppose we have another look at the place? What harm can it do? Is it unnecessary, is it sacrilege to go back? Psycho is revered as a masterpiece of horror and there are people who, quite understandably, don't want to go back. They don't want those memories to be sullied. But Norman Bates doesn't want to go back either. The last thing he wants is a sequel. He doesn't want to give those voices and those urges a chance to lead him into the temptations of the old, old ways...


That any conflicted feelings an audience might have correspond so closely with Norman's own trepidation forges an important bond between the film and us.

It is mighty rare for a direct se
quel to be made 22 years after the original and even rarer for it to be set 22 years later. Seeing Norman Bates again comes as a shock. That gaunt and gauche boyish young man has got older. He has wrinkles and a greater air of maturity that comes with age; but there is still something of the boy about him. He has never really grown up or grown away from his childhood trauma, something alluded to in Psycho III by a breakfast spread tin labelled 'Peter Pan'. There is a sadness underneath the tics that spreads its inkblot stain.

This time Norman is the protagonist from start to finish. The gaze of the film is keener. It is both more forensic and more sympathetic. Newly released from prison, exonerated 'by reason of insanity', he decides to go home. He is wary but confident that he has at last gained control over himself. He is scared and much of the success of Psycho II lies in making us scared for him more than we are scared by him. He is scared of going back to that house, scared of being alone, or rather of suddenly not being alone. He knows it's not going to be easy but he's determined to have a stab at it...

Psychological therapy has made Norman more self-aware than ever. It may be counter-intuitive but, precisely because of this, he is that much more in danger. He is that much more at the mercy of paranoia. Into this potent mix comes Mary, a young woman who works at a diner where Norman has been placed as part of his rehabilitation. He invites her to stay at his home and she accepts. All in good time it will be revealed that Mary is as much manipulated by a domineering mother as he is. Her mother is Lila Loomis, the sister of Norman's / Mother's first victim and Mary is being used as bait to tease out Norman's insanity and drive him towards renewed incarceration. They place telephone calls purporting to be from his mother and appear at the window dressed in her old clothes. Soon the fear bubbles, the blood begins to flow once again and the finger of suspicion is pointed unerringly in Norman's direction.

The film is distressingly and grossly unfair on Norman in the relentless persecution visited on him by its characters. Tragedy is never far away from the surface.

Mary, grown more fond of Norman and more guilty of her involvement in his distress, refuses to continue the charade, attempting to pacify Norman and lullaby his fears to sleep. Their relationship glows with much tenderness and much sadness ("What if I told you I needed you to stay"), one never completely trusting the other but clinging to each other as if surrogate mother and son. The glimmer of hope he holds that she may 'like' him is monumentally heartbreaking and skin-crawling all at once.


However, the murders and the calls continue and soon it is impossible to tell who is doing what, who is killing who and the extent to which Norman is falling or is being pushed. Or maybe, just maybe, he has leapt willingly feet first into 'madness'.

Psycho II takes the more cut and dried, cool, procedural nature of the original and brings out more refinement in its cavalcade of psychos: psychotic, psychopathic, psychosexual, psychosomatic. In this Psycho story there is a new sorrow in the eyes of a cornered man, new affection in the embrace of a lodger, new chills in that anxious frame, new horrors in the churning blood.


Psycho II
is receptive to wider emotional frequencies than its predecessor.

It is very enjoyable, knotted tight with baffling twists and cul-de-sacs. Be it in the slicing of a cheese sandwich or the slow pan across and into the wallpaper of a shower-room, the tension is held high, inches shy of fever pitch. The Freudian serial-killer sub-genre is oftentimes overly delirious or baroque but Psycho II only very rarely allows itself to be held hostage to such excesses. In fact it manages to retain much of the original's understatement.

Franklin meticulously adopts elements of the 'master's' signature style* - a sudden switch to a high angle, a bird's eye view, a dolly zoom. He even contrives one last Hitchcock cameo by casting that all too recognisable podgy silhouette onto a cupboard door. Nevertheless, he is his own man and he offers himself his own Hitchcockian cameo standing by a videogame machine. 


