Hitchcock's Shower Scene: 78/52

0:00:08 > 0:00:09WATER RUNS DOWN A DRAIN

0:00:16 > 0:00:18SOMBRE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

0:00:18 > 0:00:26This film contains some strong language and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing

0:01:28 > 0:01:29THUNDER RUMBLES

0:01:43 > 0:01:45SOMBRE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

0:02:11 > 0:02:15MARLI RENFRO: I was 21 years old, I was a pin-up model.

0:02:17 > 0:02:23I was working with a photographer and he said that Universal - or UI,

0:02:23 > 0:02:28as it was called then - are looking for somebody to pose in a film.

0:02:28 > 0:02:30So I called and made an appointment.

0:02:31 > 0:02:38I went and spoke with Mr Hitchcock and basically had to strip down,

0:02:38 > 0:02:42got dressed again and then was interviewed by Janet Leigh,

0:02:42 > 0:02:44and I had to strip down for her, too.

0:02:44 > 0:02:45Oh, just in my underpants.

0:02:45 > 0:02:51But anyway... My body was very similar to hers, so I got hired.

0:02:51 > 0:02:55I had to report for make-up, I don't know, one or two days later.

0:02:55 > 0:03:00And there's the red light flashing and "no admittance" and all of this,

0:03:00 > 0:03:04and I thought, "Oh, God, here they're expecting a stripper."

0:03:05 > 0:03:08I was not quite completely nude.

0:03:08 > 0:03:11I had what we called a crotch patch.

0:03:12 > 0:03:16During filming with the shower going and everything, it would come loose.

0:03:16 > 0:03:19I told Hitchcock, I said "Why don't we take this thing off?"

0:03:19 > 0:03:20He said, "No. No."

0:03:22 > 0:03:26The whole time he wore a suit, black tie, white shirt.

0:03:26 > 0:03:31I was hired for two or three days, and wound up working for seven.

0:03:33 > 0:03:35It's extraordinary that it took

0:03:35 > 0:03:37so long to do that one particular scene,

0:03:37 > 0:03:39because that was about a third

0:03:39 > 0:03:42of what Janet Leigh had to work for the movie.

0:03:42 > 0:03:45There were 78 pieces of film and about 45 seconds.

0:03:46 > 0:03:49Spending seven days on one small set,

0:03:49 > 0:03:51shooting such a short scene,

0:03:51 > 0:03:52was pretty much unheard of.

0:03:52 > 0:03:55Generally these days you're lucky if you get one day to kill someone.

0:03:55 > 0:03:56Oh, it has to be an obsession.

0:03:56 > 0:03:59You're shooting that over the course of seven days,

0:03:59 > 0:04:00that is absolutely an obsession.

0:04:00 > 0:04:04Hitchcock fought to film this murder separately from the rest

0:04:04 > 0:04:06of the movie, which meant in a way

0:04:06 > 0:04:08that murder was now going to be

0:04:08 > 0:04:11an acceptable part of entertainment.

0:04:11 > 0:04:15There was violence in American films, but nothing like Psycho.

0:04:15 > 0:04:18Nothing that intimate, nothing that designed,

0:04:18 > 0:04:21nothing that kind of remorseless.

0:04:21 > 0:04:23I think he knew what he had on his hands,

0:04:23 > 0:04:25and he probably felt like

0:04:25 > 0:04:27the whole film hinged on that moment.

0:04:27 > 0:04:29This crucible moment.

0:04:29 > 0:04:31You should have seen the blood.

0:04:31 > 0:04:34The whole... The whole place was...

0:04:34 > 0:04:37Well, it's too horrible to describe.

0:04:37 > 0:04:38Dreadful.

0:04:38 > 0:04:41It's... I think the first modern...

0:04:42 > 0:04:47..expression of the female body under assault.

0:04:47 > 0:04:50And in some ways it's its most pure expression,

0:04:50 > 0:04:52because it IS devastating.

0:04:54 > 0:04:58Women had top billing in the '30s and '20s,

0:04:58 > 0:05:01and that sort of evaporated during the '40s.

0:05:01 > 0:05:03And by the time we got to the end of the '50s,

0:05:03 > 0:05:06women were secondary in movies and Hitch sort of...

0:05:06 > 0:05:09That's what the movie does, in a way, say that.

0:05:09 > 0:05:11It's killing off the woman.

0:05:11 > 0:05:13And it was really the first A movie to deal with

0:05:13 > 0:05:17this kind of horror, trashy, tabloid stuff.

0:05:17 > 0:05:19Nobody wanted to make it, and they went, "Are you nuts?

0:05:19 > 0:05:22"You just did North by Northwest, this incredible hit,

0:05:22 > 0:05:25"and now you want to do this black and white... "What is this thing?"

0:05:25 > 0:05:28I have just made a motion picture,

0:05:28 > 0:05:30North by Northwest.

0:05:30 > 0:05:34North by Northwest was, like, the ultimate achievement on every level.

0:05:34 > 0:05:38It was grand entertainment, it was classy, it had movie stars.

0:05:38 > 0:05:40It was beautiful, colourful.

0:05:40 > 0:05:42So how are you going to follow that up?

0:05:42 > 0:05:43With a prank.

0:05:43 > 0:05:48I once made a movie, rather tongue-in-cheek, called Psycho.

0:05:48 > 0:05:51- Yes?- And it was... It was a big joke, you know?

0:05:51 > 0:05:55And I was horrified to find that some people took it seriously.

0:05:55 > 0:06:00It was intended to cause people to scream and yell and so forth,

0:06:00 > 0:06:04but no more than the screaming and yelling on a switchback railway.

0:06:04 > 0:06:07Those of us who work in the horror genre rarely wear tuxedos.

0:06:07 > 0:06:10This is not a movie that wears a tuxedo, either.

0:06:10 > 0:06:13This is a movie that's very much jeans and a T-shirt.

0:06:13 > 0:06:16But it's told by a guy who wears a tuxedo.

0:06:16 > 0:06:19He wanted to stray beyond his comfort zone.

0:06:19 > 0:06:21One of the things he was up to is,

0:06:21 > 0:06:22"You don't know me at all."

0:06:22 > 0:06:25And that's what Psycho is really about.

0:06:25 > 0:06:27What attracted you to this one, then?

0:06:29 > 0:06:34I think the murder in the bathtub coming out of the blue, you know?

0:06:35 > 0:06:37That was about all.

0:06:37 > 0:06:40Hitchcock was very, very aware of his competition.

0:06:41 > 0:06:44He realised that Clouzot had done the kind of movie

0:06:44 > 0:06:46that he felt that he should

0:06:46 > 0:06:48and could be making and, of course,

0:06:48 > 0:06:53when critics started calling Clouzot the French Hitchcock, well,

0:06:53 > 0:06:57you were invading his territory then, and, believe me, he took notice.

0:06:57 > 0:07:00Psycho is really the moment where the gloves come off.

0:07:00 > 0:07:03It does feel like Hitch's revenge on Hollywood, to some extent.

0:07:04 > 0:07:07On so many levels, it's his masterpiece.

0:07:07 > 0:07:10I continue to feel like the movie is an act of aggression.

0:07:10 > 0:07:14- Yeah.- Against his fans, his critics, actors.

0:07:14 > 0:07:18- Yeah.- It just feels angry, like he was hurt and he had to hurt back.

0:07:18 > 0:07:21The sudden violence of the shower scene in Psycho

0:07:21 > 0:07:23was meaningful to him

0:07:23 > 0:07:27for reasons that dated back, you know, 20 years

0:07:27 > 0:07:29to the origins of World War II.

0:07:29 > 0:07:34Hitchcock thought that the UK and the United States were insufficiently

0:07:34 > 0:07:40prepared for the dangers and horrors of World War II.

0:07:40 > 0:07:44There were several moments in his movies that spoke to that.

0:07:44 > 0:07:46You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes.

0:07:46 > 0:07:48Don't tune me out, hang on a while,

0:07:48 > 0:07:50this is a big story and you're part of it.

0:07:50 > 0:07:53It's too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark

0:07:53 > 0:07:55- and let them come. - What's the matter with us?

0:07:56 > 0:07:59We not only let the Nazi do our rowing for us but our thinking.

0:08:00 > 0:08:02Ye Gods and little fishes!

0:08:02 > 0:08:04One of them was Shadow of a Doubt.

0:08:04 > 0:08:07Only about a year and a half after Pearl Harbor,

0:08:07 > 0:08:10set in Santa Rosa in California.

0:08:10 > 0:08:15You can see how in that movie he's kind of chastising this town

0:08:15 > 0:08:16for being naive.

0:08:16 > 0:08:20You live in a dream, you're a sleepwalker, blind.

0:08:20 > 0:08:21How do you know what the world is like?

0:08:23 > 0:08:24Do you know the world is a foul sty?

0:08:26 > 0:08:29Do you know if you rip the fronts of houses, you'd find swine?

0:08:29 > 0:08:33He was basically saying, "America, you were way too naive.

0:08:33 > 0:08:40"You think you're safe in your shower at home with your family and loved ones nearby?

0:08:40 > 0:08:42"No. You're not.

0:08:42 > 0:08:43"Sorry."

0:08:43 > 0:08:44Hitchcock had many obsessions,

0:08:44 > 0:08:46but one of them that he talked about with The Birds

0:08:46 > 0:08:48was the randomness of life.

0:08:48 > 0:08:50There is no explanation for the birds attacking.

0:08:51 > 0:08:52To him, that was life.

0:08:52 > 0:08:54There you are, everything's fine

0:08:54 > 0:08:57and then someone gets cancer and they're dead two weeks later.

0:08:57 > 0:08:59Or your life is good and you get hit by a bus.

0:08:59 > 0:09:02Hitchcock was someone who, for several years now,

0:09:02 > 0:09:07was showing up on people's TV sets on Sunday nights.

0:09:07 > 0:09:10The victim tumbled and fell with a horrible crash.

0:09:10 > 0:09:13I think their back broke immediately it hit the floor.

0:09:13 > 0:09:17It was... It's difficult to describe the way that the...

0:09:17 > 0:09:18He was an icon.

0:09:18 > 0:09:26He was the sort of avuncular yet creepy guy who was presenting

0:09:26 > 0:09:28sex and violence to Americans

0:09:28 > 0:09:32leavened with black humour, every Sunday night.

0:09:32 > 0:09:36And Americans are comfortable with him by 1960.

0:09:36 > 0:09:38If someone else had made Psycho,

0:09:38 > 0:09:41it's quite possible that the reaction would not

0:09:41 > 0:09:42have been the same.

0:09:42 > 0:09:45Psycho came at a very unique time in American pop culture.

0:09:45 > 0:09:49It almost predates the turmoil and the shock and the trauma

0:09:49 > 0:09:51that were to come in the 1960s

0:09:51 > 0:09:54with racial violence, with political assassinations.

0:09:55 > 0:09:58I'm not saying that Hitchcock anticipated it

0:09:58 > 0:10:00and knew what he was up to,

0:10:00 > 0:10:05but what he did know is that he was trapped by his past,

0:10:05 > 0:10:08that it was not a time any more for Grace Kelly.

0:10:08 > 0:10:11It was not a time any more for, what you do you call it,

0:10:11 > 0:10:13beautiful Technicolor baubles.

0:10:14 > 0:10:16When you look at Psycho

0:10:16 > 0:10:20and you look at those magnificent, elegant, big,

0:10:20 > 0:10:23rich, Technicolor films of the '50s,

0:10:23 > 0:10:26you know that something changed.

0:10:27 > 0:10:32I think that Psycho was his response to movies changing

0:10:32 > 0:10:37and to upping the ante and not wanting to be forgotten.

0:10:37 > 0:10:401959, that was the year of Some Like it Hot,

0:10:40 > 0:10:42Suddenly, Last Summer...

0:10:44 > 0:10:45..and Anatomy of a Murder.

0:10:45 > 0:10:49All three of those movies pushed boundaries.

0:10:49 > 0:10:53So there was something in the air, culturally speaking,

0:10:53 > 0:10:55that Hollywood was already tapping into.

0:11:00 > 0:11:02Psycho comes out at this period

0:11:02 > 0:11:07where we are post-atomic age but pre-civil rights.

0:11:07 > 0:11:11You know, if you think about the horror movie violence,

0:11:11 > 0:11:12they were science gone wrong,

0:11:12 > 0:11:16but you didn't really feel like it was going to happen to you.

0:11:17 > 0:11:19Psycho you felt could happen to you.

0:11:19 > 0:11:21This was the first movie that showed,

0:11:21 > 0:11:23yeah, you could be vulnerable,

0:11:23 > 0:11:27naked, alone in a shower and someone who is wearing the clothes of their

0:11:27 > 0:11:30dead mother is going to come in and just stab you,

0:11:30 > 0:11:32because that's what they're going to do.

0:11:34 > 0:11:38Americans were kind of obsessed with domesticity.

0:11:38 > 0:11:41They wanted to tell themselves that in their private,

0:11:41 > 0:11:43personal domestic spaces,

0:11:43 > 0:11:47at least there they were safe.

0:11:47 > 0:11:50The Soviets and whomever else,

0:11:50 > 0:11:52they couldn't possibly get to you in your bathroom!

0:11:54 > 0:12:00A few days after Psycho began shooting in November of 1959,

0:12:00 > 0:12:04the Clutter family in Kansas is murdered.

