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Yet another documentary this year with some "Psycho" in it: "Score"

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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While we wait for the release(streaming?) of 78/52 (about the Psycho shower scene) comes word of a documentary about the world of film music composers called "Score."

Evidently, the film interviews some modern composers(like Hans Zimmer) while taking a look back at greats like Bernard Herrmann (and John Williams, who is still working today, but worryingly close to retirement or worse..)

It sounds good to me, though it also sounds swanstep's alarm that modern movies just don't seem to have scores in the "identifiable" traditions of Vertigo, Psycho, NXNW...Jaws, ET, Raiders...Superman....The Magnificent Seven...

Anyway, in one of the reviews I read, it said that they cover Herrmann and Psycho and show the shower scene without the screeching violins(which you can also do on the Psycho special edition DVD.)

Me, I'd like to see/hear Arbogast's murder without screeching violins. I think it would play even weirder than the fragmented shower scene. I mean -- Arbogast tumbling backwards down those stairs with no music(and he doesn't scream until the end,on the floor.)

Anyway, just another reminder that Hitchcock, and Herrmann, and Psycho ...still haunt modern day film and TV, whether in documentary or ficationalized(Bates Motel) form.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Don't forget the 'Becoming Cary Grant' doc. either. That'll have plenty of non-Psycho Hitchcock at least.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Don't forget the 'Becoming Cary Grant' doc. either. That'll have plenty of non-Psycho Hitchcock at least

--

Oh, yeah. Its nice to think that OTHER Hitchocck movies can be covered, and Cary's got four.

Though North by Northwest is the magnetic north.

On the NXNW DVD, they have a PBS special from about 12 years ago on Grant. It covers his whole career nicely but when they reach NXNW, they call it "arguably his greatest film" and spend PLENTY of time on it.

So that leaves us with the very great Notorious(a perfect movie with hardly any action in it and one offscreen murder), the very colorful and suave To Catch A Thief(I love this one for the look, for the wit and for Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as perfect human specimens) and Suspicion(so flawed in its ending and so compromised on Grant's villainy..but what is left is plenty disturbing.)

Leaving me with this thought I've always had:

I wonder what Cary Grant thought when he saw Psycho for the first time. Jimmy Stewart, too. And let's throw in Grace and Ingrid. But mainly Grant. Did he wonder: "What the HELL has happened to Hitchcock? Can I ever work with him again?"

Or was Grant...enthralled. Charade has a lot of bloody violence for its time and for a Grant movie. Maybe Cary couldn't wait to jump in.