With Psycho II Franklin acknowledges that this is Hitchcock's world but proceeds reverently and imaginatively to create his own myth beside it and within it.

Franklin uses a soupcon more gothic and a pinch more sensation, taking his own route and locating his Bates Motel on the road from Hitchcock to Argento.

There are even murmurings of the ghostly turned supernatural in Jerry Goldsmith's terrifically poignant score. With no little panache and elan, Franklin masterminds compositions all his own, on one occasion sliding us out of an attic window, shrouded in darkness, into the blinding sunlight of the next day. There is a style and a verve here.

The performance of Anthony Perkins, though, is the sine qua non of a successful Psycho and it is the most impressive aspect of this film. Tormented or tormentor, his expressions switch effortlessly between the registers. Whether he is the innocent, awkward and eager to please Norman or the nervous, torn and vindictive Norman, Perkins concocts and shapes the apotheosis of the kindly beast. Look at the way he nonchalantly moves the phone from his right hand into his left hand to indicate the presence of 'Mother' and lets that unsettling vacant wonderment pass over his face with the quietness of a shadow.

Meg Tilly as Mary is less convincing. Her delivery can be a little blank but her unassuming and likeable presence contrasts well with Perkins'.

In the end the machinations are unfurled as the machinators fall one by one. Nothing is truly solved. We do not know if Norman is more lost than ever or merely at the controls of a new and more hideous form of evil. In the penultimate scene do we see in his eyes a perfect clarity as if the sane and the insane sides of him had overlapped to act in unison? At the beginning of the film Norman didn't want a sequel. By the end he is hungry for a couple more.

And so the threads are untied and with one final blow the film is unspooled.

I think Psycho II deserves to be remembered as more than just a surprisingly good sequel. I think Psycho II deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as its forerunner. It is more tense, more horrifying, more emotionally involved and involving. It is a fine creative achievement and, for me, the best Psycho film bar none.



*Franklin was a Hitchcock obsessive. The two became good friends following Franklin's attempts to have Rope screened at USC. Subsequently Franklin was invited onto the set during the production of Topaz.

40 comments:

  1. "I think Psycho II deserves to be remembered as more than just a surprisingly good sequel. I think Psycho II deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as its forerunner. It is more tense, more horrifying, more emotionally involved and involving. It is a fine creative achievement and, for me, the best Psycho film bar none."

    I completely and utterly disagree on each and every point in this paragraph, which is an extension of the entire essay, and frankly I find these contentions incredulous. This is a derivitaive film of one of the cinema's great classics, and it is anything but more "tense," "more horrifying" and "more emotionally engaging." You speak here about one of Jerry Goldsmith's weakest scores as being more noteworthy to Bernard Herrmann's pulsating masterpiece for PSYCHO, again a curious statement to say the least. Still, I am a Van Sant fan and I don't have any major problems with this film as a stand alone.

    But enough. We had a bit of a row over the CITIZEN KANE review, and we are now friends again. I don't intend on starting up any major shit and risking another serious disagreement. You did defend yourself exceptionally well here, it's just the conclusions I must contest.

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  2. Sorry about the Van Sant mistake Stephen. I realize it is Richard Franklin.

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  3. I shouldn't even respond to this bait, but Stephen... come on...

    Just... come on... nothing more I can say.

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  4. I never really cared that much for Hitchcock's films in general. There are films of his that I do admire ("Rope", especially) but "Psycho" isn't really one of them. I love the way it carries us from Marion Crane to Norman Bates, but after that, it never really makes the third transition to sympathize with Crane's sister. It is two thirds of a great movie, with a sloppy final act. So really, if somebody wants to say a shlocky DTV quality sequel made decades later is better, I'm not about to cry foul. It's not as though the original raised the bar very high, to begin with.

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  5. Wowie, I haven't seen the film, but on any average day I would have bet that the sequel would be pathetic. Game on. Top stuff, Stephen.

    And the opening paragraph could well be applied to you, Stephen!

