MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Long Day's Drive Into Night

Long Day's Drive Into Night

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
31 replies | jump to latest

It was always rather daring how long Hitchcock made his 1960 audience wait to GET to the Bates Motel and the Bates mansion...which is when the horror movie really starts, atmosphere-wise.

30 minutes is what he chose(more or less.)

And to fill those 30 minutes?

Plot scene: Marion Crane is in love and needs money to get her lover Sam Loomis to marry her.
Plot scene: Marion Crane works at a real estate office with annoying people. A vulgar oil millionaire brings in 40 grand and her boss entrusts it to her for deposit.
Plot scene: Marion at home, her bags packed, the road trip ready to go. She hits the road with the embezzled cash, for Sam 1000 miles away.

So far, so concise. But now elements of mood and "padding" enter in.

Marion will be going on a road trip to get to Sam, and Hitchocck elects to put two "suspense paranoia" scenes into the start of the trip to get the mood going:

A cop questions Marion by the side of the road.

Marion pushes hard on buying another car from a suspicious car salesman -- as the cop watches.

The first five scenes of Psycho are executed with a certain speed and precision by Hitchcock -- even as he certainly takes his time with all of them. Watch how long he spends watching the cop park by Marion's car and walk up to it. Note how long he spends on the sales transaction at California Charlie's.

Only one of the scenes -- the opener -- has massive "entertainment value": Sam and Marion necking, half-clothed. Its the 1960 American studio equivalent of a sex scene, very erotic...before it turns all oppressive and sad, post-coital.

Anyway, these scenes "set everything up" -- and give Psycho a necessary addition of screen time on a short story(that would run barely an hour without them), and then:

Hitchocck gives us the Big Scene to Set Up The Bates Motel: Marion's drive from Bakersfield(where she bought the car) to the Bates Motel(after a wrong turn in driving nighttime rainstorm.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

David Thomson has called Marion's drive from Bakersfield to the Bates Motel, "one of the great night drives in movie history." I am wondering what some of the others are.

But this one was pretty damn good. And it doesn't START at night.

It starts with Marion leaving California Charlie's in a "new used car," watched away by three very suspicious men(is she not doomed with regard to her embezzlement now?)

Hitchcock was in a tough place here. What he needed to convey was the idea that it was a long ways from Bakersfield to Fairvale(where Sam Loomis lives) and that this December 12 drive would take her from the bright daylight of noon to the creeping loss of light that brings dusk, on the eye-stinging coming of a winter sunset, and then into ...darkness. And once that darkness falls...so does the rain. Just a few splashes and globs at first, but then a torrent, the car suddenly a submarine with windshield wipers desperately flashing to give Marion her vision back.

What was tough about this scene was: how to make it interesting. Could Hitchcock afford four or five silent minutes of screen time of JUST Marion Crane driving from noon to dusk to dark? Herrmann's jittery, on-edge music (the theme both for the Psycho credits AND Marion's story) sure helped. But it wasn't enough.

Hitchcock needed dialogue. But from who? And from where?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Had Hitchcock filmed Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho" faithfully, he would have opened the film(after a first scene with Norman at his house with Mother!) with Marion already on the road, driving, and flashbacking to the scenes of Marion with Sam in the hotel room, and of Marion at her real estate office being confronted with the cash.

In some ways, Bloch's set-up was very cinematic, very expositiory in the "right way" -- Marion's drive could have easily been made interesting by cutting back and forth to Sam and the real estate people, and even the scene of her putting the cash in her packed bags and leaving.

But...for whatever reason...Hitchcock and Stefano moved those scenes up front in the movie(and added the sexuality of the hotel room tryst; which was not in the book) and...had to fill Marion's drive with other dialogue.

It seems the solution came when Hitchcock and Stefano discussed whether or not a scene would be necessary "back in Phoenix" after Marion disappeared in which her disappearance was discussed. It was decided that this would be a fatal backtrack to plot so...the dialogue became all imagined, all in Marion's head, as read by the actors playing the characters she was thinking about: Caroline, Lowery, and an enraged Cassidy("I"ll replace that money with her fine, soft, flesh.") And Sam's voice was added as well to predict the future: "Marion..what are you doing here?")

The resultant effect is marvelous, auteur-ish, close to genius in giving us Hitchocck AS Hitchcock. (Marion conjures up voices in her head that will punish her, convince her of the mistake she has made. Cassidy becomes a vengeful monster in her interpretation, Caroline rats her out("She's always a little late on Mondays") as Caroline likely ratted her out in real life. And all through the imagined voices we don't hear one of them: Lila, the sister about whom Hitchcock creates great curiosity,on the phone to Lowery, deathly worried about her sister.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

For all of the "plotting" and voices of the day's drive scene, Hitchcock makes the most of portraying the drive in very mood-inducing, Expressionistic ways.