0:12:04 > 0:12:06Those are the In Cold Blood murders.

0:12:06 > 0:12:09You're not living next door to the Norman Rockwell family any more,

0:12:09 > 0:12:11you're living next door to the Manson family.

0:12:11 > 0:12:14This is the new modern American family, which very much inspired

0:12:14 > 0:12:16Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

0:12:16 > 0:12:18SHE SCREAMS

0:12:18 > 0:12:19HE HOWLS IN RESPONSE

0:12:21 > 0:12:26The first Playboy club opens in Chicago.

0:12:26 > 0:12:30The most famous sitcom stars of the 1950s,

0:12:30 > 0:12:35Lucille Ball and Ricky Ricardo, are divorced.

0:12:35 > 0:12:39The birth control pill is approved by the FDA.

0:12:39 > 0:12:41You could look at the shower scene as this build-up of tension,

0:12:41 > 0:12:46all of these things, all of these American fears of the quiet '50s.

0:12:46 > 0:12:49It's all going to explode, and it comes out in this scene.

0:13:01 > 0:13:04Well, I was on the critics list in New York for review.

0:13:04 > 0:13:08The press was all invited to the theatre

0:13:08 > 0:13:11the day it opened at ten or 10:30 in the morning,

0:13:11 > 0:13:13with the first performance.

0:13:13 > 0:13:14As you went in,

0:13:14 > 0:13:18Hitchcock's voice was blaring on loudspeakers saying...

0:13:18 > 0:13:21MIMICS HITCHCOCK: "Nobody would be allowed in after the picture starts,

0:13:21 > 0:13:24"and please don't reveal the ending."

0:13:25 > 0:13:29Before Psycho, movies, as a form of entertainment,

0:13:29 > 0:13:30were relatively disposable.

0:13:30 > 0:13:32There was a tremendous...

0:13:32 > 0:13:36Compared to today, a tremendous coming and going in movie theatres.

0:13:36 > 0:13:38And Hitchcock brilliantly said

0:13:38 > 0:13:41"We don't want anyone coming in

0:13:41 > 0:13:43"after the beginning of this film."

0:13:43 > 0:13:46It changed the way films are exhibited.

0:13:46 > 0:13:49The reason was because the leading lady, Janet Leigh,

0:13:49 > 0:13:52was killed off a third of the way through.

0:13:52 > 0:13:54And I didn't want people whispering to each other,

0:13:54 > 0:13:56"When is Janet Leigh coming on?"

0:13:57 > 0:14:00He wanted to build anticipation.

0:14:00 > 0:14:01The bathroom...

0:14:03 > 0:14:05Something terrible happens in a bathroom.

0:14:05 > 0:14:07We know this from the trailer.

0:14:07 > 0:14:08We don't know it is Janet Leigh,

0:14:08 > 0:14:12because it's Vera Miles in the trailer and not Janet Leigh.

0:14:12 > 0:14:14SHE SCREAMS

0:14:14 > 0:14:19The minute the curtain opens and started stabbing,

0:14:19 > 0:14:23there was... There was a sustained shriek...

0:14:24 > 0:14:25..from the audience.

0:14:25 > 0:14:26AHHHH!

0:14:26 > 0:14:28Like that. Constant.

0:14:28 > 0:14:31You couldn't hear anything off the soundtrack.

0:14:31 > 0:14:33Through the entire shower scene.

0:14:34 > 0:14:36So you had the screams from Janet Leigh,

0:14:36 > 0:14:39the screams from all the women surrounding you in the theatre,

0:14:39 > 0:14:41and the high shrieking strings from Herrmann.

0:14:41 > 0:14:44That must have been total mayhem.

0:14:44 > 0:14:47It was actually the first time in the history of movies

0:14:47 > 0:14:50where it wasn't safe to be in a movie theatre.

0:14:51 > 0:14:54And when I walked out into Times Square at noon...

0:14:55 > 0:14:56..I felt I had been raped.

0:15:01 > 0:15:02In 1895,

0:15:02 > 0:15:08when the Lumiere brothers really first showed film to an audience,

0:15:08 > 0:15:13one of the fragments they showed was of a train pulling into a station.

0:15:14 > 0:15:16And the legend has it that they thought the train

0:15:16 > 0:15:18was going to hit them, and they were screaming

0:15:18 > 0:15:21and it caused a stampede of people trying to

0:15:21 > 0:15:23evacuate this room that it was screened in.

0:15:23 > 0:15:25They didn't understand the concept.

0:15:25 > 0:15:29You know, Psycho comes along and it has a similar kind of impact.

0:15:29 > 0:15:31It's the only movie in my childhood

0:15:31 > 0:15:33that my mom wouldn't let me go and see,

0:15:33 > 0:15:36which was kind of ridiculous because I was seeing nothing

0:15:36 > 0:15:40but horror films every single weekend, two of them, in fact.

0:15:40 > 0:15:43But Psycho - no, I couldn't go!

0:15:43 > 0:15:45As a kid, I thought the name was Cycle,

0:15:45 > 0:15:47like it was about some killer on a motorcycle.

0:15:47 > 0:15:51But I actually got this Super 8 version and just, like,

0:15:51 > 0:15:54constantly ran the movie over and over again.

0:15:56 > 0:16:00When audiences saw this really likeable character,

0:16:00 > 0:16:03someone who was quite relatable in terms of

0:16:03 > 0:16:05"I need more money, I'm growing older,

0:16:05 > 0:16:08"the man that I love won't marry me,"

0:16:08 > 0:16:09they were really hooked.

0:16:09 > 0:16:11Oh, Sam, let's get married.

0:16:16 > 0:16:17Yeah.

0:16:17 > 0:16:21And live with me in a store room behind a hardware store in Fairvale?

0:16:21 > 0:16:22We'll have lots of laughs(!)

0:16:22 > 0:16:27Of course she's going to survive the movie, it's Janet Leigh!

0:16:27 > 0:16:32Instead, she takes a shower, out of nowhere she is murdered by...

0:16:33 > 0:16:36..an old lady, who I can't even see?

0:16:36 > 0:16:38What the fuck is going on here?!

0:16:38 > 0:16:42He has broken the covenant of film-maker and audience,

0:16:42 > 0:16:46and the audience cannot wait to see more.

0:16:46 > 0:16:48He was a respected director...

0:16:49 > 0:16:52..and, you know, she was a bona fide movie star,

0:16:52 > 0:16:58and I think you kind of get into the thrill of that possible shock wave,

0:16:58 > 0:17:00which obviously happened.

0:17:00 > 0:17:05I think that moment signalled new American cinema,

0:17:05 > 0:17:07maybe world cinema in certain ways.

0:17:07 > 0:17:08I don't know that that had ever been done.

0:17:08 > 0:17:10Right.

0:17:10 > 0:17:13Maybe there's some obscure Czechoslovakian film that did it,

0:17:13 > 0:17:14there's a guy going, like, "Grr!"

0:17:14 > 0:17:17- LAUGHTER - "I did it first!"- Yeah.

0:17:17 > 0:17:21I can think of things that, culturally, have got us thinking about that structure.

0:17:21 > 0:17:23For instance, the first season of Game of Thrones,

0:17:23 > 0:17:26in which our most appealing character of Ned Stark,

0:17:26 > 0:17:29is just sort of cruelly killed in front of us.

0:17:33 > 0:17:38Culturally, we had to be reminded of the power of that narrative trope.

0:17:38 > 0:17:40The reality is he used the whole first half of the movie

0:17:40 > 0:17:42as a ruse to get you to this house,

0:17:42 > 0:17:45and the only way you're going to get to this house is

0:17:45 > 0:17:49if you believe that she's someone who's stolen 40,000 and that she's

0:17:49 > 0:17:51gotten off on the wrong freeway exit

0:17:51 > 0:17:54and is on this little tiny road where nobody goes by.

0:17:54 > 0:17:58There's a lot of things he is saying here about our society

0:17:58 > 0:18:00that was changing at that point.

0:18:00 > 0:18:03We were trying to get as fast as we could from Los Angeles to Chicago or

0:18:03 > 0:18:07New York, and going in these little towns was not necessary any more.

0:18:07 > 0:18:09And Norman doesn't even seem to mind.

0:18:09 > 0:18:12He's ready to change the bed sheets every day with nobody there.

0:18:12 > 0:18:14One by one, you drop the formalities.

0:18:14 > 0:18:18I shouldn't even bother changing the sheets, but old habits die hard.

0:18:20 > 0:18:23When she's driving off with the 40,000,

0:18:23 > 0:18:26she's on the road and she's in the West.

0:18:27 > 0:18:30There's something fundamentally American about that,

0:18:30 > 0:18:32dating back all the way to manifest destiny.

0:18:32 > 0:18:37"Go West, find your fate, find your freedom."

0:18:37 > 0:18:41Marion tries to do just that, and that's where she meets her fate.

0:18:44 > 0:18:47PSYCHO VIOLIN STRINGS PLAYED IN SLOWER TEMPO

0:18:47 > 0:18:51It's interesting to compare the novel Psycho with the movie Psycho.

0:18:51 > 0:18:54The shower scene is a lot different, it's really brief in the book.

0:18:54 > 0:18:57So on page 28...

0:18:57 > 0:18:59..um, here's the shower scene.

0:18:59 > 0:19:00SHOWER RUNS

0:19:03 > 0:19:06"The roar was deafening, the room was beginning to steam up.

0:19:08 > 0:19:10"That's why she didn't hear the door open,

0:19:10 > 0:19:12"or note the sound of footsteps.

0:19:13 > 0:19:18"And at first when the shower curtains parted, the steam obscured the face.

0:19:18 > 0:19:20"Then she did see it there,

0:19:20 > 0:19:25"just a face, peering through the curtains, hanging in mid air like a mask.

0:19:25 > 0:19:30"A half scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanly.

0:19:30 > 0:19:32"But it wasn't a mask, it couldn't be.

0:19:33 > 0:19:36"The skin had been powdered dead white and two hectic spots of rouge

0:19:36 > 0:19:39"centred on the cheekbones.

0:19:39 > 0:19:42"It wasn't a mask, it was the face of a crazy woman.

0:19:42 > 0:19:45"Mary started to scream and then the curtain parted further

0:19:45 > 0:19:47"and hand appeared, holding a butcher knife.

0:19:48 > 0:19:51"It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.

0:19:52 > 0:19:53"And her head."

0:20:00 > 0:20:03The fact the Hitchcock brought Saul Bass in to work on the shower scene

0:20:03 > 0:20:06as its own kind of independent thing

0:20:06 > 0:20:11says to me that he knew that he had to do something special with the shower scene.

0:20:13 > 0:20:15"Interior, Mary in shower.

0:20:15 > 0:20:18"We see the bathroom door being pushed slowly open.

0:20:19 > 0:20:22"The noise of the shower drowns any sound.

0:20:22 > 0:20:25"The door is then slowly and carefully closed

0:20:25 > 0:20:28"and we see the shadow of a woman fall across the shower curtain.

0:20:30 > 0:20:32"Mary's back is turned to the curtain.

0:20:32 > 0:20:35"The white brightness of the bathroom is almost blinding.

0:20:35 > 0:20:37"Suddenly we see the hand reach up,

0:20:37 > 0:20:39"grasp the shower curtain, rip it aside.

0:20:39 > 0:20:43"Cut to Mary, extreme close-up.

0:20:43 > 0:20:48"As she turns in response to the feel and sound of the shower curtain being torn aside,

0:20:48 > 0:20:51"a look of pure horror erupts in her face.

0:20:51 > 0:20:55"A low, terrible groan begins to rise up out of her throat.

0:20:55 > 0:20:57"A hand comes into shot.

0:20:57 > 0:20:59"The hand holds an enormous bread knife.

0:20:59 > 0:21:02"The flint of the blade shatters the screen

0:21:02 > 0:21:05"to an almost total silver blankness.

0:21:05 > 0:21:06"The slashing.

0:21:06 > 0:21:10"An impression of a knife slashing as if tearing at the very scream,

0:21:10 > 0:21:13"ripping the film. Over it, the brief gulps of screaming.

0:21:14 > 0:21:15"And then silence.

0:21:17 > 0:21:20"And then the dreadful thump as Mary's body falls in the tub.

0:21:20 > 0:21:25"Reverse angle, the blank whiteness, the blur of the shower water.

0:21:25 > 0:21:27"The hand pulling the shower curtain back.

0:21:27 > 0:21:30"We catch one flicker of a glimpse of the murderer.

0:21:30 > 0:21:35"A woman, her face contorted with madness, her head wild with hair,

0:21:35 > 0:21:38"as if she were wearing a fright wig.

0:21:38 > 0:21:42"And then we see only the curtain, closed across the tub,

0:21:42 > 0:21:44"and hear the rush of the shower water.

0:21:44 > 0:21:48"Above the shower bar we see the bathroom door open again,

0:21:48 > 0:21:51"and after a moment, we hear the sound of the front door slamming.

0:21:51 > 0:21:53"Cut to the dead body.

0:21:54 > 0:21:58"Lying half-in, half-out of the tub, the head tumbled over,

0:21:58 > 0:22:04"touching the floor. The hair wet, one eye wide open as if popped.

0:22:04 > 0:22:08"One arm lying limp and wet along the tile floor.