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  6. Sam,

    "You speak here about one of Jerry Goldsmith's weakest scores as being more noteworthy to Bernard Herrmann's pulsating masterpiece for PSYCHO,"

    I didn't even mention Herrmann's score actually Sam. If you remember I mentioned Herrmann's as one of the greatest soundtracks ever at Wonders in the Dark.

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  7. Bob,

    "I love the way it carries us from Marion Crane to Norman Bates, but after that, it never really makes the third transition to sympathize with Crane's sister"

    I completely agree with this point.

    Psycho for me is a good film but not to the standards of Vertigo, The Birds, Rebecca, Strangers on a Train...

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  8. "And the opening paragraph could well be applied to you, Stephen!"

    Haha! Thanks, JAFB.

    I don't feel like I'm daring to do anything. I see a film I enjoy that is hardly written about and on which I think I have something to say and so I write about it.

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  9. A compelling look at a - to put it lightly - rather uncelebrated film. I've never had much interest in seeing it, but you've certainly piqued my interest.

    Color me highly skeptical about Psycho II being superior to the original. I would not be surprised if it's more emotionally sensitive than the original; Vertigo is the director's emotional masterpiece and Psycho is definitely a colder film, not to say it doesn't play on emotions like fear, anxiety, or excitement but its focus is not on "feeling" per se. Nonetheless, this is not at all the only criteria of a great film and it alone would not be enough for me to rank it higher than the original.

    And Bob, if two thirds of a great movie (and I don't mind the last act as you do - in fact the final twist is wonderful and redeems whatever flaws lead up to it) isn't enough to raise the bar very high, I don't know what is! (I guess three thirds of a great movie, but really, how often do we get that?)

    I had some thoughts on the persistence of your stubborn adherence to subjectivity - i.e. the idea that your enjoyment of Psycho II more than Psycho is enough to render it great - but after rambling at length, I've cut that section out of this comment. We've been over that ground and while this time my objections and observations were more practical than prinicipled, this aspect was more or less a subtext to this piece and I'll get into that discussion if the matter comes up in the commentary session; till then, we'll let it rest.

    Oh, and if you still claim not to be consciously setting out the bait, sorry but I'm not buying that for a second! ;) Before Kane maybe, but this time around ignorance is no excuse...

    I'll see Psycho II in the near-future and let you know what I think, btw.

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  10. Interesting you're a Birds fan, Stephen. That film has never really worked for me. I value it for the cool idea and some neat sequences of bird attacks but find the characters unengaging and the general approach rather intellectualized and dull. I've heard theories that auteurism and the increasing cult of Hitch was going to the director's head, and that this made The Birds more self-conscious than some of his earlier films, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was true. It seems the kind of film easier to write theses about than fall under the spell of, at least to me.

    Psycho's also had me by the gut. I don't think we sympathize much with Vera Miles' character but by that point our relationship to the story and characters are already warped. Basically, we're still with Norman Bates (I'm not quite sure we're supposed to shift sympathy from him to Marion's sister; she's there to solve a mystery and fuel tension but is not really an audience surrogate - I think Hitch and the screenplay may be playing with audience sympathies here; we're conditioned to identify with Marion's sister not just by conventional morality but by certain narrative conventions, yet in a way we're still rooting for Norman. Creates a weird, unsettled vibe to the whole thing which the climactic image really explodes.)

    "I don't feel like I'm daring to do anything. I see a film I enjoy that is hardly written about and on which I think I have something to say and so I write about it."

    Once burned, never shy... sly, perhaps, but shy, never!

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  11. MovieMan,

    "...but its focus is not on "feeling" per se. Nonetheless, this is not at all the only criteria of a great film and it alone would not be enough for me to rank it higher than the original."

    Absolutely. I was simply saying what Psycho II has that Psycho doesn't. There is plenty that Psycho has that Psycho II doesn't. This is a review of Psycho II and not a comparative essay.

    "I had some thoughts on the persistence of your stubborn adherence to subjectivity - i.e. the idea that your enjoyment of Psycho II more than Psycho is enough to render it great"

    Anyway, I never said Psycho II is great. It isn't. There are in my mind only a couple of handfuls of films I would call great.