The plan is simple and most Hitchcockian, but incredibly precise and technically demanding:

We see Marion's face, looking ahead, at us, but not AT us. Then Hitchcock cuts to her POV:

The road ahead. The cars flying at her on the other side of the four lane highway(State 99 which travels up the Central valley of California.) A train that comes at her from the right and can be seen tracking away from her on the reverse shot of Marion in the car.

As the shots alternate, the road ahead reflects the time of day, the loss of light, the coming of dusk and darkness and punishing rain. Its incredibly effective in setting the mood.

And Janet Leigh is great , here too. On one occasion when Janet Leigh did a public interview on Psycho, she had THIS scene shown to demonstrate her acting prowess. Not the shower scene. Not the parlor scene(which, after all, she shares with Perkins and "gives" to him.) THIS scene. With all of her precision human expressions: guilt, worry, concern, commitment and...(after imaging Cassidy's threat about her fine soft flesh)...a smile. A nasty triumphant smile. AGAINST Cassidy?("GOT you, you dirty old man!") Or complicit, in a sadomasochistic way, in the punishment she believes she well may get.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Janet Leigh was a beautiful woman in 1960, but these close-ups in the car drive scene daringly play against that. Her face is way too big in the frame, we can see the pores on her skin and we can look up her flared nostrils and in some ways her face almost becomes abstract. Not to mention -- she is rather in a trance. Its great work.

The night drive explodes in fury as the rain pummels the windshield, and the windshield wipers swish in fury matched perfectly to Bernard Herrmann's now raging music (which sounds, in its furiously cutting violins, a lot like "Eleanor Rigby.")

Now Marion takes that fatal wrong turn off the highway, all achieved as an "effect" by Hitchocck as the bright headlights BEHIND Marion fade off(the cars pull off right, as Marion pulls forward left). We are about to have EITHER a continuation of the night drive OR a new drive: the drive down the short stretch of road and parking lot and driveway that bring Marion to the Bates Motel.

This is rather like trying to gauge "when does the shower scene end?" Does the night drive end when Herrmann's music shuts off and all we can hear is the rushing rain and the car "rolls and creeps up" to the Bates Motel.

Or is the night drive only concluded when Marion turns off the ignition......

[–] lennonforever (2453) 7 years ago

It is a marvelous sense of timing that Hitch uses for this night driving scene. Just reading about it here, gets my hair standing on the back of my neck. There is a throbbing intensity to the entire drive.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It is a marvelous sense of timing that Hitch uses for this night driving scene.

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Very hard to do, when you think about it. Cutting to just the right facial expressions on Janet Leigh. Cutting just the right "imagined voices" over her face. Cutting to the POV of the road ahead (day, dusk, night, rain.)

Even the marvelous precision of a POV shot of an approaching train that we can ALSO see departing past Janet Leigh's head in her next close-up.

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Just reading about it here, gets my hair standing on the back of my neck.

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How great to realize the power of the scene for you!

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There is a throbbing intensity to the entire drive.

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Yes. It remains a central part of the greatness of Psycho that so much of it does NOT play like a slasher movie. This night drive has nothing to do with slasher movie "stalk and kill" conventions as would eventually appear in Halloween and Friday the 13th(and which were there in the shower and on the stairs, here.)

Hitchcock had a certain confidence in his narrative abilities and knew when NOT to give the public what they wanted. He didn't want Psycho to ONLY be about some killings. He gave us a story(in the first part) about human weakness, lonlieness, obsession, and paranoia. He gave us a nightmare to FEED the later nightmare of his seminal slasher tale. (Idea being that perhaps only a woman as messed-up as Marion Crane would STAY at the Bates Motel, without driving on.)

And he put a lot of time and effort (including a second-unit car with cameras mounted front and back on Highway 99) to achieve this great scene within a great movie.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

Hitchcock had a certain confidence in his narrative abilities and knew when NOT to give the public what they wanted. He didn't want Psycho to ONLY be about some killings. He gave us a story(in the first part) about human weakness, lonlieness, obsession, and paranoia. He gave us a nightmare to FEED the later nightmare of his seminal slasher tale. (Idea being that perhaps only a woman as messed-up as Marion Crane would STAY at the Bates Motel, without driving on.)