0:22:08 > 0:22:10"Coming down the side of the tub,

0:22:10 > 0:22:13"running thick and dark along the porcelain,

0:22:13 > 0:22:15"we see many small threads of blood.

0:22:16 > 0:22:21"Camera moves away from the body, travels slowly across the bathroom,

0:22:21 > 0:22:22"past the toilet...

0:22:23 > 0:22:25"..out into the bedroom."

0:22:33 > 0:22:35I think that the shower scene elevated film.

0:22:35 > 0:22:39Not the horror genre specifically, but film-making in general.

0:22:39 > 0:22:41Over and over again, it keeps showing you new things.

0:22:41 > 0:22:45I think it's one of those spectacular pieces of work.

0:22:45 > 0:22:48The film is moving inexorably to that scene.

0:22:48 > 0:22:50You don't know it, as a viewer.

0:22:52 > 0:22:54Sam, this is the last time.

0:22:55 > 0:22:56I pay, too.

0:22:58 > 0:23:01They also pay, who meet in hotel rooms.

0:23:01 > 0:23:05There are plenty of motels in this area, you should have...

0:23:05 > 0:23:07I mean, just to be safe.

0:23:07 > 0:23:09Mother... My mother...

0:23:10 > 0:23:11What is the phrase?

0:23:12 > 0:23:15She isn't quite herself today.

0:23:15 > 0:23:18Hitchcock was amazing at setting everything up.

0:23:18 > 0:23:22When she's packing to go to see her boyfriend,

0:23:22 > 0:23:24you see the shower head in the background.

0:23:24 > 0:23:28It's very specific, the shower is right over her shoulder.

0:23:28 > 0:23:31When it comes to Norman, when he talks about the bathroom,

0:23:31 > 0:23:35he, like stutters and he can't really say toilet or bathroom.

0:23:35 > 0:23:37And the, er...

0:23:38 > 0:23:39..over there.

0:23:40 > 0:23:42- The bathroom.- Yeah.

0:23:42 > 0:23:44That's what's great about Hitchcock.

0:23:44 > 0:23:47He always really tunes into those character moments.

0:23:47 > 0:23:49That desperate drive at the beginning.

0:23:49 > 0:23:50It's crazy good.

0:23:50 > 0:23:52The notion of getting clean, that's her arc.

0:23:52 > 0:23:55She can't see because of the density of the water,

0:23:55 > 0:23:57which is really beautiful

0:23:57 > 0:24:00because she's drowning in her worry and fear.

0:24:00 > 0:24:04The slashing of the wipers presages the slashing of the knife.

0:24:04 > 0:24:08It's sort of... It's a very violent and wet and sloshy,

0:24:08 > 0:24:10sharp stabbing motion.

0:24:10 > 0:24:11And it's a long build-up,

0:24:11 > 0:24:13but we have no idea that the rain

0:24:13 > 0:24:15that's going to come down upon her later

0:24:15 > 0:24:17is going to include her own blood.

0:24:18 > 0:24:21I certainly get the sensation that the shower scene was something that

0:24:21 > 0:24:23Hitchcock had probably been working towards all of his life.

0:24:29 > 0:24:31Is he cleaning house?

0:24:31 > 0:24:34He's washing down the bathroom walls.

0:24:34 > 0:24:36It must've splattered a lot.

0:24:38 > 0:24:40Well, why not? That's what we're all thinking.

0:24:40 > 0:24:42He killed her in there, and he has to clean up

0:24:42 > 0:24:44those stains before he leaves.

0:24:44 > 0:24:47You really can't talk about the shower scene without talking

0:24:47 > 0:24:48about the rest of the film.

0:24:48 > 0:24:52Without the parlour scene, obviously, the shower scene doesn't really work nearly as well,

0:24:52 > 0:24:54because the parlour scene is a sort of really sad,

0:24:54 > 0:24:58beautiful connection that comes before this savagery.

0:24:58 > 0:25:00Is your time so empty?

0:25:00 > 0:25:05No. Well, I run the office.

0:25:05 > 0:25:10And, tend the cabins, and grounds, and do little errands for my mother.

0:25:10 > 0:25:13The one she allows I might be capable of doing.

0:25:14 > 0:25:17Do you go out with friends?

0:25:19 > 0:25:21Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.

0:25:21 > 0:25:25He has a very loaded preamble to the shower scene.

0:25:25 > 0:25:27Wouldn't it be better if you put her...

0:25:29 > 0:25:30..someplace?

0:25:34 > 0:25:36You mean an institution?

0:25:36 > 0:25:38A madhouse?

0:25:38 > 0:25:39Look how still he is.

0:25:39 > 0:25:43Whereas before, he was fidgety and moving around.

0:25:43 > 0:25:46Suddenly, he became very still.

0:25:46 > 0:25:49- Maybe that's the moment he decided to kill her.- Yeah.- Yeah.

0:25:49 > 0:25:51Yeah, he's super confident now.

0:25:51 > 0:25:53- Yeah.- Look at him. - He's barely moving his head.

0:25:53 > 0:25:54LAUGHTER

0:25:54 > 0:25:57- Just his eyes.- Wow!

0:25:57 > 0:25:58He's so angry.

0:25:59 > 0:26:01- And she just got terrified. - Yeah.

0:26:01 > 0:26:05Oh, you're not, you're not going back to your room already?

0:26:05 > 0:26:07Perhaps I'll go back to my room, now...

0:26:07 > 0:26:10..Norman, it's been lovely to chat.

0:26:10 > 0:26:12Terribly sorry about your loneliness.

0:26:15 > 0:26:18This is the first moment that you're with him and not her.

0:26:18 > 0:26:20Yeah, she literally walks away from camera.

0:26:20 > 0:26:23- Yeah.- Right.- And then, well with him now.- My job here is done.- Yeah.

0:26:23 > 0:26:25I'm no longer the protagonist of this story.

0:26:25 > 0:26:28There was a private supper here...

0:26:29 > 0:26:31..and, er...

0:26:31 > 0:26:33Oh, by the way, this picture...

0:26:34 > 0:26:36..has great significance.

0:26:38 > 0:26:40Because...

0:26:43 > 0:26:45Let's go along to cabin number one.

0:26:49 > 0:26:52The painting that Mr Bates removed

0:26:52 > 0:26:55to become the Peeping Tom was actually

0:26:55 > 0:26:58a 16th or early 17th century painting.

0:27:00 > 0:27:03Susanna and the Elders is actually a morality story

0:27:03 > 0:27:07about a virtuous woman who bathed in her garden,

0:27:07 > 0:27:10and was spied on by two elder man.

0:27:10 > 0:27:13And the theme burgeoned,

0:27:13 > 0:27:17possibly as a result of counter reformatory motives.

0:27:17 > 0:27:21It was either that, or it was simply an excuse for painting female nudity.

0:27:23 > 0:27:26Now, the interesting thing about it, is it's about adultery.

0:27:26 > 0:27:31And it's fascinating because Mary, who's in the shower,

0:27:31 > 0:27:33is kind of cleansing herself

0:27:33 > 0:27:35of committing adultery with a married man.

0:27:37 > 0:27:41In art history, there were about three or four different phases

0:27:41 > 0:27:43of how artists depicted Susanna and the Elders.

0:27:45 > 0:27:49Lucas van Leyden shows the two elders in prominence,

0:27:49 > 0:27:54whereas the small Susanna is bathing in the far distance.

0:27:54 > 0:27:58But by the time you get to Tintoretto, she's full frontal.

0:27:59 > 0:28:04Rubens begins to take and probe the psychological intensity of the moment.

0:28:04 > 0:28:08Rembrandt, using the power of lightness and darkness,

0:28:08 > 0:28:11of highlights, to enhance the drama.

0:28:11 > 0:28:16The interesting thing about the painting is that you've got full frontal nudity of Susanna,

0:28:16 > 0:28:19and yet the two elders are not simply looking at her,

0:28:19 > 0:28:21they're actually groping and violating her.

0:28:21 > 0:28:23It's almost a rape scene...

0:28:24 > 0:28:26..that's taking place before our eyes.

0:28:26 > 0:28:29It's an amazing painting that he picked.

0:28:29 > 0:28:32It's not any old Baroque painting.

0:28:32 > 0:28:33It's voyeurism.

0:28:34 > 0:28:37He removes the voyeuristic painting

0:28:37 > 0:28:40to become the voyeur looking in on the shower.

0:28:40 > 0:28:43He could've picked from 50 different examples,

0:28:43 > 0:28:46but he chose this one because it had the most amount of information that

0:28:46 > 0:28:48he could use for his film.

0:28:50 > 0:28:54I love that there's a hole in the wall the size of his face.

0:28:54 > 0:28:56Which tells you that he's been doing this more than once

0:28:56 > 0:28:59and that he's made it comfortable for himself.

0:28:59 > 0:29:03The notion that he is looking just as you are, it binds you with him,

0:29:03 > 0:29:08and when you eliminate those walls and you're now watching him,

0:29:08 > 0:29:11and you're watching, and you're watching together,

0:29:11 > 0:29:15then you are in a new place where things can get a lot scarier.

0:29:15 > 0:29:22Psycho is delineated from the other works of his oeuvre by those gazes.

0:29:22 > 0:29:25The birds are looking at us, each individual bird,

0:29:25 > 0:29:27dead bird, is looking at us.

0:29:27 > 0:29:31Mother is looking at us from eyeless sockets.

0:29:31 > 0:29:32Dead Marion, with her eye open.

0:29:34 > 0:29:37The stare includes and indicts us at the same time.

0:29:38 > 0:29:40It's a mirror image.

0:29:40 > 0:29:41You know, it goes both ways.

0:29:41 > 0:29:43We're looking into the eyes of death,

0:29:43 > 0:29:45and the eyes of death are looking at us.

0:29:45 > 0:29:48And it's inclusive and horrifying.

0:29:48 > 0:29:51The laughing and the tears,

0:29:51 > 0:29:54and the cruel eyes studying you.

0:29:54 > 0:29:55My mother there?

0:29:57 > 0:29:58God is studying you,

0:29:58 > 0:30:02because there are a number of God point-of-view shots in Psycho,

0:30:02 > 0:30:05just as there are in The Birds.

0:30:05 > 0:30:07Hitchcock's God is cruel and arbitrary,

0:30:07 > 0:30:12and like some kind of bird of prey or raptor which is gazing down

0:30:12 > 0:30:15rather coldly and disinterestedly on its human subjects.

0:30:17 > 0:30:18In the shower sequence,

0:30:18 > 0:30:23the violence is directed and that knife is coming towards us.

0:30:23 > 0:30:26So we're being punished for being the voyeurs.

0:30:26 > 0:30:30There are consequences to watching and being watched.

0:30:30 > 0:30:32In the character of James Stewart,

0:30:32 > 0:30:35if we identify with him in Rear Window

0:30:35 > 0:30:37has a very literal, great fall

0:30:37 > 0:30:41at the end of it where he breaks the other leg.

0:30:41 > 0:30:44Meaning another six, eight months of pain and itchiness

0:30:44 > 0:30:47and not being able to screw Grace Kelly.

0:30:47 > 0:30:51All those things are pertinent to Hitchcock.

0:30:51 > 0:30:53I'll bet you nine people out of ten...

0:30:53 > 0:30:55WOMAN TRANSLATES INTO FRENCH

0:30:55 > 0:31:01..if they see something across, like a woman undressing and going

0:31:01 > 0:31:06to bed, or even sometimes a man pottering around his room

0:31:06 > 0:31:07doing nothing.

0:31:09 > 0:31:12Nine people out of ten will stay and look.

0:31:14 > 0:31:16They won't turn away and say,

0:31:16 > 0:31:20it's none of my business and pull down their own curtain.

0:31:20 > 0:31:21They won't do it.

0:31:24 > 0:31:28In the beginning of the movie you're flying into a window with the blinds

0:31:28 > 0:31:30closed, so you're starting out as a voyeur.

0:31:31 > 0:31:33And if you think about it, if the movie's opening

0:31:33 > 0:31:38from the point of view of a fly, it changes the whole context of what meaning of the movie is.

0:31:38 > 0:31:40- WOMAN:- I'm not even going to swat that fly.

0:31:40 > 0:31:42I hope they are watching.

0:31:42 > 0:31:46They'll see, they'll see and they'll know, and they'll say...

0:31:47 > 0:31:50..why, she wouldn't even harm a fly.

0:31:50 > 0:31:54I think the voyeurism actually has a payoff in the shower scene.

0:31:54 > 0:31:57It's Hitchcock's way of setting the bomb under the table,

0:31:57 > 0:32:01which is something he liked to do to create dramatic irony.

0:32:01 > 0:32:07Four people are sitting around the table, talking about baseball,

0:32:07 > 0:32:08whatever you like.

0:32:09 > 0:32:11Five minutes of it,

0:32:11 > 0:32:12very dull.

0:32:13 > 0:32:17Suddenly, a bomb goes off.

0:32:17 > 0:32:20Blows the people to smithereens.

0:32:20 > 0:32:21What do the audience have?

0:32:21 > 0:32:25Ten seconds of shock.

0:32:25 > 0:32:27Now take the same scene

0:32:27 > 0:32:30and tell the audience there is a bomb under that table

0:32:30 > 0:32:32and will go off in five minutes.