    Your argument seems illogical because it implies the following in your reaction to my thoughts: If I agree with you you are making a correct, objective argument. If I disagree, you are making a subjective, personal and incorrect argument. But, as you said, we've been through this.

    "Oh, and if you still claim not to be consciously setting out the bait, sorry but I'm not buying that for a second! ;) Before Kane maybe, but this time around ignorance is no excuse..."

    MovieMan, I'm sure there are toes everywhere that I can step on inadvertently. This is a review that has been simmering long before this blog existed. Would you rather I:

    a) Not write about something that inspires me to write about it.

    b) Remove the (short-lived) comparison to the original which is one that is more than natural to make. If I hadn't made a comparison doubtless I would have been asked what I thought.

    It is tiresome to have to constantly check oneself so as to not step on all these eggshells.

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  12. MovieMan,

    "I value it for the cool idea and some neat sequences of bird attacks but find the characters unengaging and the general approach rather intellectualized and dull."

    This could almost be my view of Psycho if you take 'bird attacks' to have a slightly different meaning.

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  13. "...yet in a way we're still rooting for Norman. Creates a weird, unsettled vibe to the whole thing which the climactic image really explodes."

    I've seen quite a few films where we root for the murderer because we've got to know him and because we feel his fear and nerves.

    Psycho does do that.

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  14. "I'm not about to cry foul. It's not as though the original raised the bar very high, to begin with."

    Bob: PSYCHO is one of Hitch's greatest films, and one of horror cinemas most definitive entries. And it's 3/3 of a great film, thank you.

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  15. Stephen,

    A sloppily-worded riposte on my part, as you called the film the "best" Psycho film but indeed did not call it "great." As for the whole agree/disagree notion, I don't see that implied at all in my comment but agreed, not much more to say there.

    Interesting point about the birds/Psycho! In some ways, it's almost a prequel...

    Don't get me wrong, anyway, I'm glad you wrote this review and I enjoyed reading it. Just saying, somewhat playfully, that I would not accept a surprised reaction on your part if there was a strong response. You know what you're in for now, Stephen, CK baptized you with fire... (so far, though, the waters still appear relatively calm).

    Your writing is bold and provocative, which is not a bad thing, but it is what it is. You also do not protect your flank. You don't say, "Surprisingly, I find Psycho II better than the original" or "despite its undoubted formal strengths, Psycho is actually not as acute an experience as Psycho II." You seem to think qualifiers like that weaken your prose, but frankly that's how I'd write a piece like this, so I disagree. Anyway, it is what it is just making sure you know what it is.

    As for Norman Bates,

    Of course the interesting thing about Psycho is that we don't quite KNOW he's the murderer - at least theoretically. Psycho is additionally interesting because so many of us (me, included) DID actually know he was the murderer going in, yet we go along with the flow of the movie and not in the way we normally would in seeing a movie where we're SUPPOSED to know the main character is a murderer. A whole essay could probably be written on this additional level of the text, and I wonder if in the reams of Psycho literature it's been done. I'd love to see it.

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  16. MovieMan,

    "You don't say, "Surprisingly, I find Psycho II better than the original" or "despite its undoubted formal strengths, Psycho is actually not as acute an experience as Psycho II.""

    I don't say it because I wasn't surprised at liking things people don't and vice versa. I am watching the Psycho films (nearly finished 3, soon onto 4) and judging them as is. I can only judge after I have seen them. I don't prejudge or let fame or consensus prejudge for me.

    The review is for Psycho II. The comparison with Psycho (in terms of how good it is) is an aside.

    "...that I would not accept a surprised reaction on your part if there was a strong response."

    I expected that people in general would disagree with my conclusions. I don't expect people to point-blank dismiss my opinions, at least not without saying why or without reference to the film in question.

    I hope you can see Psycho II and give it a fair crack of the whip.