I really like these observations. And they give rise to a further thought: that Hitchcock was able to give audiences something without signalling it, and without their realization.

Here's what I mean: Marion's internal dialogue consists entirely of the voices of others: Lowry; Caroline; Cassidy; Charlie and the cop; Sam. Her thinking is reflected only in what she imagines they're saying, but nothing is shared in her own internal voice, as other film makers might have done. It nevertheless lays the groundwork for her change of heart during her brief talk with Norman, which we can retroactively infer was already germinating as she stops at the motel, and goes some way to dramatically justifying her decision to remain there (aside from the rain and her fatigue) even after learning she's "that close to Fairvale" after her long flight.

You know the film so well and have considered it from so many angles, so this may be something you realized long ago; for me, it comes under the heading of "stuff I knew without knowing I knew it."

Y'know?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And they give rise to a further thought: that Hitchcock was able to give audiences something without signalling it, and without their realization.

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In some of his early American films -- Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt come to mind -- Hitch was, for whatever reason, a little less than subtle in some of his approaches --- Uncle Charlie turning the radio up to maximum loudness to cover up Young Charlie's screams for help as an example.

But as time when on, it seems that Hitchcock was very interested in being an artist AS WELL AS (rather than instead of) an entertainer. His word had a lot of "unspoken themes," a lot of subtlety.

And he had odd ideas of his own.

Example: he told Truffaut that when Scottie is remaking Judy into Madeleine in Vertigo, its "a strip tease in reverse." When Judy refuses to wear her hair up, like Madeleine's, after having done everything else to complete the impersonation(including a blonde dye job), said Hitchcock, "Judy is stripped down to almost naked...but won't take her knickers off." In other words, she hasn't stripped JUDY entirely down to Madeleine.

A strange thought. Maybe a perverse thought. But it was Hitchcocks thought, and whether or not we "got it," we probably FELT it. That's an artist.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Here's what I mean: Marion's internal dialogue consists entirely of the voices of others: Lowry; Caroline; Cassidy; Charlie and the cop; Sam. Her thinking is reflected only in what she imagines they're saying, but nothing is shared in her own internal voice, as other film makers might have done.

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Yes. An as a technical matter, it means all those actors had to troop over to a sound recording studio to do those "bits."

But yes, also -- its not Marion's own voice we hear. That's important -- and it prepares us for Mother's voice in Norman's head at the end of the film, in the cell.

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It nevertheless lays the groundwork for her change of heart during her brief talk with Norman, which we can retroactively infer was already germinating as she stops at the motel, and goes some way to dramatically justifying her decision to remain there (aside from the rain and her fatigue) even after learning she's "that close to Fairvale" after her long flight.

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The elements are all in place to "justify" staying at the motel(rain, fatigue) but the fact that its only 15 miles(after about 1000 driving) to Fairvale is high irony and deeply profound. To travel those 15 miles is to "reveal all" to Sam. If the plan doesn't work, she's likely lost him. And how CAN the plan work? The Bates Motel is almost like "the place of her salvation." If it hadn't had been there, she wouldn't have had a place to stop, think, rest -- and leave for Phoenix from.

Still, the vacant motel, the creepy house, Mother's screaming accusations from the window, Norman's tirade in the parlor -- the place is certainly warning Marion to "get the hell out of there."

Its a classic "gray" situation, neither black nor white. The Bates Motel is a haven and a warning, all at once.

Marion makes the bet that I think a lot of people would make: stay. What could possibly happen?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

You know the film so well and have considered it from so many angles, so this may be something you realized long ago;

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No, not really. That has truly been the "magic" of revisiting Psycho and its scenes time and again, over years, at two boards now.

A movie I loved, saw again and again, THOUGHT I knew...keeps revealing new angles and levels.

Now some of those "new angles" are of my own making. Hitchcock was among any number of directors who said that while he put intentions into his movies, the audience members could bring their OWN intentions and interpretations to the scenes and...that would be great. In this way, audiences and critics "talk back" to great filmmakers and join in the creative process.

This time around, I came to realize that Hitchcock, in choosing to present Marion's day-dusk-night drive in this manner, eschewed TWO other ways he could have opened his movie: (1) At the Bates Motel...scary from Minute One or (2) on the road with Marion, flashbacking to the Sam and Real Estate scenes.

But Hitchcock went another way: open in Phoenix, with a sexual-kissing love scene(this was Joe Stefano's idea, but it also allowed Hitchcock to get one of his classic kissing scenes into a horror movie that otherwise had no room for it). Tell the story without flashbacks and THEN use Marion's drive for other, artistic considerations.