0:32:33 > 0:32:37Well, the whole emotion of the audience is totally different,

0:32:37 > 0:32:39because you've given them that information.

0:32:40 > 0:32:43You've got the audience working.

0:32:44 > 0:32:46- Hello?- I think at this point

0:32:46 > 0:32:48we start to wonder what's going on in his head

0:32:48 > 0:32:52and what's going to happen because of this look on his face.

0:32:52 > 0:32:54That's so interesting as an actor, what is he playing?

0:32:54 > 0:32:57He's playing, "Oh, God, don't let my mother kill this girl."

0:32:57 > 0:33:01Norman Bates is presented in all these little, you know,

0:33:01 > 0:33:04encapsulated moments throughout the film

0:33:04 > 0:33:07and in much the same way that the murder is presented

0:33:07 > 0:33:13in encapsulated moments of images and compositions, cut together.

0:33:13 > 0:33:18So, I think that the movie is, it's about fragmentation,

0:33:18 > 0:33:20it is fragmentation.

0:33:23 > 0:33:25Norman goes up to the house.

0:33:25 > 0:33:29It's very important that the audience sees him leave

0:33:29 > 0:33:34because he is reacting to a third character that we think

0:33:34 > 0:33:36is in the house, Mother.

0:33:36 > 0:33:38But that is really in his mind.

0:33:40 > 0:33:43He goes to the stairs and he looks up, and he looks like he's sad

0:33:43 > 0:33:45because he realises that Mom's not at home upstairs.

0:33:45 > 0:33:47Then he goes and flops into the kitchen,

0:33:47 > 0:33:49like a dejected little schoolboy.

0:33:49 > 0:33:55So he sits there, like, "Oh, rats, I can't have dinner with the lady I want to have dinner with."

0:33:55 > 0:33:58I imagine he must've done that a lot when Mother was alive.

0:33:58 > 0:34:02That she must've yelled at him and he would just go into kitchen when he couldn't get what he wanted,

0:34:02 > 0:34:06when she was berating him for whatever he wasn't living up to her standards.

0:34:06 > 0:34:09There's a lot one could say about Hitchcock mothers.

0:34:17 > 0:34:20Are you quite sure she didn't come down here to see you,

0:34:20 > 0:34:24to capture the rich Alex Sebastian for a husband?

0:34:24 > 0:34:26Go get shaved before your father gets home.

0:34:26 > 0:34:29You gentlemen aren't really trying to kill my son, are you?

0:34:31 > 0:34:34When you talk about what is sacred in America,

0:34:34 > 0:34:37people talk about mom and apple pie.

0:34:37 > 0:34:44Mom is good, we love Mom, we are Mom, we are good.

0:34:44 > 0:34:49On the other hand, there's something else going on in 1950s America

0:34:49 > 0:34:55in culture and society, where Mom is also suspect.

0:34:57 > 0:35:02There was a serious social panic in America about juvenile delinquency.

0:35:02 > 0:35:07One thing that this social panic resulted in was this fear that moms

0:35:07 > 0:35:10were going to shelter and spoil children,

0:35:10 > 0:35:13possibly America itself, to death.

0:35:14 > 0:35:19All of the sitcoms - Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet,

0:35:19 > 0:35:21where Mother never did anything.

0:35:21 > 0:35:26All she did was take care of the house and the kids.

0:35:26 > 0:35:29I'm just practically ready and David has to get dressed.

0:35:29 > 0:35:31Get dressed? You mean dressed up?

0:35:31 > 0:35:33Well, yes, you want to look nice when Nancy gets here.

0:35:33 > 0:35:40The director who exposes the horror of the American family in the '50s

0:35:40 > 0:35:43without making a horror movie, is Douglas Sirk.

0:35:43 > 0:35:46You see Kay, I love Ron.

0:35:46 > 0:35:49You love him so much you're willing to ruin all our lives?

0:35:49 > 0:35:50You can't really think that.

0:35:50 > 0:35:52What else can I think?

0:35:52 > 0:35:57In Sirk, it's the whole construction of the family.

0:35:57 > 0:35:58It's not until Psycho, though,

0:35:58 > 0:36:03where the mother is literally a monster when you see her at the end.

0:36:03 > 0:36:08I think my mother scared me when I was three months old.

0:36:08 > 0:36:10AUDIENCE LAUGHS You remember that?

0:36:10 > 0:36:11You see, she said boo.

0:36:11 > 0:36:17I don't know how many times in Psycho, do people talk about Mother.

0:36:17 > 0:36:19Oh, we can see each other.

0:36:19 > 0:36:20We can even have dinner.

0:36:21 > 0:36:25But respectably. In my house, with my mother's picture on the mantel,

0:36:25 > 0:36:29and my sister helping me broil a big steak for three.

0:36:29 > 0:36:32And after the steak, will we send Sister to the movies,

0:36:32 > 0:36:33turn Mama's picture to the wall?

0:36:33 > 0:36:34Sam!

0:36:34 > 0:36:39Patricia Hitchcock talks about, she offers her a tranquiliser.

0:36:39 > 0:36:40Have you got some aspirin?

0:36:40 > 0:36:42I've got something, not aspirin,

0:36:42 > 0:36:44my mother's doctor gave them to me the day of my wedding.

0:36:44 > 0:36:47Teddy was furious when he found out I had taken tranquilizers.

0:36:49 > 0:36:51- Any calls?- Teddy called me,

0:36:51 > 0:36:54my mother called to see if Teddy called...

0:36:54 > 0:36:57Even in that office, the influence,

0:36:57 > 0:37:03the negative influence of mothers, and here it's on women, not on men.

0:37:03 > 0:37:06So, the fact that Norman Bates' mother,

0:37:06 > 0:37:08we realise eventually it's Norman Bates himself,

0:37:08 > 0:37:12might have on an unconscious level audiences saying, "Aha!

0:37:12 > 0:37:15"I knew it! Mom IS gonna to kill us!

0:37:15 > 0:37:17"Mom IS going to be the death of us all!"

0:37:34 > 0:37:36SHOWER RUNS

0:37:36 > 0:37:38OK. Once more into the bridge.

0:37:39 > 0:37:41Back to the primal moment.

0:37:43 > 0:37:47Marion is doing her accounting here,

0:37:47 > 0:37:49figuring out how much she spent on the car.

0:37:51 > 0:37:52She's making the decision to...

0:37:54 > 0:37:55..return the money.

0:37:55 > 0:37:57Nice little bit of handy exposition.

0:37:58 > 0:38:00I always write down my math.

0:38:00 > 0:38:02It's charming, you know.

0:38:02 > 0:38:04It's still an old movie, let's face it.

0:38:06 > 0:38:09She throws the paper in the toilet bowl

0:38:09 > 0:38:13and then to cap it off she flushes it.

0:38:14 > 0:38:17Right from the beginning, you know you're in new territory.

0:38:17 > 0:38:19In 1960, nobody had shown a toilet before.

0:38:19 > 0:38:23The flushing toilet is a clear indication that the scene to come

0:38:23 > 0:38:25is going to break one or two taboos.

0:38:25 > 0:38:27Details are important, you know.

0:38:27 > 0:38:29In the building of suspense,

0:38:29 > 0:38:31you know that those details are all going to add up to something

0:38:31 > 0:38:34much more monumental than the simplicity of these shots.

0:38:35 > 0:38:37Hitchcock was a Victorian.

0:38:37 > 0:38:43Victorians thought that a bright, white tiled bathroom was sanitary.

0:38:43 > 0:38:44That's the term they used.

0:38:46 > 0:38:50His bathroom, in his home, was bright, white tiles.

0:38:50 > 0:38:54He thought that invading the sanctity of the bathroom

0:38:54 > 0:38:57was a cool and subversive thing to do.

0:38:57 > 0:39:02He did it in silent films, he did in Spellbound.

0:39:02 > 0:39:05By showing that brightness it was a way of saying,

0:39:05 > 0:39:08look at how I am defiling the sanctity of the bathroom

0:39:08 > 0:39:11and I am doing it almost bloodlessly.

0:39:11 > 0:39:15Coincidentally, this scene was extremely influential on a scene

0:39:15 > 0:39:19in The Conversation, which I edited back in 1973.

0:39:19 > 0:39:24A murder has been committed and Gene Hackman comes into the bathroom

0:39:24 > 0:39:28of a hotel room but the room is completely clean.

0:39:28 > 0:39:32And he pulls the curtain apart, just as in Psycho

0:39:32 > 0:39:35the mother pulls the curtain apart, but it's empty.

0:39:35 > 0:39:39He goes to the drain of the tub and runs his fingers

0:39:39 > 0:39:42around the drain to see if there was any telltale signs of blood

0:39:42 > 0:39:44and there's nothing.

0:39:44 > 0:39:47He goes over to the toilet to jiggle the handle

0:39:47 > 0:39:50and the toilet suddenly backs up.

0:39:50 > 0:39:55So it's a kind of an inverse version of the Psycho scene.

0:39:56 > 0:39:59The toilet and the flushing of the toilet,

0:39:59 > 0:40:01the shower curtain, the drain,

0:40:01 > 0:40:06all of these things were definitely imprinted upon us by Psycho.

0:40:06 > 0:40:10Now, one of the most beautiful, famous leading ladies in 1960

0:40:10 > 0:40:14just stripped in front of us and stepped into a shower.

0:40:14 > 0:40:17It's like, holy shit, where are we going now?

0:40:17 > 0:40:19Man, that must've been crazy racy for 1960.

0:40:19 > 0:40:21I don't even understand.

0:40:21 > 0:40:23Hitchcock knew that American men were curious

0:40:23 > 0:40:25about Janet Leigh.

0:40:25 > 0:40:29And so, the idea of having her in a shower

0:40:29 > 0:40:33in a stance that seems very suggestive, was a huge deal.

0:40:33 > 0:40:37Seeing her full body behind that curtain,

0:40:37 > 0:40:39it's brilliant because it's translucent.

0:40:39 > 0:40:44It's not transparent, it's not opaque but it's translucent.

0:40:44 > 0:40:47Enough to see her and titillate us.

0:40:47 > 0:40:50But not enough to really be graphic yet.

0:40:50 > 0:40:54The whole theory is that you have to discover the sex in a woman

0:40:54 > 0:40:56and not have it...

0:40:58 > 0:41:01..stuck all over her like labels, you know.

0:41:02 > 0:41:05And there's nothing else to look for, nothing to discover.

0:41:08 > 0:41:11Do we know anybody who turns the shower on before getting in, I mean,

0:41:11 > 0:41:12I don't act that way.

0:41:12 > 0:41:16I don't turn a shower on like that.

0:41:16 > 0:41:18I run it, and then get in when I know that it's safe.

0:41:20 > 0:41:24And look at that almost sexual expression on her face.

0:41:24 > 0:41:27She is being rained upon and it's cleansing,

0:41:27 > 0:41:29it's warm and she's happy,

0:41:29 > 0:41:31and she's, like, made up her mind.

0:41:31 > 0:41:34The natural sounds kind of put you in the perspective of,

0:41:34 > 0:41:37we all become Janet Leigh but not as attractive.

0:41:37 > 0:41:39Through other movies like Rear Window and Birds,

0:41:39 > 0:41:42he knows when the lack of music can be as effective as music.

0:41:45 > 0:41:47APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS

0:41:54 > 0:41:55FLUTTER OF WINGS

0:42:00 > 0:42:03I think there's almost no moment

0:42:03 > 0:42:06when we see Marion with a genuine smile.

0:42:06 > 0:42:08There's almost no moment where...

0:42:08 > 0:42:10Where she's allowed to feel good

0:42:10 > 0:42:13about what her life is like.

0:42:13 > 0:42:14She's happy for the first time.

0:42:15 > 0:42:18We're going into a scene which, on the one hand,

0:42:18 > 0:42:20is, um, quite liberatory for the character,

0:42:20 > 0:42:23but at the same time it's clearly really what we're watching

0:42:23 > 0:42:25is the liberation of Hitchcock.

0:42:25 > 0:42:29Of his own repressed desires finally being writ large on the screen.

0:42:29 > 0:42:34Hitchcock viewed the world as a very imperfect moral machine.

0:42:34 > 0:42:36And he always had this...

0:42:38 > 0:42:40..biblical almost sense of doom and punishment.

0:42:40 > 0:42:44WOMAN SCREAMS You know, that befalls those

0:42:44 > 0:42:47that tangle with sin in a casual way.

0:42:47 > 0:42:51Even his most unHitchcockian movie, which is Mr & Mrs Smith,

0:42:51 > 0:42:53which I love, punishes banality.

0:42:55 > 0:42:59She makes a moral decision to take back that money and, you know,

0:42:59 > 0:43:02and suffer what ever punishment will come her way.

0:43:02 > 0:43:04I stepped into a private trap back there.

0:43:05 > 0:43:08And I'd like to back and try to pull myself out of it.

0:43:10 > 0:43:12Before it's too late for me, too.

0:43:12 > 0:43:13This is very important.

0:43:13 > 0:43:15It's very important narratively

0:43:15 > 0:43:18because it doesn't come in the middle of a heist.

0:43:18 > 0:43:20Or in the middle of the robbery.

0:43:20 > 0:43:24Or as she is escaping with the money on the road.

0:43:24 > 0:43:25And it turns out, bang!