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  17. The only thing remotely interesting about "Psycho" after Marion Crane's car is swallowed by the sinkhole is Anthony Perkin's performance at the very, very end. I couldn't give less of a damn about the other people who get killed, or Crane's sister, or even the half-baked baloney about split-personalities that the shrink spouts out like exposition in a bad 50's sci-fi movie. Perkin's gaze as "Mother", however, is enough to grab my interest, however fleetingly. It shows that Hitchcock had stumbled upon a really interesting story, but never articulated it in quite the right way. We jump from Crane to Bates seamlessly, which is audacious, ambitious and absolutely well done. Why, then, do we jump to Crane's sister and the others? At that point it becomes a rather rote, predictable story.

    The mistake, I feel, was to avoid jumping into the "Mother" persona for so long. If we had somehow made the transition from Bates to his alter-ego as we had before, without anyone getting in between them, then we would have had a really outstanding film. As it stands now, the whole shifting POV feels like a savvy gambit that never really pays off as much as it should. Had the transition from one personality to the next had been as perfect as that between victim to murderer, then the film would've stood as a sly, subtle examination of the shifting mental landscape of a mind fragmented by schizophrenic forces. Hitchcock's narrative gesture itself would've stood as a powerful expression of mental illness. Instead, the way it plays out now, it's not much more than a novel gimmick.

    "Psycho" is a classic film, there's no doubt about that. But I'm not about to say it's a great one.

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  18. Bob, you articulate very well much of what I got and didn't get from Psycho.

    For me the key always was the mind of Bates and the performance of Perkins. That is what made it unique, and Psycho II, like the film or not, focuses more clearly on these elements.

    The discussion in the original between Marion and Norman leading up to her death and the shower scene itself I think are marvellous. Afterwards the film does become rote and fade into the ranks of films which never promised so much.

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  19. "I don't say it because I wasn't surprised at liking things people don't and vice versa." As a member of the critical community, which you have forwarded yourself as intentionally or not (these "diaristic" pieces are not public and open to contention) you should be surprised, or at least interested in that. Your work and opinions no longer exist in a vaccuum, and the sooner you recognize that the stronger your work will be, in my opinion. But you're a stubborn bloke, and I'm not going to change your mind on that anytime soon, so moving on...

    "I don't expect people to point-blank dismiss my opinions" I think you HOPE they don't, but can you really say you EXPECT them not to after CK? I don't think you're that naive. If you don't want to mitigate against those circumstances (with more diplomatic language) that's your choice, and a fair one, but surprise is no longer an excuse.

    Anyway, what did you think of III and IV? Will there be upcoming reviews of those? I'm very interested in seeing II now and will definitely give it a fair shake.

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  20. Bob, I think you're describing a different film than the one Psycho intends to be. Our sympathy with Norman is still at some remove; it sounds from Stephen's review (and others I've read) that Psycho II is much more about Bates' inner state than the other film was meant to be. I guess the Norma's sister thing never bothered me much. I enjoyed following them around as the track down Norma and didn't feel the need to be very involved with them.

    Btw, Hitchcock may have shot himself in the foot if he DID intend us to sympathize with Norma's sister, because supposedly he was hell-bent on exacting revenge on Vera Miles for stepping out of Vertigo. Gave her a frumpy hairdo and clothes, and shot her unflatteringly through the whole thing.

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  21. I suppose the main problem is Hitchcock (as well as screenwriter Joseph Stefano and author Robert Bloch) could never figure out a way to show us the transition from one personality to the next while still maintaining Norman's POV. It's that broken disruption of center-stage characters that I find so disarming to the film-- it is, quite frankly, ruined by the fact that after the first two acts we're pulled away from the a character the film has gone to such great lengths to make us identify with. Against all odds-- against the creepiness of his introduction, against the brutality of the supposed-protagonist's murder, against the chilling way that he hesitatingly cleans it all up-- we have bonded with Norman Bates, and it just feels wrong, on a primal level, to be torn away from him. Obviously, it's easier to portray his disintigration from Mamma's Boy to Mamma from the perspective of a third-person, but that doesn't make it interesting. In fact, it lessens the curiosity factor, and returns the film back to the rather flat status-quo of before.