I had not thought of that until this time into the fray...

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for me, it comes under the heading of "stuff I knew without knowing I knew it."

Y'know?

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I DO know. I expect the greatest of Hitchcock's films and a lot of other great films(from Kane to The Godfather to Pulp Fiction) work the same way.

[–] Doghouse (447) 7 years ago

That has truly been the "magic" of revisiting Psycho and its scenes time and again, over years, at two boards now.

A movie I loved, saw again and again, THOUGHT I knew...keeps revealing new angles and levels.

I've expressed just that sentiment on several of those IMDB boards; if I may quote myself toward the end of a long thread on the Sunset Blvd one (now archived here on MovieChat):

"One of the things I love about this place is the number of people who challenge us to look at familiar films from new angles by asking questions, and I always welcome those opportunities."

And as with other favorites, like Double Indemnity, Laura, Bullitt or Chinatown, for example, it signifies that the best of them are "gifts that keep on giving" (to employ a hoary cliche).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

That has truly been the "magic" of revisiting Psycho and its scenes time and again, over years, at two boards now.

A movie I loved, saw again and again, THOUGHT I knew...keeps revealing new angles and levels.

I've expressed just that sentiment on several of those IMDB boards; if I may quote myself toward the end of a long thread on the Sunset Blvd one (now archived here on MovieChat):

"One of the things I love about this place is the number of people who challenge us to look at familiar films from new angles by asking questions, and I always welcome those opportunities."

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Agreed. I think other people's opinions help give a scene a meaning different from that which one sees.

Plus, the constant re-examining of a film like Psycho reveals all the things that went into the "pre-production thinking."

This long days drive into night is in some ways, just "a necessary connective scene." Marion has to get from California Charlie's to the Bates Motel. But Hitchcock's self-imposed challenge was: "How do I make this scene meaningful and interesting?" Well, he sure did -- with great help from Janet Leigh's silent acting and Bernard Herrmann's edgy furious strings.

And I'm not sure I had really THOUGHT about this scene, in this way, til this thread.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I will note that there are published pages of Hitchcock's long, long, LONG discussions in the script preparation of The Birds, Marnie, Topaz, and Family Plot, and it is close to shocking how much detail he would get into with his writers, both about facts ("Would this hotel have a concierge floor? Which floor would it be?") and about motivation ("Well, Annie is rather taken aback by how well-dressed Melanie is for a trip to Bodega Bay, and it hurts her feelings about her own attire.") These documents demonstate that Hitch never just "threw a script together and shot it." He wanted to create a world that we DIDN'T see, motivations he DIDN'T spell out.

Like for instance, someone told him in an interview about Frenzy that tempermental bar owner, Felix Forsythe(Bernard Cribbins) was almost as big a villain in the picture as psycho Bob Rusk, in how he fired Richard Blaney as a bartender and yelled at Babs, his waitress.

Said Hitchcock, "Yes, but you have to remember that Forsythe probably deeply loved Babs and thought he could have her, and here's this ex-RAF squadron leader taking her away from him, succeeding even when he was fired and broke. He acted out of lonlieness and jealousy."

I didn't see that -- but Hitchcock did. Maybe even told Cribbins to act the role that way.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And as with other favorites, like Double Indemnity, Laura, Bullitt or Chinatown, for example, it signifies that the best of them are "gifts that keep on giving" (to employ a hoary cliche).

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Ah, but most clichés are true.

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There is certainly this: I saw Bullitt on release, and Chinatown on release, and I liked them then. But I can't say I truly understood either of them. It took more years and age to understand such things.

On the other hand, sometimes you have to age to understand certain adult pains -- Scottie's obsession with the younger Madeleine in Vertigo(she's rather a last chance for romantic love); even Redford and Streisand HAVING to break up in "The Way We Were" -- politics and temperament wipe out their love and respect for each other. You understand these things better with a few years and a few reviewings.

Most recently, I have watched the original "Alien" and brought back its 1979 memories -- and thus could compare it directly to the new "Alien: Covenant" which takes up the same material almost 40 years later, but with entirely new special effects and CGI at its disposal(I have now seen A: C, and I'll comment on another thread we've got.)

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Truly great(or even good) movies ARE the gift that keeps on giving. They bring back the era of their release(or the first time one saw them on TV) and they work in a new way for an older viewer.

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

David Thomson has called Marion's drive from Bakersfield to the Bates Motel, "one of the great night drives in movie history." I am wondering what some of the others are.