0:43:25 > 0:43:28It doesn't make a damn bit of difference because the universe

0:43:28 > 0:43:29doesn't give a shit.

0:43:29 > 0:43:31And I think, uh,

0:43:31 > 0:43:34that is a true sign of his Catholicism

0:43:34 > 0:43:38and his sense of doom about a sin that cannot be washed away.

0:43:38 > 0:43:40Literally, with water.

0:43:40 > 0:43:42You know, it cannot be purged.

0:43:42 > 0:43:44Except by blood, and violence.

0:43:44 > 0:43:46And paying the price.

0:43:46 > 0:43:48She's punished for the worst crime,

0:43:48 > 0:43:52which is sexually arousing Norman Bates.

0:43:52 > 0:43:55You know, you get this strain again and again.

0:43:55 > 0:43:59I mean, think of Strangers on a Train, where Robert Walker, you know,

0:43:59 > 0:44:01strangles this poor girl.

0:44:01 > 0:44:03Again, what does he strangle her for?

0:44:03 > 0:44:07Because she's a loose woman who is in Farley Granger's way.

0:44:07 > 0:44:10I mean, that's a foreshadowing of Psycho.

0:44:12 > 0:44:16That's her point of view of the shower that puts us, the audience,

0:44:16 > 0:44:17as if we're in the shower with her.

0:44:17 > 0:44:21It makes us feel just a vulnerable as she is.

0:44:21 > 0:44:24It's spraying at us and it's creating a sonic curtain.

0:44:24 > 0:44:25She can't hear him coming.

0:44:27 > 0:44:29Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you in all this rain.

0:44:29 > 0:44:34And that's why that shot is bad news.

0:44:34 > 0:44:36You know, the shots change in their level of symmetry

0:44:36 > 0:44:38during the course of the sequence.

0:44:38 > 0:44:40That's order at the beginning, and then, oddly,

0:44:40 > 0:44:42it'll be echoed by the eye, in the drain,

0:44:42 > 0:44:45and Norman Bates' people through his office

0:44:45 > 0:44:49and those things start to rhyme after a while in a great way.

0:44:49 > 0:44:53How do you point a camera at a shower head without the lens getting sprayed?

0:44:53 > 0:44:55Move the camera back enough,

0:44:55 > 0:44:57plug some of the holes so that the spray shoots outward.

0:44:57 > 0:44:59Very simple and elegant solution.

0:45:01 > 0:45:04There's nothing unusual about the pacing here.

0:45:04 > 0:45:10It's at a rather leisurely 4.5 seconds per cut, on average.

0:45:10 > 0:45:13So, it's a calm before the storm, let's say.

0:45:14 > 0:45:17Now here's what I would call a strange cut.

0:45:17 > 0:45:18What I call the wet hair cut.

0:45:18 > 0:45:23Which is her washing herself with her head tilted back,

0:45:23 > 0:45:28and then it suddenly cuts to the same kind of an angle.

0:45:28 > 0:45:30Really a jump cut.

0:45:30 > 0:45:32Except now her hair is completely wet.

0:45:32 > 0:45:36This would give the lie to somebody who said

0:45:36 > 0:45:40"this scene was shot exactly as the storyboards were done,"

0:45:40 > 0:45:44because you never would storyboard a moment like that.

0:45:44 > 0:45:47You think you're going to be watching her go through

0:45:47 > 0:45:51the whole process in real time but that cut jumps you ahead.

0:45:51 > 0:45:52It feels very...

0:45:53 > 0:45:55..bold and confident.

0:45:55 > 0:45:57Now we cut to the shower head,

0:45:57 > 0:45:59but it's a side angle on the shower head.

0:45:59 > 0:46:02Not this, sort of, subjective point of view.

0:46:03 > 0:46:06When we were looking at her, she was facing left to right,

0:46:06 > 0:46:07away from the shower.

0:46:08 > 0:46:10And when we cut back to her,

0:46:10 > 0:46:13we come around to the other side of the stageline.

0:46:13 > 0:46:17What's behind her now is the shower curtain, not the wall.

0:46:17 > 0:46:20And now there's another cut.

0:46:20 > 0:46:22Again, it's a kind of awkward jump cut.

0:46:22 > 0:46:26Objectively, there would be no reason to do that.

0:46:26 > 0:46:31But it's unsettling because there's a big empty space,

0:46:31 > 0:46:33which is itself unsettling.

0:46:33 > 0:46:37What is going to fill that empty space?

0:46:37 > 0:46:40The audience starts to look over to that negative space.

0:46:40 > 0:46:43And feeling like, "Why am I looking over here?"

0:46:43 > 0:46:46The door opens. You see the shadow.

0:46:46 > 0:46:47And then Norman's figure.

0:46:47 > 0:46:49And that's the mounting terror.

0:46:49 > 0:46:52Where you say to yourself, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

0:46:52 > 0:46:56And THAT is the difference between suspense and surprise.

0:46:56 > 0:47:00The idea of menace in a shadowy figure,

0:47:00 > 0:47:03I think, that Hitchcock's fear.

0:47:03 > 0:47:08Who is the menacing figure in Alfred Hitchcock's own life?

0:47:08 > 0:47:12By the time he gets to Pyscho, that person is unleashed.

0:47:13 > 0:47:16Here you see Margo Epper, the stunt woman, coming toward.

0:47:18 > 0:47:20How do you NOT reveal who that is?

0:47:20 > 0:47:24I've been taking the wrap for that sequence for 20 years now

0:47:24 > 0:47:28but that's not me behind the curtain.

0:47:28 > 0:47:31I was in New York that day rehearsing a Broadway show.

0:47:31 > 0:47:35Every time they kept shooting it, you kept seeing the stunt woman's face.

0:47:35 > 0:47:38And one of the make-up men decided, "What if we blackened her face?"

0:47:38 > 0:47:39And so they tried that a couple of times.

0:47:39 > 0:47:41And went darker and darker, and darker.

0:47:41 > 0:47:44Until they achieved that effect.

0:47:44 > 0:47:47I've I talked with Janet Leigh about what she thought she saw

0:47:47 > 0:47:52coming at her, and she clearly saw Norman coming at her.

0:47:52 > 0:47:54And that's what she played.

0:47:54 > 0:47:56So, the reality for her was,

0:47:56 > 0:48:00"I'm going to die this way by this person who tried to befriend me,

0:48:00 > 0:48:03"and I tried to be polite to."

0:48:03 > 0:48:04You're very kind.

0:48:05 > 0:48:08It's all for you. I'm not hungry, go ahead.

0:48:09 > 0:48:13It really does lend an extra air of horror and pathos to that moment.

0:48:14 > 0:48:16And that wallpaper in the background.

0:48:16 > 0:48:19The Shining - so many horror movies try to have that, like,

0:48:19 > 0:48:21perfect Hitchcock Bates' Motel wallpaper.

0:48:21 > 0:48:26This floral pattern, that juxtapose with this black silhouette of the knife

0:48:26 > 0:48:28and the hair of Mother, it's really, really terrifying.

0:48:28 > 0:48:30The shape always kind of tortured me,

0:48:30 > 0:48:33it was like a weird mushroom shaped head.

0:48:33 > 0:48:35I don't know, kind of lame to me for some reason.

0:48:35 > 0:48:39I'd always wished that the shot looked a little scarier.

0:48:39 > 0:48:42When my grandfather first saw the first rough cut of Psycho

0:48:42 > 0:48:44he didn't like it at all.

0:48:44 > 0:48:46He was just going to cut it down to an hour

0:48:46 > 0:48:48and make it part of the TV show.

0:48:48 > 0:48:50Bernard Herrmann convinced him to create the most,

0:48:50 > 0:48:54like, famous scared chord music in horror cinema history.

0:48:54 > 0:48:56It's so ingrained in pop culture to where...

0:48:56 > 0:48:59- HE MIMICS PSYCHO SHOWER SCENE MUSIC Yeah, yeah.- It is transcendent.

0:48:59 > 0:49:02Yeah, yeah. My seven-year-old daughter knows that,

0:49:02 > 0:49:05- but she doesn't know where comes from. But...- Yeah.

0:49:05 > 0:49:07You know, she's made that joke. MIMICS PSYCHO SHOWER SCENE MUSIC

0:49:07 > 0:49:10- Like, I don't know where she got it. - That's incredible.

0:49:10 > 0:49:12She has no idea it's from Psycho. It's evolutionary.

0:49:12 > 0:49:14Like, we're just born knowing the shower scene!

0:49:14 > 0:49:15LAUGHTER

0:49:17 > 0:49:18I wanted a tattoo,

0:49:18 > 0:49:22and I thought it must be that one cue by Bernard Herrmann.

0:49:22 > 0:49:27The most amazing cue ever made in cinematic history.

0:49:27 > 0:49:29It has so little to do with harmony.

0:49:29 > 0:49:33It is just sheer terror.

0:49:33 > 0:49:36The way that music was used in movies to scare people

0:49:36 > 0:49:38really changed after Psycho.

0:49:38 > 0:49:41If you want to make something scary, you put in those strings.

0:49:41 > 0:49:42And you're like "DE-DE-DE-DE!"

0:49:42 > 0:49:46If you slow it down you get, "Da-ran, da-ran."

0:49:46 > 0:49:48What I really adore about Herrmann

0:49:48 > 0:49:53is the way that he realised that in the limitation

0:49:53 > 0:49:58there is actually a much more powerful statement to be made.

0:49:58 > 0:49:59He did the Day The Earth Stood Still,

0:49:59 > 0:50:03and he wrote it for seven theremins and only a couple of horns.

0:50:03 > 0:50:04EERIE TITLE MUSIC PLAYS

0:50:15 > 0:50:18Herrmann wrote Living Doll,

0:50:18 > 0:50:22which I think is one of the best scores that they had on Twilight Zone.

0:50:22 > 0:50:27It's like a bass clarinet or it might have been a contrabassoon,

0:50:27 > 0:50:30a glockenspiel, and a harp.

0:50:30 > 0:50:31He was definitely an experimenter.

0:50:31 > 0:50:35He's the one who taught me that you can kind of do anything,

0:50:35 > 0:50:36anywhere, if it works.

0:50:36 > 0:50:40What I think is also absolutely genius about the shower scene

0:50:40 > 0:50:42is the way Herrmann spotted it.

0:50:42 > 0:50:44The spotting is deciding,

0:50:44 > 0:50:47when do start a cue, when do you end a cue.

0:50:47 > 0:50:51It starts with the toilet flushing.

0:50:51 > 0:50:52She steps into the shower.

0:50:52 > 0:50:55There is no music at all, whatsoever.

0:50:55 > 0:50:58This composer does not prepare us for the onslaught

0:50:58 > 0:50:59that is about to happen.

0:50:59 > 0:51:02When Janet Leigh walks into the shower

0:51:02 > 0:51:04and she pulls the curtain closed

0:51:04 > 0:51:07you can actually hear the sound of the rings on the bar

0:51:07 > 0:51:09and it goes "qu-ii-ii-th".

0:51:09 > 0:51:11You see the villain coming through.

0:51:11 > 0:51:12No music. No music at all.

0:51:12 > 0:51:14The curtain gets swept aside -

0:51:14 > 0:51:15we get the first sting.

0:51:15 > 0:51:18"Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da!"

0:51:18 > 0:51:22This is... This is the rush of Janet Leigh's heartbeat.

0:51:22 > 0:51:26From the moment that we as an audience completely realise,

0:51:26 > 0:51:29"OK, this girl is being brutally butchered here."

0:51:29 > 0:51:32And we see this and the music goes

0:51:32 > 0:51:36"Ba-bom, ba-bo-oom ba-bo-oom!"

0:51:37 > 0:51:39She falls to the floor.

0:51:39 > 0:51:42The heartbeat slows because she's dying.

0:51:42 > 0:51:44And then in her last gasp

0:51:44 > 0:51:47that music basically leaves her

0:51:47 > 0:51:50and all we have is the sound of the falling curtain

0:51:50 > 0:51:52and her head smacking to the ground.

0:51:52 > 0:51:54How genius is that?

0:51:54 > 0:51:56That's Herrmann. That's not Hitch.

0:51:57 > 0:51:59That's Bernie.

0:51:59 > 0:52:01We used the original score, um...

0:52:01 > 0:52:03Bernard Herrmann's original score

0:52:03 > 0:52:05for our temp music, of course...

0:52:05 > 0:52:06while we were editing the film.

0:52:06 > 0:52:08And then Danny came and re-recorded it.

0:52:08 > 0:52:09And it was so beautiful.

0:52:11 > 0:52:13It's a perfect score.

0:52:13 > 0:52:17When I was given the job, I mean, it really was a holy scripture for me.

0:52:17 > 0:52:22And there was one beat in a meeting with some of the producers of like,

0:52:22 > 0:52:25"Maybe because it's in colour we should do it with brass,

0:52:25 > 0:52:28"and woodwinds, and percussion and do it for the full orchestra."

0:52:28 > 0:52:30And I was like, "No, no, no, no!

0:52:30 > 0:52:31"Please, please.

0:52:31 > 0:52:33"I beg you. Don't make me do that."

0:52:33 > 0:52:38I had visions of a very grumpy Bernard Herrmann.

0:52:38 > 0:52:40His ghost coming into my room.

0:52:40 > 0:52:42I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be there going

0:52:42 > 0:52:44"You little asshole. What've you done?"

