Wes, can you see the influence of Psycho reflected inMy Soul to
Take in any direct way? WC: Hitchcock told us that it was possible to have a combination of terror and intelligence and humour, which the typical horror movie does not have, and different levels of reality that contribute to a more interesting character. So, just that multi-layered approach and use of gallows humour and, of course, his masterful use of suspense were my inspirations from Hitchcock.
of all time. What made it so frightening? DT: What makes the movie scary is the revelation that Norman is the most human, sensitive person in the movie and yet he is really something quite different. There is an indirect threat about him. Re- ally, Perkins’ performance is one of the greatest in US film history.
Marked Man: Arbogast (Martin Balsam) is attacked on the stairs.
WC: It’s funny because people that didn’t like the violence in my films always pointed to Psy- cho and said, “Hitchcock killed a woman in a shower but you never actually saw any blood.” I can remember when that film came out and my parents and all their friends were horrified by it. It was a masterpiece but I don’t think it opened any sort of portal. What it did do was use violence and horror with major stars so that it appealed to a much wider audience. It didn’t really smash any sexual barriers. It was just graphically violent but certainly not by today’s standards.
Hilton, what was Hitchcock’s reaction when Psycho didn’t win any Academy Awards? HG:We discussed it in private and he would never admit it to anyone but he was very disap-
pointed that he never won the Oscar. One fellow that should have won an Oscar was [Psycho composer] Bernard Herrmann because without the music, the picture wouldn’t have been as thrilling. Music really helped that movie.
Psycho probably ranks as one of the most legitimately scary movies
WC: When Mother comes out of that doorway and attacks the cop at the top of the stairs, then the cop falls backwards in that kind of surreal shot, I was scared out of my wits. The shower scene is very hard to bear but at the same time you can tell it’s a very carefully constructed set piece and that all the shots come off storyboards, but that one moment of the woman coming out, it’s so visceral. It’s like an immediate shot and you’re not seeing things clearly and you’ve lost your ability to see things dimensionally correct. I re- member it was a very strangely processed shot. It almost looks dream-like. One of the things about it is that she comes a long dis- tance to get to him. It’s not like she just pops out of the doorway, she does this kind of long sprint and the trick is that he made it scary the whole way.
I understand the murder of Arbogast was very difficult to shoot? HG: Yes, it was a very difficult scene to shoot because it was shot
on a staircase, though today it would be very easy because of the equipment you have. Well, in the day that we shot it, there wasn’t
Why did you agree to produce the sequels? HG: I was very skeptical to do them in the first place. When they offered me Psycho II, I went
to Pat Hitchcock, his daughter, and I said, “What would your dad say about making a sequel? I don’t want to do anything that he would think is wrong.” And she said, “Oh, he would love it. He would think that was marvelous and he would want you to do it.”
What did you think of the Gus Van Sant remake? HG: I really thought that was wrong, because they made the exact same
movie, line for line and set for set, and put different [actors] in. I just said, “What’s the point? Are you trying to make a better Psycho? Are you trying to make this a better movie than the original?” You know, what’s the point of putting strangers in the roles of what you know should have been Tony Perkins and Janet Leigh?
WC: I didn’t see it. I didn’t want to ruin my experience of the original. I shouldn’t say that because I’ve done remakes of my own films, but I didn’t want my last memory of Psycho to be of something else. Especially something shot for shot.
RM26 Cont’d on p.28
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