It is surprisingly hard to think of other out-on-the-interstate, night-driving scenes that kind of take themselves seriously enough to really feel like scenes *of* driving as opposed to just backdrops to the action which isn't itself principally driving.

Here are a couple that come to mind:

1. Kiss Me Deadly (1956)'s amazing opening sequence is built around shots of the highway out the front of Mike Hammer's car. It's a different feel from Hitch's work in Psycho. The wider-angle lens makes you feel the 'wrap' of the dark around the car more and creates the tension that something at any moment might jump out in front of the car which we don't have at all with Marion. Marion's drive captures instead the more normal case: the peaecefulness many of us have felt out on the interstates at night, its uninterrupted flow that sometimes makes it hard to stay awake but also can allow to you to really sink into thoughts about your life or about the music your listening to or.... Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) makes the basic KMD shot frenzied and weaving... and effect that's since been widely copied.
2. The main framing device in (recently deceased) Bill Paxton's Frailty (2001) as (recently deceased) Powers Boothe drives his prisoner Matthew Connaughey somewhere.
3. Carnival of Souls (1962). Influenced by Psycho, Pretty blonde drives from Kansas to Utah pursued by ghosts. Everyone from Natural Born Killers to Mad Men's final season have drawn on this.
4. Locke (2013) in which Tom Hardy spends 95% of the movie on a British freeway at night using the dashboard and voice command to make phonecalls all the time as his career and marriage simultaneously fall apart.

Ida Lupino's The Hitch-hiker, Detour and Mildred Pierce probably but I'd need to rewatch to be sure in those cases.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It is surprisingly hard to think of other out-on-the-interstate, night-driving scenes that kind of take themselves seriously enough to really feel like scenes *of* driving as opposed to just backdrops to the action which isn't itself principally driving.

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It is, isn't it? But you certainly found some good examples. Thomson's line was almost a throwaway in one of his essays on Psycho -- I think meant to dispense with the first 30 minutes of Psycho with a nice sweep of praise...and perhaps "the night drive" only begins once Marion has left California Charlie's...

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Here are a couple that come to mind:

1. Kiss Me Deadly (1956)'s amazing opening sequence is built around shots of the highway out the front of Mike Hammer's car. It's a different feel from Hitch's work in Psycho. The wider-angle lens makes you feel the 'wrap' of the dark around the car more and creates the tension that something at any moment might jump out in front of the car which we don't have at all with Marion.

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That's a good one. Kiss Me Deadly can perhaps be added to our "usual suspects" list of influences on Psycho(Diabolique, House on Haunted Hill etc) in that Aldrich's 1955 film was considered violent and sadistic and featured the early(unseen) horrible death of a pretty blonde(Cloris Leachman!). Mike Hammer is hardly Hitchcockian, but the brutality and sharp edges of Kiss Me Deadly are pre-Psychoish.

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Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) makes the basic KMD shot frenzied and weaving... and effect that's since been widely copied.

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Yes, that one is rather a recurring motif, without the "step by step development" of Marion's drive.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Marion's drive captures instead the more normal case: the peacefulness many of us have felt out on the interstates at night, its uninterrupted flow that sometimes makes it hard to stay awake but also can allow to you to really sink into thoughts about your life or about the music your listening to or....

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Its funny you mention that , because I've always felt that Herrmann's frenzied music "sets the pace" for this driving scene. This would never have happened, but imagine if instead of Herrmann's nerve-jangling stuff, we had source music from the radio: Sinatra(perhaps All the Way), Dino(perhaps Volare), Doris Day(perhaps Que Sera, Sera)...we might get the sense of Marion's car as a sanctuary against the traumas of her life behind her and the dangers ahead(with the embezzled money.) Marion might have indeed been more "relaxed" in her trance, and thrown out of it only when the rains came.

A scene can be made to "feel" any which way. Music, lack of music -- imagine a SILENT drive -- whatever one wants.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

2. The main framing device in (recently deceased) Bill Paxton's Frailty (2001) as (recently deceased) Powers Boothe

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Yikes! I only read about Boothe today. 68 -- 7 years longer than Bill Paxton -- but still too young for either of them, in this healthful age.

I sure did like Powers Boothe's voice and charisma. He wasn't quite in Richard Boone/Rip Torn territory, but he came close in his own baritone way. He was a very nasty villain in "Die Hard at the Hockey Rink"(aka Sudden Death with Jean Claude Vandamme) and a more amiable villain in "Extreme Prejudice" -- a mid-80's Walter Hill "modern day Western" with Nick Nolte and...Rip Torn!

Be careful...Matthew McConaghey...