0:52:46 > 0:52:52A knife is raised up, and now the murder scene begins.

0:52:52 > 0:52:56And the pace of the cutting, it's going to shrink dramatically.

0:52:56 > 0:52:57And there it is.

0:52:57 > 0:53:00Beautiful, cathartic, unbelievably savage.

0:53:02 > 0:53:03Intimate...

0:53:03 > 0:53:06And just wrong on so many levels.

0:53:06 > 0:53:07That... That looks awful.

0:53:07 > 0:53:08That is...

0:53:08 > 0:53:10SHE SIGHS SLOWLY

0:53:11 > 0:53:13Wow. Wow.

0:53:13 > 0:53:15Man, oh, man!

0:53:15 > 0:53:18He has a way of reaching out and grabbing you by the throat

0:53:18 > 0:53:21and saying, "Look! Look! You WILL look at this!"

0:53:21 > 0:53:25It was a perfect stainless steel trap.

0:53:25 > 0:53:26You could not run away from it.

0:53:26 > 0:53:29It was inflicting damage,

0:53:29 > 0:53:33but at the same time, you knew you were in the hands of a master.

0:53:33 > 0:53:35There was nothing to do but submit.

0:53:35 > 0:53:38The Psycho shower scene is cut very much like an action scene.

0:53:38 > 0:53:39George Tomasini was a master.

0:53:39 > 0:53:43What he did with the shower scene changed the language of cinema.

0:53:43 > 0:53:46The editor suddenly became a much more important piece of the puzzle.

0:53:46 > 0:53:48You had to think about a cut.

0:53:48 > 0:53:52Because a cut was going to take you four minutes to make, and splice, and check it.

0:53:52 > 0:53:55And now you can make a cut every 12 seconds or something.

0:53:55 > 0:53:58The planning, the consideration, the thinking,

0:53:58 > 0:54:01that went into designing some of these films is astonishing.

0:54:01 > 0:54:03Motion pictures were 14 years old

0:54:03 > 0:54:06before somebody got the idea that you could make a cut.

0:54:06 > 0:54:09Because it's violent what's happening.

0:54:09 > 0:54:12You're looking at a image of a visual field

0:54:12 > 0:54:15that is very detailed and full of motion

0:54:15 > 0:54:20and then instantly it is removed and replaced with another image.

0:54:20 > 0:54:22In a sense, the audience should, kind of,

0:54:22 > 0:54:25crash through the windshield of this experience.

0:54:25 > 0:54:29Hitchcock and Tomasini knew exactly where the audience was looking.

0:54:29 > 0:54:32They ended up working the disorientation,

0:54:32 > 0:54:34drawing you into Marion's sense of confusion and terror.

0:54:36 > 0:54:38Every single cut that Tomasini does is you...

0:54:38 > 0:54:41By the time you've caught up to what you're looking at in the new shot

0:54:41 > 0:54:43he's already cut to another shot.

0:54:44 > 0:54:48It's a kaleidoscope of these images crashing into your cranium.

0:54:48 > 0:54:49But it's very planned.

0:54:49 > 0:54:50And it feels that way -

0:54:50 > 0:54:53it's order and chaos come crashing up against each other.

0:54:53 > 0:54:55It's a magic act.

0:54:55 > 0:54:57- Truly.- Yeah.

0:54:57 > 0:55:00Because people walked out of the cinema feeling like they had seen...

0:55:00 > 0:55:02Like, shocked, you know, beyond belief.

0:55:02 > 0:55:05Because there was nothing like that in cinema prior to that.

0:55:05 > 0:55:08And yet they hadn't actually seen the things that they thought they saw.

0:55:08 > 0:55:10That's an incredible thing.

0:55:10 > 0:55:11SHOWER RUNS

0:55:14 > 0:55:18The use of the sound effects, um, are, I think,

0:55:18 > 0:55:21a huge contributor to the violence of the scene.

0:55:21 > 0:55:23The stabbing sounds in particular.

0:55:23 > 0:55:27How do you come up with the sound of what happens

0:55:27 > 0:55:30when a butcher knife strikes flesh?

0:55:30 > 0:55:32The sound man came up with the idea of,

0:55:32 > 0:55:35"What about a knife stabbing melons?"

0:55:40 > 0:55:41So, knowing Hitchcock,

0:55:41 > 0:55:47you would have to bring lots of melons and arrange them on a big table.

0:55:47 > 0:55:49There would be Crenshaw melons, and, you know,

0:55:49 > 0:55:51any kind of melon that you can imagine

0:55:51 > 0:55:52of very, very different sizes.

0:55:52 > 0:55:55So, I think they had about two dozen.

0:55:55 > 0:55:57And some backups.

0:55:59 > 0:56:02So, there's the prop man stabbing melon.

0:56:02 > 0:56:03Melon, melon, melon.

0:56:03 > 0:56:05Next. Melon, melon, melon.

0:56:05 > 0:56:09And so by the end of it Hitchcock knew the one that sounded most like sinew

0:56:09 > 0:56:11and sounded the way he thought it should sound.

0:56:11 > 0:56:16So, when they were through demonstrating all of these different melons

0:56:16 > 0:56:19all he said was...

0:56:19 > 0:56:20"Casaba."

0:56:20 > 0:56:23That's all they needed to know.

0:56:38 > 0:56:41I think the whole key to the sound of the Casaba melon

0:56:41 > 0:56:44is that the inner gooey part is very small

0:56:44 > 0:56:48and there's a very thick layer of fruit that you have to stab through.

0:56:48 > 0:56:49It's very dense.

0:56:49 > 0:56:50- Dense.- Not hollow.

0:56:50 > 0:56:53Like a lot of the other melons sounded a little bit hollow.

0:56:53 > 0:56:57And I'm sure with his eyes closed, Hitchcock was probably hearing that.

0:56:57 > 0:57:01To my ear, Casaba melon sounds more like dry,

0:57:01 > 0:57:04bony stabbing as opposed to wet, gooey stabbing.

0:57:04 > 0:57:06The starchiness and the thickness

0:57:06 > 0:57:07probably gives you more of that viscera.

0:57:07 > 0:57:10- The crunchiness, or...- Viscera? - Viscera.

0:57:11 > 0:57:14Hitchcock also had them bring a sirloin.

0:57:14 > 0:57:16A really big...

0:57:16 > 0:57:18..thing of sirloin.

0:57:18 > 0:57:22I don't eat me and so I nearly nauseous telling you this

0:57:22 > 0:57:25but, in any case, Hitchcock thought that would be a really great idea.

0:57:25 > 0:57:31And they did in fact stab a big, big, big slab of steak.

0:57:31 > 0:57:33And so that sound is interspersed with melon.

0:57:38 > 0:57:40RECORDINGS OF MELON AND STEAK BEING STABBED

0:57:43 > 0:57:46And the sound man took it home and had it for dinner that night.

0:57:46 > 0:57:51The stabbing sound in Psycho is not a Hollywood sound effect.

0:57:51 > 0:57:53It is a natural sound effect.

0:57:53 > 0:57:55Which makes it all the more horrible.

0:57:55 > 0:57:58Like, you could take the combination of, like, an arrow...

0:57:58 > 0:57:59A literal arrow or an axe hitting

0:57:59 > 0:58:03and you add to that something like, pipe-in-the-mud kind of "goosh".

0:58:03 > 0:58:06And you add to that some sort of a, like, a leather rip

0:58:06 > 0:58:11and you could make the sound designed stab that would feel horrible.

0:58:11 > 0:58:13Marion turns.

0:58:13 > 0:58:16We have three close ups getting increasingly tighter

0:58:16 > 0:58:20to the point that now we're looking at nothing but her open mouth.

0:58:20 > 0:58:23The three quick cuts which makes me happy to be an editor.

0:58:23 > 0:58:26I've seen some of Saul Bass's boards.

0:58:26 > 0:58:28And you'll see cut one, and cut three.

0:58:28 > 0:58:32But the idea of drawing the three together really feels like something

0:58:32 > 0:58:34that's kind of a joyful discovery

0:58:34 > 0:58:36in feeling your way through things in the cutting room.

0:58:36 > 0:58:40Hitchcock does the thing here that he does and The Birds too,

0:58:40 > 0:58:42to show something that's shocking -

0:58:42 > 0:58:44an on axis cut.

0:58:44 > 0:58:46Boom, boom, boom.

0:58:46 > 0:58:47It's a psychological cut.

0:58:47 > 0:58:50People always think it's something that Hitchcock came up with,

0:58:50 > 0:58:54but I actually always traced it back to the original Frankenstein

0:58:54 > 0:58:57directed by James Whale, in 1931.

0:58:57 > 0:58:58In a way it was the same effect

0:58:58 > 0:59:02because they were showing you something so grotesque, something that you had never seen before,

0:59:02 > 0:59:06people wanted to go to the movie just to see how shocking it was.

0:59:06 > 0:59:09There is something called an American cut when you're editing

0:59:09 > 0:59:12which is just like jump-cutting into a close-up from a wide shot.

0:59:12 > 0:59:13And I know whenever I do it in a movie

0:59:13 > 0:59:16when I'm working with Sam Raimi, he is always, like, tortured.

0:59:16 > 0:59:18He's like, "Why do you do those stupid cuts!"

0:59:18 > 0:59:19I explain, "It's an American cut."

0:59:19 > 0:59:21And he says, "That's more like a Canadian cut."

0:59:21 > 0:59:25There is something really visceral about cutting from a wide shot,

0:59:25 > 0:59:26jumping into a close-up.

0:59:27 > 0:59:32Now we have a lower angle that is not a subjective angle.

0:59:32 > 0:59:34This is not what Marion sees.

0:59:34 > 0:59:37But it's maximised for threat.

0:59:37 > 0:59:40There's a lot of defensive shots that make it look like

0:59:40 > 0:59:41she's trying to fight him off.

0:59:41 > 0:59:42That makes you feel that you're there.

0:59:44 > 0:59:46We've jumped the stageline here,

0:59:46 > 0:59:50which is another disorienting thing - in violence.

0:59:50 > 0:59:52And in love, interestingly.

0:59:52 > 0:59:54It's actually good to cross the stageline...

0:59:55 > 0:59:58..because it gives you that subjective sense

0:59:58 > 1:00:00of a kind of a dizzy, delirium.

1:00:02 > 1:00:04You see Norman's hand with the knife,

1:00:04 > 1:00:07come laterally across and break the lines.

1:00:07 > 1:00:11It's so great because it's violating the purity.

1:00:11 > 1:00:13The water is going in the opposite direction of the knife,

1:00:13 > 1:00:15so there's all these great angles that are, again,

1:00:15 > 1:00:17like German expressionist cinema

1:00:17 > 1:00:20that Hitchcock had been exposed to in the early '20s

1:00:20 > 1:00:22when he first started his career.

1:00:23 > 1:00:25This overhead shot - it's like the whole shot is out of focus.

1:00:25 > 1:00:27And they used it anyway.

1:00:27 > 1:00:30I can imagine sitting in with studio executives now

1:00:30 > 1:00:33and I'm saying, "Oh, you've got this one shot that's so out of focus.

1:00:33 > 1:00:35"We really didn't need to take that shot out of the edit."

1:00:35 > 1:00:38But thank goodness they left it in because it's such a great shot.

1:00:38 > 1:00:42The knife is already through the frame before we, the audience,

1:00:42 > 1:00:45are really able to lock on to what we are looking at.

1:00:45 > 1:00:47Our face gravitates to Marion,

1:00:47 > 1:00:50and then to the negative space to see where did the knife go.

1:00:50 > 1:00:53They force the audience to fill in the blank.

1:00:53 > 1:00:55Her right to right-to-left movement

1:00:55 > 1:00:56carries us right to the cut

1:00:56 > 1:01:00and right where her face is, there's the knife.

1:01:00 > 1:01:02That knife never makes connection with her

1:01:02 > 1:01:06but in my mind I see him stabbing her. It's crazy!

1:01:06 > 1:01:08Hitchcock is going in 360 degrees.

1:01:08 > 1:01:11All of these things that you're not supposed to do in narrative

1:01:11 > 1:01:14storytelling, he's doing to give you this feeling

1:01:14 > 1:01:16of complete disorientation.

1:01:17 > 1:01:21Every time we cut back to Norman's form, we're grounded again.

1:01:21 > 1:01:24Back to Norman, but now we're slightly tighter.

1:01:24 > 1:01:25Cut to Marion, we are tighter.

1:01:25 > 1:01:27Norman, tighter.

1:01:27 > 1:01:29And then, ending -

1:01:29 > 1:01:32intersecting water, over and over again - to the shot.

1:01:32 > 1:01:34The one shot that convinces me, as a viewer,

1:01:34 > 1:01:36that Marion has been stabbed.

1:01:38 > 1:01:40The knife never connects with the skin?

1:01:40 > 1:01:42But what about this shot here?

1:01:42 > 1:01:45I'm telling you, folks, THAT is penetration.

1:01:45 > 1:01:50Hitchcock got away with showing my belly button on film.

1:01:50 > 1:01:54In all the beach towel movies, you know, with Annette Funicello

1:01:54 > 1:01:56they had bikinis but they had to have them

1:01:56 > 1:01:58up over their belly button.

1:01:58 > 1:02:00He explained to me that...