    Many, if not most, of Hitch's films are disastrously uneven, and yet at times they still find ways to supercede their rather surprisingly unadressed weaknesses. "Vertigo" always felt a little cheap to me, the way it reveals the trick up its sleeve to the audience of the elaborate con-game being played before James Stewart figures it out-- yet somehow, perhaps becuase of Stewart's unflinching performance, perhaps because of the consistently haunting atmosphere throughout, and perhaps most of all in the way the film closes out on both a repetition and a emotional high-point, the film survives. Too bad such an escape-hatch couldn't have been found for "Psycho".

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  22. Wish I could revise comments. That's supposed to be "(these "diaristic" pieces are noW public and open to contention) not "not public" which completely contradicts my point. Argh.

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  23. Man, the swtich from Norman to Marion's sister always bores me to death. Instead of a psychologically complex suspense thriller, the movie basically becomes a Scooby Doo mystery. We've seen a victim's family try to hunt down a killer in countless films before, and the moment "Psycho" starts following their example, it nosedives.

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  24. "If you don't want to mitigate against those circumstances (with more diplomatic language) that's your choice, and a fair one, but surprise is no longer an excuse."

    Diplomatic towards whom? The relationship here is between the film and myself. Why should I litter my reviews with doublespeak and qualifications. I don't need to represent other people's views. They can do that.

    "As a member of the critical community"

    Everyone is a member of the critical community.

    "Anyway, what did you think of III and IV? Will there be upcoming reviews of those? I'm very interested in seeing II now and will definitely give it a fair shake."

    III is a definite step down, quite poor in many respects. I haven't seen IV yet. I don't think I'll be writing about III.

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  25. Interesting points. Despite our following Vera Miles I never felt that we had "switched" from Norman to her so instantaneously, just that we were returning nominally to the status quo with a newly skewed view on it. Dramatically, what should we have seen Norman doing during this interim? Should we have flashed forward to the detective arriving at the motel, presented from his pov? That might be an interesting approach.

    I think, for all the credit given to our identification with Norman over the years, that this identification may actually be a more subtle effect than people have lately taken it for. In other words, on the surface the film is supposed to remain a conventional thriller which is why we shift back to the sister - only that Hitch has pulled the rug out from under us and our newfound sympathy for Norman is an undercurrent running beneath the "conventional" surface we're watching.

    At any rate, while some of the approaches you suggest could make an interesting (perhaps more interesting?) film I like the reveal of Norman's "Mother" personality just where it is. Though I knew the plot of the film going in, to the point where the shower scene didn't really jolt me, the end of the movie still packed a punch (at least when I saw it revealed on the spoiler-filled AFI broadcast, which I saw before seeing the whole movie! Man, I've had a fragmented viewing experience of Psycho, haven't I?).

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  26. MovieMan,

    You seem to be saying that I should preempt those 'contentions' and dilute my opinion a little in anticipation. That approach would be slightly dishonest and not at all conducive to good criticism, discussion.

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  27. No, Stephen, the relationship is between the film, yourself, and your readers. You've ensured that by making your pieces public.

    What you call "doublespeak" and "qualifications" I call "nuance" and "thoughtfulness." I'm more interested in engaging with a different point of view than dismissing it outright (whether from a position of objective contempt or subjective disinterest, the latter being your own).

    People who don't offer criticism, particularly thought-out criticism not of the "I like it" and "I didn't like it" are not a member of the critical community. Is everyone a member of the baseball-playing community if they play sandlot, a member of the filmmaking community if they shoot home videos, a member of the writer's community if they compose a shopping list? Or do only critics get downgraded to this level of accessibility?

    Fair enough on III. I'll be interested in your view on IV even if you don't review it.

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  28. "Despite our following Vera Miles I never felt that we had "switched" from Norman to her so instantaneously, just that we were returning nominally to the status quo with a newly skewed view on it. Dramatically, what should we have seen Norman doing during this interim?"

    One word: Taxidermy.