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drives his prisoner Matthew Connaughey somewhere.

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3. Carnival of Souls (1962). Influenced by Psycho, Pretty blonde drives from Kansas to Utah pursued by ghosts. Everyone from Natural Born Killers to Mad Men's final season have drawn on this.

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I suppose its the ghost angle that separates out this drive from Marion's. Perhaps this ties in a bit to the famous "Hitchhiker" episode of TZ , too. But keep in mind that -- as always -- Hitchcock kept things surreal but "real." He had plot-driven designs for this night drive.

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4. Locke (2013) in which Tom Hardy spends 95% of the movie on a British freeway at night using the dashboard and voice command to make phonecalls all the time as his career and marriage simultaneously fall apart.

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I've read a lot about this and I want to see it. I've got to get my renting/streaming skills down better. Recently -- with other people in control -- my rentals have been "A Dog's Purpose" and "Hidden Figures." Not quite what I had in mind.

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

4. Locke (2013)
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I've read a lot about this and I want to see it.

Keep expectations in check....it's not *that* great, but Locke *is* at least an interesting experiment to see whether, effectively, the Marion-driving scenes of Psycho could be extended out for 90+ minutes? Can a single human face at night from just one or two angles carry a whole movie?

BTW, I saw Logan (2017). Hugh Jackman's Wolverine starts as a Limo-driver and then ends up on on the road/run from Mexico up to North Dakota...so the film's at least 60% driving. Hard-R violence and language throughout - a viable sub-genre of Superhero films now I'd say. Well made but repetitive and not a lot of fun. The film's set in 2029 in a battered, frighteningly anarchic, heavily armed US - is that supposed to be a realistic projection these days? The highways are dominated by 'autotrucks', huge triple-trailered rigs driven by computer systems at at least 120 mph. *That* felt realistic at least, and pretty terrifying. The film passed up its big chance for an on-the-road night-driving scene, rather we get to North Dakota in a flash. Too Bad.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Keep expectations in check....
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OK

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it's not *that* great, but Locke *is* at least an interesting experiment to see whether, effectively, the Marion-driving scenes of Psycho could be extended out for 90+ minutes?

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I wonder if the Marion scenes at all inspired this idea...though the cell phone as an invention is a great device for it...

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Can a single human face at night from just one or two angles carry a whole movie?

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Well, Hitchcock had his Rope. Here is someone else's experiment. Sounds like a one-man-show type thing.

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BTW, I saw Logan (2017). Hugh Jackman's Wolverine starts as a Limo-driver and then ends up on on the road/run from Mexico up to North Dakota...so the film's at least 60% driving.

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Which makes Logan...a road movie! (Which Psycho sort of is, for 30 minutes...another genre in the movie.)

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Hard-R violence and language throughout - a viable sub-genre of Superhero films now I'd say.

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I"ve heard this. Well, in its time, look what The Wild Bunch did for the Western. Complain as some of us will, the comic book hero movie now has "variants" -- hard-R, Star Warry(GOTG 2), funny (GOTG 2), brooding(all the DC stuff for now; Wonder Woman remains to be seen), youthful(Spiderman -- really a teen hero). Etc.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Logan: Well made but repetitive and not a lot of fun.

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Not my idea of a good time. You know, The Wild Bunch WAS fun. The violence was kinetic, the final showdown very moving and profound. And the gun sound effects were...well...orgasmic?

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The film's set in 2029 in a battered, frighteningly anarchic, heavily armed US - is that supposed to be a realistic projection these days?

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I dunno. I'm always suspect of a "future" that many in the audience will live to see. Younger people than me will see 2020...easily. Me...maybe. Hell, PROBABLY.

Seems to me we've been predicting a post-apolyptic future for decades now. Never seems to show up. Though its here, quietly, around the edges in financial stresses to be sure.

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The highways are dominated by 'autotrucks', huge triple-trailered rigs driven by computer systems at at least 120 mph. *That* felt realistic at least, and pretty terrifying.

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Those trucking manufacturers know no bounds...

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The film passed up its big chance for an on-the-road night-driving scene, rather we get to North Dakota in a flash. Too Bad

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Oh, well. Mad Max covered all times of day and night as I recall.

And nobody will ever really beat the precision of Marion's drive. Hitchcock directed his second unit to get it all, POV-wise:

Daylight(noon?)
Dusk -- lighter(4:00 pm?)
Dusk -- darker (5:00 pm?)
Night

And after adding in those "gradients," Hitchcock expertly had all that rain brought up on the windshield for those POV shots.

