Distant Relatives: Psycho and Contagion

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. A brief warning this week. If you don't know the identity of the killer in the film Psycho, this week's entry includes SPOILERS for you.

 What is Horror?

When Steven Soderbergh described his movie Contagion as a "horror film" it seemed like one of those things that directors say to generate a good sound bite in the hope that writers will run with it, which they have. After all, the prospect of a major virus wiping out a good portion of the world's population is nothing if not horrifying. But how much does it really have in common with classics of that genre? The answer probably depends on how you define "horror film." For most people, a horror movie must have some element of either the supernatural or mentally deranged from which the danger eminates. If this is your definition, then Contagion doesn't qualify. But semantics aside, one can still find plentiful similarities between Soderbergh's film and a classic, defining film of the horror genre like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Psycho is about a killer and the people who come in contact with him. The film starts with a bit of misdirection as Janet Leigh runs off with an envelope full of cash. Soon she meets hotel proprietor Norman Bates, a soft spoken, well meaning, boy next door type, who turns out to be not so well meaning. Then, a surprise death sets the real plot into motion. Over the course of the film we'll spend time with the victim's relatives, investigators and experts. Contagion is about a killer and the peopel who come into contact with it. It too starts with a bit of misdirection involving suburban wife and mother Gwyneth Paltrow and a possible extramarital liason. But this is dispensed with soon, and a surprise death sets the real plot into motion. Over the course of the film we spend time with the victim's relatives, investigators and experts. Of course, in Contagion, the killer isn't a mad man, it's a virus.

...the harmless killer after the jump

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"What are you running away from?"

A question that's always worth asking.

A Centennial Shout-Out (Shriek Out?) To Bernard Hermann

You know what was more shocking than Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) not having a film score? That Hitch' always had Bernard Hermann at the ready and still went without one.

The internet often does a spectacularly bad job of noting important history (it's all future-future-future which an occassional "now") so you wouldn't know that today marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most important film composers who ever lived!

What would the cinema even sound like without Hermann's shrieking violins from Psycho (1960) for instance? Different surely, and lesser though perhaps it would be a relief if people stopped ripping it off and moved on. Supposedly Hitchcock didn't even want them at first.

Some other notable films include Citizen Kane (debut), The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Cape Fear, North by Northwest and Taxi Driver (1976), his last, which he just barely completed before his death on Christmas Eve of 1975.

True to the odd odd form of Oscar's music branch, Hermann was never nominated for his frequent collaborations with Hitchcock, though those scores remain the best remembered work of his career. He received five nominations in total. In a strange twin coincidence his first two nominations (a double dip for 1941) were for his first two films (Citizen Kane and The Devil and Daniel Webster) and his last two nominations (a double dip for 1976 posthumously) were for his two last scores (Taxi Driver and Obsession). He won his only Oscar for The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) right at the start.

Listen to one of his film scores while you work today! Do you have a favorite?

Related Post: Hit Me With Your Best Shot "PSYCHO"

"What You See in the Dark" Giveaway

If you don't love Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and much to my surprise I heard from two readers who don't at all, this past week has probably been a bit of a "???" on the blog. So much Psycho excitement. And all on account of a book. You know those, right? It's the oddest thing but they're made of paper and they have no moving pictures! 

If you missed my interview with "What You See in the Dark" author  Manuel Muñoz it's here. I had three copies to give away and entrants had to name their favorite thing about Psycho. I drew the winners randomly from the entries.

Congratulations to...

Lindsay in Oregon who loves Psycho because it always scares her.

Dan in Michigan considers himself a musicologist. His favorite thing about Psycho?

I've always obsessed about the meaning of that shot of the Beethoven Eroica Symphony.  That and the resemblance between Herrmann's score and the Shostakovich 8th Quartet.

I do know who Beethoven and Shostakovich are but otherwise I'm lost. I am unschooled in music.

And the third winner Joel in Illinois wrote simply...

REE-REE-REE-REE-REE!

LOL. I hope by 'favorite thing' he meant the score and not the stabbing. God, that score. A lot of people mentioned it actually. Because our "best shot" series is so much about the visuals Wednesday was a rare instance of a lot of Psycho talk that barely ever drifted to that indelible and influential score.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "PSYCHO"

In this weekly series "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", we look at a pre-determined movie and select what we think is the best (or at least our favorite) shot. 

 Let's stare this down right away.

The best shot in Alfred Hitchcock's immortal Psycho (1960) comes from arguably the most famous single scene in cinema's 100+ year history. It's that devastating slow clockwise turn (mirroring blood swirling down the drain) paired with a slow zoom out. Marion Crane is dead or thereabouts. Dying in the shower allows her final posthumous tears.

In what is arguably Hitchcock's most brilliant decision in a film filled with them, this moment turns the movie's fabled voyeurism (and explicit understanding of cinema's very nature) back at the audience. We've been staring at Marion Crane, foolish bird-like Marion, for 49 minutes watching her squirm in her "private trap". We couldn't (didn't want to?) save her. Now it's her turn to stare back.

How much death does the cinema need?
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