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"A Couple of Little Shocks for Ma and Pa Before They Go Home to Beer and Bed"

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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In my vast readings of Psycho reviews over a few decades, I have certainly found a few that didn't much like it.

Most of these were from 1960, when some of the major critics simply thought Hitchcock was slumming ("3rd rate Hitchcock," sniffed Dwight MacDonald of the New Yorker).

As the years went on, Psycho took on newfound respect as a classic, and of course could be seen , "in the rear view mirror" as a major change in the movies themselves, a landmark moment that lasted intensely through the 1960 summer of its blockbuster release and continued strongly on through the 60's and 70's, at least. Since then, the film has simply been acknowledged as "top of the line classic."(And I recently found it on someone's list of "The Ten Movies You Must See in Film Classes".)

The cinematic power and style of the film lives on as well. Pick a shot, any shot: the first close-up of the cop; the first view of Mother gliding past her window; Norman's eye at the peephole; Marion's dead eye on the bathroom floor; Arbogast climbing the hill steps to the house in the moonlight; Arbogast's slashed, shocked face; Norman in the cell looking up at us.

Pick a camera move, any camera move: The sweeping descent over Phoenix, down through a window and into two lovers' afternoon hotel tryst; the camera that follows Perkins up the stairs and then rises above him to look down on him and mother; Lila's alternating POV shot climb up the hill to the house.

The acting's pretty great, too. Watch Perkins "change up the character" from his scenes with Marion to his scenes with Arbogast to his scenes with Sam(and a little bit, Lila.) To his scene in the cell at the end.

Watch Janet Leigh center about 30 minutes of film with intense close-ups on her face, a lot of silence, and a lot of great facial expressions...even when she has no expression at all.

Watch Martin Balsam make a little Hitchcock History helping Anthony Perkins give us "the first modern Method Hitchcock scene" as the two men bounce overlapping lines off of each other with a speed and dexterity that could play just as well in 1970 or 1980 or 2020, its so modern.

And how about that Bernard Herrmann score. The screeching violins that made people scream and made history. The "three notes of madness" that conclude this film, and that also conclude Taxi Driver and playfully pop up in Star Wars. The jittery-jangling opening credit score(which pretty much is "Marion's theme" and disappears with her, save a slight re-do for Arbogast's canvass of hotels and motels.) The sad "descent music" over Phoenix(which recurs to invoke sadness in later parts of the film, out at the Bates Motel itself.)

Music that is strange and unto itself for each scene: Norman's clean-up of the Marion murder and burial of her car at swamp; Arbogast's approach to the house; LILA's approach to the house. Something different each time.

Or the profoundly sad, bleak and aching music that cues up in the hotel room at the beginning just as Sam opens his arms wide and says "All right...."

Yes, Psycho is pretty much a feast of plot, visuals, acting and music and....

...my point is..

...one of the critics who didn't much like Psycho, Stanley Kauffman, raised it in an angry critique of Hitchcock overall, thus:

"Hitchcock's function -- at its fiercest, in Psycho -- is to give Ma and Pa a couple of little shocks before they go home to beer and bed."

That one liner has always stuck in my craw as a Hitchcock fan and a Psycho fan. Kauffman seemed intent on dismissing most of Hitchcock's work outright, and then zeroing in on his biggest hit/most famous movie as nothing more than giving audiences a couple of little shocks.

Oh, wait. "Ma and Pa" -- a certain condescension there, right. Hey in 1960, ma and pa were pretty hip(though I recall that I realized one year that my GRANDmas and GRANDpas never saw Psycho in 1960; they were likely repulsed by the mere idea of it.)

Oh, wait. "Before they go home to beer"(beer conjures a vision of a working class drink, at that time) "and bed"(implies a certain inability to interact with life.)

And..."a couple of little shocks." How dismissive. Those were a couple of BIG shocks -- the biggest of the movies to date. Since the phrase is "a couple" we can figure that Kauffman was speaking of only the two murders, but of course the fruit cellar climax was a screamer too(so that's three) , and I heard big screams at one screening when Lila saw her reflection in the mirror(four) and Norman came up behind Sam in the motel office door(five.)

Dwight MacDonald was similarly dismissive of the shocks in Psycho, btw, and also only named the murders: "The audience gets its two little shocks, one of them particularly delicious(the shower scene.)"

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

It gets harder , at an older age , to FULLY salute Hitchcock as some sort of genius every time. Saboteur has some clunky lines and feels like a B, for instance. I find Stage Fright and The Paradine Case to be rather dull. The Hitchcock movies after Psycho have all taken hits for "directorial decline authored by age." Even The Birds. Even Frenzy. And certainly Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz and Family Plot.

But when Hitchcock was peaking and delivering one major cinematic feast after another(Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho) ....he proved that he really WAS that good. Really was that much of an artist, and really was worth all the praise.

Which is why it just seems retroactively silly how dismissive Stanley Kauffman was of Psycho. Dwight MacDonald too -- whose dismissive "this is just one of Hitchcock's TV shows, with more padding and sadism," rather missed its own point. "Just one of Hitchcock's TV shows" but WITH...additional things. (A more fleshed out narrative, more shocking violence and suggested sex, and above all, painstakingly filmed sequences which could never have been done on TV for time and budget, let alone content.)

I dunno about this post. I think I'm posting it because there are always "outside forces at work" within the film writing world who like to take their potshots at the Great Man. I think these potshots are on target with The Paradine Case or Topaz(and Hitchcock felt the same way -- HE knew when he directed a misfire), but not with Psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And with regard to The Paradine Case and Topaz, as has often been said, mediocre Hitchcock is better than the best of a lot of other directors. You will note that I said "mediocre," because I think those two are as "bad" as any Hitchcock film got, and they AREN'T bad. Visually at a minimum, I don't think Hitchcock ever made a "bad" film, nor do I think one can properly write: "One of Hitchcock's worst films." He didn't MAKE any "worst films." At bottom, they reflected an intelligence of script and execution that few other directors ensured.

Ma and Pa going home to beer and bed. Harrumph.