Its a brilliant cinematic tour de force...a combination of second unit (on Highway 99 in California), a process screen, a cutaway car on a soundstage...all in our minds...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Its a brilliant cinematic tour de force...a combination of second unit (on Highway 99 in California),

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I like to bring this up when posting on this day-dusk-night drive scene:

The POV footage of Highway 99 is a POV that Hitchcock himself had for many years, usually on weekends, when his chauffeur would drive Hitch and Alma north of Los Angeles(rich Bel Air/Beverly Hills where Hitch lived), up 99, and then OVER (West) to the Coast and Hitchcock's second home on the coast in Santa Cruz.

That coastal area is featured in Vertigo -- the Mission San Juan Bautista and where Scottie kisses Madeleine by the sea. (Hitchcock just stayed at his house while filming.)

The dusty rural Central Valley and Highway 99 probably captured Hitchocck's fancy so much that when it was time to make Psycho..he moved Marion's drive there(from Texas and north.)

Also, Hitchcock's driver would drive past Bakersfield on the way north, and BEFORE Bakersfield, if Hitchcock looked EAST...what he saw is what ended up in North by Northwest for the crop duster scene.

That puts three Hitchcock movies in a row in a few hundred miles of each other....

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

BTW, I saw Logan (2017)

The splendid youtube video-essayist, nerdwriter has just a very interesting piece on Logan:
https://youtu.be/pT75YHqlD9k
He considers how in the abstract genres tend to evolve and then positions Logan w.r.t. things like Chinatown and The Wild Bunch, i.e., in terms of how each of these relates to its underlying genre. Recommended.

In general, while my original comments on Logan did acknowledge that it was very well made, I may overall have been a little too dismissive. A more generous response to the superhero movie genre a la Nerdwriter is undoubtedly a more fruitful way of looking at the film than I was able to muster in real time by myself (because deep down I'm more of a tourist in than a native to the superhero/comic book movie genre).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

He considers how in the abstract genres tend to evolve and then positions Logan w.r.t. things like Chinatown and The Wild Bunch, i.e., in terms of how each of these relates to its underlying genre. Recommended.

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I haven't looked yet -- and I will, but it would seem that given how Chinatown and The Wild Bunch(my faves of 1974 and 1969) "reconstructed" their genres(and with ultra-violence in each of them, sustained in TWB, to the nose in Chinatown in the main), here perhaps is the film that REALLY does it for the comic book genre we are so deep into right now.

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In general, while my original comments on Logan did acknowledge that it was very well made, I may overall have been a little too dismissive.

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Part of the fun of watching movies is watching one's own POV change, if only a slight bit, on the basis of someone else's POV. Nerdwriter here, I guess.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

A more generous response to the superhero movie genre a la Nerdwriter is undoubtedly a more fruitful way of looking at the film than I was able to muster in real time by myself (because deep down I'm more of a tourist in than a native to the superhero/comic book movie genre).

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As am I. I was thinking the other day: "When did this all begin?"

Superman in 1978 started things, followed by Batman a full 11 years later!(With Superman sequels of diminishing quality in between.)

But it took until 2002 to REALLY get the ball rolling: Spiderman. A Marvel hero. Big hit. Then in 2003, The Hulk. Rather a bomb.

For my money, it all kicked into gear once we got Robert Downey Jr -- a true star aborning -- in IronMan (2008.) And now, they could just keep bringing on the Avengers in all shapes and sizes. And the X-Men(even if they started BEFORE Iron-Man.) Meanwhile, DC leaped in to re-size its Batman and Superman franchises, adding Suicide Squad and now Wonder Woman to the mix. And here we are.

When will it play out? Who knows. The Western genre ended, but commix remain an entertainment vehicle "of today."

I'll likely rent/stream Logan soon. Its gotta be better than the summer product thus far.

Though I did go and see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which I should mention...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2:

One of the great gifts of my particular life is that I can still, sometimes, get in touch with a small group of men -- once teenage boys -- with whom I saw movies in high school and college(sometimes as a visitor from out of town.)

A select few are still available to "hang with." We chose to see GOTG 2 together because I vouched for the humor of the first one, because it has great 70's/80s music(or even just nostalgic such: "Brandy" in this one); and because it has...Kurt Russell.

We're kind of a Kurt Russell fan club, this group of mine. I've cited Used Cars of 1980 as seminal in this regard. That established Russell as a funny guy -- key to a movie star persona. And then Russell did the tough guy schtick for John Carpenter in Escape from New York in 1981 and The Thing in 1982. Damn good "second tier run" in the early 80's, enough to get Russell the prestige of "Silkwood" and the third lead in a Robert Towne mystery "Tequila Sunrise" later in the 80's. Second tier Kurt got some upgrades.