1:02:00 > 1:02:06He says, "the Paramount special-effects department made for me a torso of rubber.

1:02:06 > 1:02:08"He plunged the knife and blood would spurt out.

1:02:08 > 1:02:10"Oh, it was wonderful. I didn't use it at all."

1:02:11 > 1:02:13"You didn't use it at all?"

1:02:13 > 1:02:16"No, no. The knife never touches the body."

1:02:16 > 1:02:18It goes back to Eisenstein

1:02:18 > 1:02:22and the whole idea of editing, cutting, montage.

1:02:22 > 1:02:24He didn't want a plastic knife or anything.

1:02:24 > 1:02:26He used the knife.

1:02:26 > 1:02:28He had marks on there like blood.

1:02:28 > 1:02:32And he pressed it against my stomach and then pulled it out.

1:02:34 > 1:02:36And then, in the film, they reversed it

1:02:36 > 1:02:38showing it going in.

1:02:40 > 1:02:41Hitchcock, I think,

1:02:41 > 1:02:43it's safe to say spent an entire career

1:02:43 > 1:02:45thumbing his nose at the censors.

1:02:47 > 1:02:52The last shot of North by Northwest is a train entering a tunnel.

1:02:52 > 1:02:55Like, a very unsubtle sexual metaphor.

1:02:55 > 1:02:59And then we pick that up post coitus in Psycho.

1:02:59 > 1:03:01Wow. That's interesting.

1:03:02 > 1:03:04LAUGHTER

1:03:04 > 1:03:10You know, the production code administration still mattered at that time.

1:03:10 > 1:03:16And then in trying to get the movie approved by the Legion of Decency,

1:03:16 > 1:03:19if either one of those had been a problem as far as

1:03:19 > 1:03:22the production and distribution of Psycho,

1:03:22 > 1:03:25it would not have been the phenomenon that it was.

1:03:25 > 1:03:27There was a little negotiation going on.

1:03:27 > 1:03:29He said, "I'll reshoot the beginning.

1:03:29 > 1:03:32"You can come and watch me shoot it."

1:03:32 > 1:03:33They never showed up.

1:03:33 > 1:03:36All he did was tell the whole crew,

1:03:36 > 1:03:38"We're just going to send the scene back.

1:03:38 > 1:03:41"We're not going to cut one frame from it."

1:03:41 > 1:03:43And he didn't. He just kept basically telling them

1:03:43 > 1:03:47"You're prudes. And you're actually horn-dog prudes,

1:03:47 > 1:03:50"because you're seeing something that isn't there."

1:03:50 > 1:03:52So, everything stayed in the way he wanted it.

1:03:52 > 1:03:53And he got away with it!

1:03:53 > 1:03:54SHE CHUCKLES

1:03:54 > 1:03:57You contrast Hitchcock making a disturbing,

1:03:57 > 1:04:02shocking movie that revolves around sex and violence and a deeply

1:04:02 > 1:04:04disturbed protagonist, with a movie

1:04:04 > 1:04:06that came out the very same year,

1:04:06 > 1:04:10within a few months of it, like Michael Powell's Peeping Tom.

1:04:10 > 1:04:13That movie a lot of people see as having

1:04:13 > 1:04:15ruined Michael Powell's career.

1:04:15 > 1:04:17You know, Val Lewton, who these guys know I'm obsessed with,

1:04:17 > 1:04:22but, you know, he was the master of "You saw nothing! Ever!"

1:04:22 > 1:04:24There's no cat in Cat People.

1:04:24 > 1:04:26- Right.- You know?- Right, right.

1:04:26 > 1:04:27There's no cat people in Cat People.

1:04:27 > 1:04:30There's shadows. There's some shadow.

1:04:30 > 1:04:31Every one of his films was,

1:04:31 > 1:04:34the title promised something that you never actually saw.

1:04:34 > 1:04:37There's no leopard man in Leopard Man.

1:04:37 > 1:04:40And the most chilling murder in all of Val Lewton's canon

1:04:40 > 1:04:43takes place on the other side of a closed door

1:04:43 > 1:04:47from the perspective of a mother who's hearing her daughter get slaughtered.

1:04:47 > 1:04:50And you just see the blood seep in under the crack in the door.

1:04:50 > 1:04:53You never see it. You never see it at all.

1:04:53 > 1:04:56And that seems to me like the roots of the shower scene.

1:04:56 > 1:04:58- Totally.- I would like to throw one in there...

1:04:58 > 1:05:03- OK.- One film into the mix which has one particular mind-blowing scene,

1:05:03 > 1:05:06which I would call horror, and that's Irreversible.

1:05:06 > 1:05:08- Yeah.- And here's the thing about that rape scene.

1:05:08 > 1:05:11It's like, it's... What is it, like 15 minutes long?

1:05:11 > 1:05:12I think, 10 minutes.

1:05:12 > 1:05:16And they don't really show anything, there's no nudity,

1:05:16 > 1:05:21there's no nothing. It's just one shot that lingers.

1:05:21 > 1:05:23Don't make it...

1:05:23 > 1:05:26The rape scene in Irreversible and the shower scene in Psycho

1:05:26 > 1:05:28are exact inverses.

1:05:28 > 1:05:33- The shower scene is incredibly close and frenetic.- Yeah.

1:05:33 > 1:05:38And the rape scene in Irreversible is incredibly distant and still.

1:05:38 > 1:05:41The shots of the mother are out of focus,

1:05:41 > 1:05:43the focus is on the water, not the mother.

1:05:43 > 1:05:47You could argue that this is Marion's subjective point of view,

1:05:47 > 1:05:51that she doesn't see who it is clearly because she's so confused.

1:05:53 > 1:05:54Very quick cutting here.

1:05:54 > 1:06:00On the average one shot every 3/4 of a second, 18 frames.

1:06:00 > 1:06:05And the audience in 1960 would be having,

1:06:05 > 1:06:06they would be seeing something

1:06:06 > 1:06:09in a way that they were not used to seeing it.

1:06:09 > 1:06:12I was always surprised that they got away with this.

1:06:12 > 1:06:15Just the amount of, like, naked breast that they were able to show.

1:06:15 > 1:06:17It had to be done impressionistically.

1:06:18 > 1:06:21So, it was done with little pieces of film.

1:06:21 > 1:06:27The head, the feet, the hand, parts of the torso.

1:06:27 > 1:06:29The shot of her feet is the very first cut of blood

1:06:29 > 1:06:32that we've had in this entire piece.

1:06:32 > 1:06:36The blood starts to spatter into the water rather than flow.

1:06:36 > 1:06:39You know, you see spots hitting like a dark rain.

1:06:39 > 1:06:43And then it just is absorbed by the water and it spreads out in a very

1:06:43 > 1:06:46kind of haunting, a haunting way.

1:06:46 > 1:06:48My mom loves to tell me that,

1:06:48 > 1:06:50"Oh, you know that the blood going down the drain in Psycho

1:06:50 > 1:06:53- "is chocolate..."- Chocolate syrup. - Chocolate syrup, right?

1:06:53 > 1:06:57So, is anyone in this room going to tell us that that's not actually chocolate syrup?

1:06:57 > 1:06:59They had a can of Hershey's syrup,

1:06:59 > 1:07:02which is watered-down and that's what they used for blood.

1:07:02 > 1:07:05But they had to dribble it around me, and on me.

1:07:05 > 1:07:08I deliberately made the film in black and white

1:07:08 > 1:07:11because I knew that if it had been in colour,

1:07:11 > 1:07:14the draining away of blood would've been too repulsive.

1:07:14 > 1:07:15SHOWER RUNS

1:07:17 > 1:07:21The knife comes through and even though it's just swinging through

1:07:21 > 1:07:22frame, my brain is telling me

1:07:22 > 1:07:25she's just gotten stabbed squarely in the back.

1:07:25 > 1:07:31And then to the sneaky cut that Tomasini has put into the film,

1:07:31 > 1:07:34starting here with her hand out of focus at the front,

1:07:34 > 1:07:38it's going towards the wall, your eyes are super confused here

1:07:38 > 1:07:42because you're looking at a negative space and just the wall tile.

1:07:42 > 1:07:47Her hand starts to come in and instantly there's a jump cut.

1:07:47 > 1:07:52If you watch that at full speed it just looks like...bam!

1:07:52 > 1:07:55It ends up making it feel like she's slamming against the wall.

1:07:55 > 1:08:00His exit is also tremendous, that quick move, without looking back.

1:08:00 > 1:08:03He doesn't even stand there to make sure she's dead. He leaves.

1:08:03 > 1:08:06It's almost like a time cut, where he's already out the door.

1:08:06 > 1:08:09And I think part of it is they were really trying to hide,

1:08:09 > 1:08:11you know, who it was and they were tired of showing that lame

1:08:11 > 1:08:13shot where his head looked like a mushroom.

1:08:13 > 1:08:17The shot of the hand, it looks like a starfish against the wall.

1:08:17 > 1:08:18It's just a hand.

1:08:18 > 1:08:21The least important part of her body right now after she's been

1:08:21 > 1:08:22hacked to death.

1:08:22 > 1:08:26And you see the life ebbing out of her body through her hand.

1:08:26 > 1:08:29So the scene becomes all about her hands, if you watch it.

1:08:29 > 1:08:35Hand. And then hand. And you watch it go.

1:08:35 > 1:08:37Trying to grab onto something. Hand going down the wall.

1:08:37 > 1:08:40She turns around, where is her hand? That's the big question.

1:08:40 > 1:08:43And if you actually watch the opening scene of Jurassic Park

1:08:43 > 1:08:46it's the same thing. It doesn't matter, that guy that got eaten

1:08:46 > 1:08:48by the velociraptor, you barely see his face.

1:08:48 > 1:08:53But what's important is he's grabbing on to his hand.

1:08:53 > 1:08:54Hand reaches out.

1:08:54 > 1:08:56Hand's touching the thing.

1:08:56 > 1:08:59And I think that's part of the way that he kind of is able to

1:08:59 > 1:09:04bring the audience into her death, rather than just watching her die.

1:09:04 > 1:09:08Now she's begging for her life, trying to hold herself up.

1:09:08 > 1:09:13The way that her hair leaves a trail behind her, it follows her down.

1:09:13 > 1:09:17I mean, it's an incredibly haunting image. And it's a wall.

1:09:17 > 1:09:21You know, you had depth before and she's just flat against nothingness.

1:09:21 > 1:09:23Nobody did this before.

1:09:25 > 1:09:28Deaths were quick in movies

1:09:28 > 1:09:31and although actors loved to make the most of them...

1:09:31 > 1:09:35This is so obviously directed in such a way.

1:09:35 > 1:09:38You know, in Torn Curtain is this endless scene of trying to

1:09:38 > 1:09:41kill someone. It's not bloody but it's graphic.

1:09:41 > 1:09:46Even Frenzy is fairly graphic compared to Psycho.

1:09:46 > 1:09:48But Psycho has the effect of being graphic,

1:09:48 > 1:09:50much like Texas Chainsaw Massacre later was.

1:09:52 > 1:09:56I love how slow it is, how much time it takes.

1:09:56 > 1:09:58There's all this negative space on the left-hand side.

1:09:58 > 1:10:00This is absolutely intentional.

1:10:00 > 1:10:04Hitchcock is mirroring the shot at the beginning of the sequence

1:10:04 > 1:10:07where Marion is showering in exactly the right-hand side of the frame.

1:10:07 > 1:10:11It is the book end that makes the shower scene.

1:10:11 > 1:10:14My favourite cut is the hand coming around onto the curtain

1:10:14 > 1:10:17and it's all of a sudden from the staccato rhythms you end up

1:10:17 > 1:10:21with this really fluid shot that has a sort of almost,

1:10:21 > 1:10:23kind of poetic and sad quality to it.

1:10:23 > 1:10:25She's dying and there's a softness to it

1:10:25 > 1:10:29and it makes it just instantly emotional.

1:10:29 > 1:10:31It's really, really a great cut.

1:10:31 > 1:10:34It's one of the best cuts I've ever seen.

1:10:34 > 1:10:39You can just barely see the outline of my breast in that shot.

1:10:39 > 1:10:43That's my hand. And you can tell the difference on my knuckles, there.

1:10:43 > 1:10:46The ring finger is disfigured a bit.

1:10:46 > 1:10:51The nail is darker than a regular fingernail.

1:10:51 > 1:10:54When I was three years old I reached down to

1:10:54 > 1:10:59help my brother on a push lawnmower and - pssht! - cut it off.

1:11:01 > 1:11:06This is the shot that Cecil B DeMille actually did first

1:11:06 > 1:11:08in The Ten Commandments

1:11:08 > 1:11:11where Sally Lung pulls down on the curtain.

1:11:14 > 1:11:17This shot, the down shot, she just feels so vulnerable,

1:11:17 > 1:11:20like a dying animal.

1:11:20 > 1:11:23Again, such a bold shot because so much nudity is revealed.

1:11:23 > 1:11:28There is a shot in the shower scene that was never used,

1:11:28 > 1:11:32it was one of the most heartbreaking shots I've ever seen.

1:11:32 > 1:11:35Anne Heche, she was definitely willing to do stuff.

1:11:35 > 1:11:38That one shot at the end where she's slumped over,

1:11:38 > 1:11:41that was the shot that Hitchcock could not use.

