Skip to main content

Psycho review - spoiler alerts!

Link10th April 2012

Wow, I'm speechless. Another brilliant Hitchcock film and it stood up to all I'd heard about it. I love the good old classic cinema. Besides the absolutely brilliant staging, lighting, color or black and white, there is a ton more to learn from it. I feel like pausing it and soaking everything in. It's becoming harder to watch good films for the story now. Animation makes you so sensitive to framing, continuity, lighting, acting, and all the other 1000 technical aspects of a film. Coming back to Psycho - the story was absolutely gripping. I was at the edge of my chair at all times. There's this thing I noticed Hitchcock does in all his films - he fools you into believing that something is very important (in Psycho, let's say the money she steals in the beginning), and then he just makes you realise that that wasn't important at all! (the money gets drowned in the swamp with her body). He seems to do this a lot in all his movies - he confuses you, misguides you, but all these sub-stories guide you to the bigger picture - and the end unravels everything so beautifully that you're mind puts all the pieces together. It was sheer creative brilliance. Actors of that time were so charming - their dialogue delivery was so grand and theatrical, your ears would pay attention to what they said. It's true - they don't make them like they used to.

Another thing I would really appreciate is the staging. It completely stood out. Every scene was so planned, so crisp - yet it didn't reveal the story completely. Here are some of my favourite screenshots.



Did anyone notice the stuffed birds in the background and foreground, adding to the strange personality of our newly introduced character?


Vertical lines suggesting anxiety, nervousness. The composition guides your eyes towards him.



Amazing lighting, creating so much suspense! As the detective climbs up the staircase we see this door opening very slowly.


More suspense! We see the body of a person in a gown, and we see his/her head, but we can't see the face! Throughout the film, there has only been a suggestion of her.



The almost haunted mansion.




Sharp lines and foreground elements guiding us towards her - almost as if someone is watching her.


Well composed 3 shots and 4 shots. It's not easy to place so many characters in one frame without it looking artificial and staged!


The film ends with the Rule of thirds, with our subject on the golden point. I don't know if all his shots were intentional - maybe all the rules we know are rules based on movies like his that managed to communicate the story so well! :)

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Be the change you want to see.

18th April 2016 Arvind and I recently read about the 19 year old who is solving the world’s ocean pollution crisis. Boyan Slat is a Dutch engineering student single handedly developing the gyers (floating booms and processing platforms) which would potentially clean up 20 billion tonnes of plastic from the world's oceans; the plastic which kills millions of animals and damages thousands of cargo vessels every year. Arvind stressed on the fact that he was 19 – he was exceptionally impressed by a kid who showed that much drive, determination and hard work at such a young age. For me, regardless of his age, this was so commendable. The age didn’t matter to me, infact I disagreed with Arvind, and mentioned how adults have it harder to do something for the greater good. Not only are they in a pathetic zone (they have full time jobs!), they also have responsibilities towards their families and are less imaginative and courageous than the youth since they are aware of the hindrances li...
7 comments
Read more

La La Land Review

23rd Jan 2016 I watched La La Land today.  I’m not really one for musicals, but the story completely overpowered the ‘genre’ of the film. The trailer didn’t excite me much, but I was curious to know why it won SO many Golden Globes, and besides – it was directed and written by Damien Chazelle, the same man who made ‘Whiplash’; another film I was awed by.  I still have first-screening frenzy, but I’ll try to look at this as clearly as I can. This was not just a musical. It is an honest and heartfelt film about dreamers; a subject which is very relatable to us all. Emma and Ryan are so cute and charismatic, and it’s lovely to see how their ambitions unfold and how one makes the other push forward and become someone more. I don’t think it’s a love story, but a story about the honesty and drive with which the characters dream. However you do root for the two of them, and the love story is beautiful to watch at parallel. I was left speechless choked up by the end....
1 comment
Read more

Life's Hard

It's funny how at one moment, life is heaven. Bliss. And a few days, it's hell. You hate living it, it's frustrating. As you grow, u realise everyday, the complexities of the world. How friends live for each other, how parents treat their children, n how they're misunderstood. How some people are not fortunate to have a good family, some who are deprived of love. Some who need you, and you only, and some who you need, but cant get. Some who hang on, even after they're thrown off cliffs by life. How each day brings a new lesson, how time passes, with happiness and sorrow everyday. How one lives for another, just to see a smile on their faces. Faces that hardly experience joy, or the feeling of being loved. And somewhere, in your heart, you love them for needing you, and being so weak. Yet, you can't bear to see them that way. Life gets harder when you're living for someone other than yourself .
2 comments
Read more