And in 1993: Tombstone. 'nuff said. Of course, its now almost 25 years later, but Kurt's got the bona fides to do some short "and (INSERT STAR NAME HERE) roles in his later years.

MORE.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

QT gave Kurt Russell the "co-lead" with Samuel L. Jackson a coupla years ago, in The Hateful Eight, which now stands not only as my favorite movie of 2015, but as my third favorite QT film after Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. That's right -- and a post for another time. Perhaps using Kurt Russell and Samuel L instead of Deniro or Leo or Brad kept The Hateful Eight grosses down, but I'm glad we've got Kurt Russell as Yosemite Sam as a lead in his later years.

This year, Kurt's in the big money vehicles Fate of the Furious and GOTG 2(where he has a much bigger role, its not a cameo) and whaddya know...he's turned into Sean Connery. You know that "established older guy with a track record" who can mentor all the young uns? Chris Pratt's nascent 30-something star power turns all kid-like and nothing with 67-or something Kurt standing there all craggy and rugged and Great of Voice. (I suppose Jeff Bridges is Kurt's equal here, but he has an Oscar and less B action cred.)

So, anyway, my male friends and I see GOTG 2 and we walk out and one of us(probably me) says: "Remember back in high school when the movies we wanted to see were Where's Poppa, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, Shaft, and Enter the Dragon? Those days are over." Those 70's movies were exciting, but a bit low budget, ragged, RAW.

GOTG 2, our late-middle- aged guys decided was...a bit too under our ages. Only Kurt Russell could save our egos...that and Sylvester Stallone, not looking so good and doing almost nothing in this film(though I hear he is in some post-credit scenes we skipped.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

That said, as these Marvel things go, GOTG has plenty of humor to match its ever-more-ridiculous CGI "save the galaxy" machinations. The actors are wry and in on the joke: Pratt, Zoe Zaldana(green and sexy), Dave Bautista(right in line after The Rock for stardom?) the voice of Bradley Cooper as a killer raccoon and even the sped-up baby voice of Vin Diesel as Lil' Baby Groot.

It was hardly HARD to watch GOTG 2. But it was -- too much, visual overkill, the usual last half hour where all the good actors and good gags disappeared into a void of vomitous, over-abundant special effects (fighting a God Planet ain't the usual fight, y'know...)

GOTG, IronMan, Captain America...Logan, maybe? Those are my faves in Marvel Land. Those and the Batmans of Burton and Nolan. Especially if the Joker shows up and isn't played by Jared Leto.

Otherwise...yeah, I'm just a tourist, too...

PS. Michael Rooker of all people, who got his start as the sickening "Henry the Serial Killer" years ago, ends up being the sentimental star of GOTG 2, twangin' country accent and all. Late stardom?

[–] Cookie.L.A. (2117) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I think the first part of the film having to do with Marion and her decisions is actually the most interesting part. I remember being engrossed when the camera pans over to the suitcase she's packing, on her bed. It's so clear what's building, and all non-verbal.

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Its a great stretch, all Hitchcock, very daring for what he's up to at the expense of telling his horror tale "yet."

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It occurs to me that Hitchcock -- working from Robert Bloch's novel -- had two options on opening the movie that he didn't use:

ONE: Open with a shot of the Bates Motel and pan up to the house. Dark night. Norman and Mother. Establish the horror setting from the get go. Bloch's novel opens with Mom and Norman talking. But Hitchcock had to know he could not start here, if he wanted to protect the twist. Mrs. Bates has to be seen and heard at first FROM AFAR. By Marion.

TWO: Open with a shot of Marion's car on the dark night highway. Close-up on her pensive face. And then, flashbacks -- in and out of her face shots: Sam and Marion at the hotel room. The real estate office. Her bedroom. The cop. California Charlie.

And then she pulls up at the Bates Motel in the rain....

EITHER of these openings would have had more "horror movie suspense mood" than what Hitchcock gave us, but he gave us something great: that opening shot over Phoenix and into a window and into a sexy tryst.

Screenwriter Joe Stefano reportedly gave Hitch that idea("I think it got me the job.") And it ended up working...just fine.

[–] MyCocaine (48) 7 years ago

Everybody always talk about the shower scene, but I think that the best part of the film is everything before Marion arrives at the motel. Sexy Janet Leigh in lingerie, then stealing of money and driving away, tension builds up. There is such and perfect rhythm to all that.