1:11:41 > 1:11:43But it was storyboarded.

1:11:43 > 1:11:46There was objections to using that

1:11:46 > 1:11:50and perhaps Hitch felt it wasn't really necessary anyway.

1:11:50 > 1:11:53Then we return to the motif of the shower head,

1:11:53 > 1:11:57the impassive eye which has just watched this horrible thing happen.

1:11:57 > 1:12:00This shot of the shower head at the beginning of the scene was

1:12:00 > 1:12:04one of joy, she was going to get a new start and now that same

1:12:04 > 1:12:09water is washing away the evidence of her existence and the murder.

1:12:09 > 1:12:13The water keeps running and the blood flows

1:12:13 > 1:12:14but the heart is stopping.

1:12:14 > 1:12:19It's just such an amazing image to see her life flowing down the drain.

1:12:19 > 1:12:21What a metaphor that is.

1:12:23 > 1:12:26And it switches to the eye, right?

1:12:28 > 1:12:30Oh, come on.

1:12:31 > 1:12:33That's so good.

1:12:33 > 1:12:36I wonder how long this shot is, how long she had to hold.

1:12:36 > 1:12:37To get her eye to stay open?

1:12:37 > 1:12:40Just to make sure her eye didn't twitch even a tiny bit.

1:12:41 > 1:12:44Oh, my God, that's incredible.

1:12:44 > 1:12:46The pointless spiralling of the universe

1:12:46 > 1:12:48and the way that everything is ultimately

1:12:48 > 1:12:53drawn down the plughole towards oblivion, towards meaningless death.

1:12:53 > 1:12:56I think to some extent we are looking at Hitchcock's

1:12:56 > 1:12:58fears as well as his obsessions.

1:13:00 > 1:13:02You see it in Barton Fink, you see it in so many movies

1:13:02 > 1:13:05and you're like, "Why is he going inside the drain?

1:13:05 > 1:13:07"Are we going to go inside?"

1:13:08 > 1:13:13That is the moment of Psycho where everything changes.

1:13:13 > 1:13:18This was made by an auteur film-maker

1:13:18 > 1:13:21and that is a very personal stamp.

1:13:22 > 1:13:25It's a rupture in the movie

1:13:25 > 1:13:29but the movie never achieves this kind of poetry again and you begin

1:13:29 > 1:13:34to realise that, "Oh, this was what really mattered most to Hitchcock."

1:13:34 > 1:13:38Tomasini has done a clockwise turn optically which then,

1:13:38 > 1:13:43right about here, hooks back up to the 24-frame footage.

1:13:45 > 1:13:48I'm just amazed they were able to get that clean.

1:13:48 > 1:13:51Usually when you do an optical it's pretty grainy but it looks

1:13:51 > 1:13:53so smooth and so beautiful.

1:13:53 > 1:13:56It's surprising and seamless where they go from live action,

1:13:56 > 1:13:59it's like one of the greatest opticals in the history of movies.

1:13:59 > 1:14:02It's also kind of like what the title sequence is doing

1:14:02 > 1:14:05in Vertigo, it's a theme that runs through this film

1:14:05 > 1:14:08and then later on, of course. It's not style just for style's sake,

1:14:08 > 1:14:10it's got content.

1:14:10 > 1:14:15The cameras were huge and very difficult to manipulate.

1:14:15 > 1:14:20You can actually see pictures of Hitchcock behind a Mitchell

1:14:20 > 1:14:23and you get a sense of what it was like riding on that

1:14:23 > 1:14:27carriage behind that huge locomotive of a camera.

1:14:27 > 1:14:32Whereas today it's a snap, you just do it like Gus Van Sant.

1:14:32 > 1:14:35In the remake he did it all live action.

1:14:41 > 1:14:46The pull-back from her eye was a whole robotic camera move.

1:14:46 > 1:14:51I seriously followed the original film shot by shot.

1:14:51 > 1:14:56I was able to cut it exactly like the original, and we watched it

1:14:56 > 1:14:59and it was weird and it didn't work.

1:14:59 > 1:15:04I said, "Well, Gus, come over, watch the scene. I have a few reservations

1:15:04 > 1:15:06"of how it's playing right now

1:15:06 > 1:15:09"and it doesn't feel like the shower scene yet."

1:15:09 > 1:15:15We went in and tried to make it a little more Gus Van Sant-y.

1:15:15 > 1:15:18To duplicate something as iconic as the shower scene,

1:15:18 > 1:15:23I really think it wasn't going to work.

1:15:23 > 1:15:25And it just didn't.

1:15:26 > 1:15:30I always loved the placement of those drops of water cos

1:15:30 > 1:15:32they're like tears.

1:15:32 > 1:15:35Right at the end it was a little flicker in her eye,

1:15:35 > 1:15:38a little highlight in her eye.

1:15:38 > 1:15:41And you can see her eye move.

1:15:41 > 1:15:44There's a tight, slight flick of the eye, there.

1:15:46 > 1:15:52Hitchcock almost fetishistically lingers in this postmortem moment.

1:15:52 > 1:15:56This is what happens after you die and no-one turns off the water.

1:15:56 > 1:15:59Hitch had a little snap of the finger to let Janet know

1:15:59 > 1:16:03when the camera had past and was going to pan into the room.

1:16:03 > 1:16:05It took a lot of takes.

1:16:05 > 1:16:13I can feel the moleskin pulling away from my top part and so I could

1:16:13 > 1:16:17- feel this, it was just of going... - SHE SQUEAKS

1:16:17 > 1:16:20..and I thought, "You know what?

1:16:20 > 1:16:24"I don't want to do this damn thing again. I really don't want to."

1:16:24 > 1:16:28And there are all the guys on the scaffolding and I said,

1:16:28 > 1:16:32"I'm not going to be modest. Let 'em look."

1:16:33 > 1:16:35Why would you cut to the shower there?

1:16:35 > 1:16:39I don't think the reason has anything to do with artistic

1:16:39 > 1:16:42decision. It's the solution to some problem that he had.

1:16:42 > 1:16:44After my grandfather filmed Psycho

1:16:44 > 1:16:46and it had been shown to all the executives,

1:16:46 > 1:16:49the last person he showed it to was my grandmother

1:16:49 > 1:16:51and they were sitting in the screening screen,

1:16:51 > 1:16:53and he's panning out and she looks at my grandfather and says,

1:16:53 > 1:16:55"Hitch, you can't release this."

1:16:55 > 1:16:58And he said, "Why not?" She goes, "Janet Leigh took a breath."

1:16:58 > 1:16:59They couldn't reshoot it.

1:16:59 > 1:17:02Janet was gone, they didn't have the budget,

1:17:02 > 1:17:07so they simply cut back to the shower head...spewing water.

1:17:09 > 1:17:13And then that cynical camera move.

1:17:13 > 1:17:16She made her moral decision and this is what it got her.

1:17:18 > 1:17:21There's an image of the uncaring universe, if you want one.

1:17:21 > 1:17:24You see the headline there - "OKAY" - it is not OK.

1:17:24 > 1:17:25Nothing is OK.

1:17:25 > 1:17:30He always comes back to his MacGuffin which is the 40,000.

1:17:30 > 1:17:35He throws the newspaper into the quagmire, it goes down with the car.

1:17:35 > 1:17:39And the audience says, "That's the money

1:17:39 > 1:17:41"that we thought was important in this story,

1:17:41 > 1:17:43"it's totally unimportant."

1:17:43 > 1:17:46This is the thing in the movie that always tortured me.

1:17:46 > 1:17:49The greatest scene in movie history ends on a sour note with

1:17:49 > 1:17:53a bad ADR line. That has been the doom of so many movies.

1:17:59 > 1:18:00Here comes Norman.

1:18:00 > 1:18:04Just wondering what happened and oh, my, he can't believe it.

1:18:04 > 1:18:07Another murder at the motel. How did that happen?

1:18:08 > 1:18:12It's an extraordinary aftermath, it's a crucial piece

1:18:12 > 1:18:16of the film-making to sort of let the consequence of it actually land.

1:18:16 > 1:18:20It's not about getting the blood stains out of the tub

1:18:20 > 1:18:25it's about this incredibly laborious process

1:18:25 > 1:18:33that this unbearably damaged soul needs to work through.

1:18:33 > 1:18:38It demands not just that we watch as we've watched the murder

1:18:38 > 1:18:44of Marion Crane, we're also voyeurs to the horror of Norman's world.

1:18:44 > 1:18:49For me, the clean up represents Alfred Hitchcock's sense

1:18:49 > 1:18:55of orderliness, sense of "I wasn't sexually aroused by this woman,

1:18:55 > 1:19:00"and I'm just going to pretend that this unhappy episode just

1:19:00 > 1:19:02"didn't even occur."

1:19:02 > 1:19:08I think that cleaning always represents sexual guilt.

1:19:08 > 1:19:11You care about this guy. And I know it sounds crazy but you do.

1:19:11 > 1:19:15You want to know what's going to happen to him, you want to know

1:19:15 > 1:19:18is he going to be free of this or is it going to consume him?

1:19:18 > 1:19:22The fact that he is able to get you to care is

1:19:22 > 1:19:24one of the miracles of the movie.

1:19:26 > 1:19:31Psycho obviously has influence on a whole host of movies.

1:19:31 > 1:19:34Psycho is the mother of the slasher genre.

1:19:34 > 1:19:38The shower scene is really the first fully sexualised on-screen

1:19:38 > 1:19:40knife attack.

1:19:40 > 1:19:43You have Mario Bava in Italy and he's taking

1:19:43 > 1:19:46the visuals of the Psycho scene and in Italy in the '60s

1:19:46 > 1:19:50they didn't have the same censorship laws that we had in America.

1:19:50 > 1:19:53Bava takes the Hitchcock style and really creates

1:19:53 > 1:19:56the Italian giallo film.

1:19:56 > 1:19:59Dario Argento burst onto the scene with Bird Of The Crystal Plumage,

1:19:59 > 1:20:03determined to present murder as a form of fine art,

1:20:03 > 1:20:04consistently sexualising

1:20:04 > 1:20:08and fetishises the killings and tries to present them

1:20:08 > 1:20:11as something beautiful, cathartic and almost orgasmic,

1:20:11 > 1:20:14which happens again and again in his work.

1:20:14 > 1:20:16Then, of course,

1:20:16 > 1:20:18the American films started imitating the Italian films

1:20:18 > 1:20:21and you get the wave of slasher films in the '80s,

1:20:21 > 1:20:23kicking off with John Carpenter's Halloween.

1:20:23 > 1:20:27Psycho might have also really started the rather negative

1:20:27 > 1:20:30trend of victims undressing before they're butchered, which is

1:20:30 > 1:20:33something that haunted slasher cinema throughout the '70s.

1:20:33 > 1:20:38Martin Scorsese talks about the construction of the fight

1:20:38 > 1:20:42in Raging Bull with Sugar Ray Robinson.

1:20:42 > 1:20:44I literally got a shot-by-shot breakdown of the shower

1:20:44 > 1:20:48scene in Psycho and laid out my original storyboards for this one

1:20:48 > 1:20:51sequence, shot-by-shot, and shot it in that order.

1:20:53 > 1:20:57I don't believe film influences the culture in this way any more.

1:20:57 > 1:21:01When a moment of violence is so suggestive, so new,

1:21:01 > 1:21:04so unlike anything we've seen that it just becomes

1:21:04 > 1:21:06part of the cultural conversation,

1:21:06 > 1:21:09I think that's what happened with the shower scene.

1:22:07 > 1:22:11I'm on this TV show called Scream Queens.

1:22:11 > 1:22:15I've been asked to get in the shower and take pictures before,

1:22:15 > 1:22:21I've been asked to recreate it and I've said no every time

1:22:21 > 1:22:23because of course this is my mother's legacy

1:22:23 > 1:22:28and it is not mine to play in, it's her sandbox.

1:22:28 > 1:22:32But my mother's been gone now over ten years

1:22:32 > 1:22:36and this is a great show and it was

1:22:36 > 1:22:40a really respectful, funny homage.

1:22:42 > 1:22:46And so the red devil comes along, he rips open the curtain -

1:22:46 > 1:22:48but I'm not there.

1:22:48 > 1:22:54And that second I come from behind the bathroom door, attack him,

1:22:54 > 1:22:56and right before, I do I look at him and go,

1:22:56 > 1:22:59"I saw that movie, like, 50 times."

1:23:07 > 1:23:12I went back to Chicago, shot the September 1960 cover.

1:23:14 > 1:23:18I worked at the Playboy Club until probably October that year.

1:23:18 > 1:23:24I was one of the original Bunnies there. I never mentioned Psycho.

1:23:24 > 1:23:30The shot I didn't like was when Tony Perkins pulls me

1:23:30 > 1:23:34out of the tub and wraps me in the shower curtain.

1:23:34 > 1:23:37He picks me up to carry me out to the trunk, he gets me,

1:23:37 > 1:23:41I don't know, about six, nine inches off the floor and drops me

1:23:41 > 1:23:45back down because he wasn't in a position to pick up a dead weight.

1:23:45 > 1:23:48He picks me up, puts me on his knees and then...

1:23:49 > 1:23:51And that's me.

1:23:51 > 1:23:55And that's out to the car and that's the end of me.

1:24:16 > 1:24:20CHAIR CREAKS