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Italian Research rates Psycho as #3 most influential film of all time

posted 5 years ago by swanstep (2616)
4 replies | jump to latest

Wizard of Oz #1 and Star Wars #2. The did a network analysis of IMDb links to get their results. Here's the link to The Guardian's article about the research:
https://tinyurl.com/ybaypmbb
Reasons to be skeptical about the analysis? Most influential actresses according to the methodology used are Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) and Carrie Fisher. At the very least then, being in influential films doesn't measure inidividual influence as we ordinarily understand it.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I would add "Jaws" to that list as well. Most people have either seen or heard of it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Here's the list, (and Jaws is on it):

The 20 most influential films ever made
1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
2. Star Wars (1977)
3. Psycho (1960)
4. King Kong (1933)
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
6. Metropolis (1927)
7. Citizen Kane (1941)
8. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
9. Frankenstein (1931)
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
11. Casablanca (1942)
12. Dracula (1931)
13. The Godfather (1972)
14. Jaws (1975)
15. Nosferatu (1922)
16. The Searchers (1956)
17. Cabiria (1914)
18. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
19. Gone with the Wind (1939)
20. Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Also notable: this same study found Alfred Hitchcock to be the most influential director (with Steven Spielberg next.)

Likely quite true.

Hitchcock is perhaps "on the fade" as someone whose films are still watched and whose name is still known, but -- rather like John Wayne as a movie star or Elvis as a singer -- he seems to have traversed so many decades of popularity -- including AFTER HIS DEATH(like in the 80's, where his 5 lost films were released and his TV show rebooted) -- that he is in a class by himself.

I think around 1960 or so, Billy Wilder said that only Hitchcock and DeMille were star directors known to the public. Interesting that Wilder didn't include himself or John Ford or Hawks or Huston in that mix. And eventually, DeMille lacked the "hipness" that Hitchcock retained with a younger generation -- thus leaving Hitchcock STILL popular in the 70's(thanks to revivals of his earlier films, the removal of the "lost five" and the release of Frenzy and Family Plot) even as Coppola and Spielberg and Scorsese and Lucas were taking the stage. (Hitchcock was mentioned quite a lot in reviews of The Exorcist, Jaws, and Halloween, and cited by the directors of those films as an influence on them.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The "influential" monicker in this survey seems to reflect how many articles and references there are to the movies on imdb and links therefrom. Certainly Star Wars seems to have influenced the entire Sci fi/fantasy genre side of Hollywood that has dominated from Lucas/Spielberg through the MCU. And I would contend that the effects and flash of Star Wars even influenced the look and Big Bang effects of action films like "Die Hard."

I suppose The Wizard of Oz, going back to the 30's, has more articles written about it than Star Wars. And it INFLUENCED Star Wars. Weren't there attempts made to match up the Wookie with the Cowardly Lion and C-3PO with the Tin Man?

I've always seen The Wizard of Oz as an influence on North by Northwest. Both are films in which an "ordinary person" is whisked out of his/her life, and goes on a big journey that is an adventure. (I will note that Hitchcock first wanted the crop duster in NXNW to be a tornado, somehow engineered by Vandamm.) And both films end with the protagonist going home. The witche's Cliffside castle at night in Oz becomes Mount Rushmore at night(and Vandamm's lair) in NXNW. And the terrain of the crop duster chase sounds in the terrain where Dorothy meets the Scarecrow(at, like Thornhill with that plane, a crossroads.)

The influence of Psycho on practically everything that came after it from the "censorship side" of the street is undeniable. Sex, violence, slashers, heroes and heroines who die (and early), unhappy endings, comedy mixed offensively with horror -- its all there in Psycho, and really for the first time at that level of impact. Herrmann's shock music was influential, too. The famous three notes of madness that end Psycho can be heard in Star Wars and they are at the end of Taxi Driver, too.

But how about the Wicked Witch of the West as an inspiration for...Mrs. Bates? Vocally, at least.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Most influential actresses according to the methodology used are Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny) and Carrie Fisher. At the very least then, being in influential films doesn't measure inidividual influence as we ordinarily understand it.

--

If the criteria is "most links and references on imdb," I suppose that Maxwell and Fisher earn their status because there are likely multiple articles and links about James Bond movies and Star Wars. It occurs to me that Lois Maxwell may be in more James Bond movies than any of the other participants in the series -- she outlasted Connery and Lazenby and ended with Moore, she outlasted "M." At a minimium. And she outlasted all those other "Bond girls" who were mostly one-film wonders( a couple of them repeated, like Maud Adams and the woman in the first two Bonds.)