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  29. By the way, the above is not meant to exclude you from the "critical community" - obviously not, as I placed you within it in the previous community. But you have an irritating habit of obeying the rules yourself, yet leaving the door open for the less scrupulous. Couching your complaints about Kane in nuanced readings of the film and within the context of an deep and broad-based appreciation of cinema, but philosophically accepting the philistine who will write off the film thoughtlessly and refuse to be challenged.

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  30. Hmmm, of birds or of a "bird" (to use Stephen's homeland's parlance)?

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  31. MovieMan,

    The duty I have to my readers (if I have any or not this blog would be pretty much identical) is to represent the relationship between me and the film, not to pander to them.

    "I'm more interested in engaging with a different point of view than dismissing it outright (whether from a position of objective contempt or subjective disinterest, the latter being your own)."

    You continue to misunderstand. I am writing MY point of view. I am not even bringing other positions into the equation here. I have great interest in opinions but for the purposes of the review I see no reason to go on about them when I'm giving mine. The discussion comes after, in these comments.

    "Is everyone a member of the baseball-playing community if they play sandlot, a member of the filmmaking community if they shoot home videos, a member of the writer's community if they compose a shopping list?"

    The short answer I think is yes. The long answer is absolutely they are.

    "I'll be interested in your view on IV even if you don't review it."

    IV particularly interests me as it is part prequel.

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  32. Does it make a difference? Remember it was Hitchcock's parlance, too. A nice sly visual pun at the Ed Geinisms at play. I suppose this also explains "The Birds", as well...

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  33. "but philosophically accepting the philistine who will write off the film thoughtlessly and refuse to be challenged."

    Why should he be challenged, or made to justify his views? Are they not real thoughts and emotions if they are not satisfactorily 'backed up' to be given the critical green light after interrogation?

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  34. "One word: Taxidermy."

    We actually see him happily stuffing his birds at the beginning of III and the creepiest part of the film it is too.

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  35. Stephen,

    You are invested in a universe of meaninglessness, with no distinctions between right and wrong. I am not. Call it insecurity, or call it recognition of the fact that the strong always prevail and if I concede ground someone else is going to take it. As someone with creative interests, and critical judgements, I'm not interested in facilitating an environment in which my possible accomplishments are not valued because everything's samey.

    Ironically, you made something akin to this point on our simultanous discussion on my blog. What use is capability without ability (though to make this distinction with Kubrick is preposterous)? Yet you want to do away with any larger framework for judging that with any solidity.

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  36. That's the argument from principle above. Here are some arguments from pragmatism.

    If you find the attacks and dismissals tiresome, it's in your hands to defuse them somewhat. You would also have to explain yourself less, and you would not give the impression that you are attention-seeking nor contrarian for its own sake nor full of hubris (these are not my views but they are views your work has repeatedly incited, particularly in the case of Kane).

    Now if you want to accept all that - though your frustration often implies that you don't - keep on the same path.

    But acknowledging your readers' opinions is not pandering to them it's showing them respect even as you disagree. Sometimes I think you're kidding yourself. Why post this blog if your only intention is diaristic? Couldn't it be that on some level, somewhere deep inside, you want some sense of affirmation or communication to result from them?

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  37. "As someone with creative interests, and critical judgements, I'm not interested in facilitating an environment in which my possible accomplishments are not valued because everything's samey"

    You misunderstand. The word 'critic' does not mean 'good critic'. Of course there are good critics and bad critics.

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  38. Blast you, Stephen! Looks like my review of "A Single Man" will not be going up today - you've short-circuited my new site!

    Seriously, though, contentious as they may get I thoroughly enjoy these discussions.

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  39. I'm really surprised Dressed To Kill hasn't come up here. I have the same problems with the third act of Psycho that Bob does, and while I haven't seen Psycho II, I consider De Palma's film to be a superior update of Hitch's material, taking it in all sorts of weird, wonderful directions. I do really love parts of Psycho though, which makes its conclusion so disappointing.

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  40. Doniphon,

    I haven't yet seen Dressed to Kill but I have seen the museum scene and really liked it.

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