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ElizabethJoestar's Replies
At the very least, Fincher is no slouch as a director, so I'm confident it won't be a shot for shot debacle. I'd certainly rather watch it than that proposed Vertigo remake from RDJ.
Oh crap, I deleted my reply by mistake.
Anyway, Ruffalo's character wanted Bella all to himself and tried controlling her. He initially planned on seducing and abandoning her. I assume that's the behavior the OP was mentioning.
I don't think so. He last appears in the scene where the husband interrupts Bella's wedding to claim her back. If he pops up in any way again after that, I already forgot about it lol.
It's been years since I've seen this movie, but I don't remember this scene standing out as anymore ridiculous than the rest of this silly film. I doubt you're supposed to take a single moment of it seriously.
I agree this is a movie that could make for an interesting remake, but I have the sour feeling that any remake would try turning it into a dull action-SF flick with cringey Marvel jokes and the like. At the very least, the original is a compelling film, warts and all. A newer version would likely be slicker technically, but script wise overly safe.
Maybe 11am or so. I usually only do that if I'm watching something 3+ hours long and I have plans in the evening.
Exactly! As Thelma Ritter says in the film, we're all peeping toms. Lots of people are naturally nosy-- we just express that nosiness digitally now lmao
I assumed the mother was unhappy with her life in general and saw her unborn child as perhaps as yet another individual who would suffer living with her awful husband. Maybe she thought killing both of them was a mercy.
The ending is extremely abrupt and slightly spoils what is otherwise an entertaining film. It just feels like the writers didn't know how to conclude the story.
And yet,in a few of his reviews from 1946 or such, Agee himself writes something like "Of course, this can't be said or shown because we remain in a bizarre moment in history when such candor cannot be expressed. I sincerely hope that we will leave this era soon."
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That's interesting!
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I daresay in the 40s, there were plenty of books and paintings from the past with PLENTY of graphic sexual imagery and discussion. And profanity (though perhaps not at today's levels.) So a man like James Agee would READ those more sophisticated and frank books, and SEE those more frank paintings -- and be pained having to watch censored movies that represented the repression of The Church more than anything else.
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Yes. Theater in particular could be much franker. Just look at the work of Eugene O'Neill or Tennessee Williams.
Particularly with your suggested version of this 1946 versino of Psycho, ElizabethJoester, the thought experiment does seem to FAIL. Everything that made Psycho...Psycho...would have to be removed.
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Agreed. About the only distinctive thing they might have kept would be the "protagonist switch" following Marion's death.
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I have a book of reviews by noted critic James Agee -- reviews largely from the 40s. It is interesting reading the man writing of movies like Shadow of a Doubt and Casablanca and The Best Years of Our Liveswith more of an "adult" viewpoint than those movies would seem to allow.
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Well, those films do have adult themes in them. I find a lot of Code-era films of the late 30s and 40s were not necessarily just shallow nonsense or without depth because they couldn't be explicit. However, it is true they were limited in how far they could push their explorations or they had to be super sneaky in getting darker/controversial material across (ex. the incest subtext in SHADOW OF A DOUBT).
And that includes..Roat. I think one reason that Norman Bates lives on, BTW is that unlike Wait Until Dark, Psycho still gets shown a lot in both high school and college classrooms. It lives on like a Dickens novel "as assigned."
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True indeed. PSYCHO is the film that launched a thousand dissertations.
The whole "legacy" thing -- with movie stars -- seems to be disappearing. I know among young people I know, not only do they have no idea who Paul Newman or Steve McQueen(the actor) were...they don't know who Eddie Murphy was. Fame just...disappears..nowadays.
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I do have to wonder though, how lasting was fame ever? Like in the 1960s and 1970s, did young people know who Norma Talmadge was? She was a big deal in the 1910s and 1920s, a fashion icon and a respected dramatic actress believed to have a massive range. She was one of the top five biggest Hollywood actresses. Then age and the talkies got her. Now, she's just a footnote, either in Buster Keaton biographies (he was her brother-in-law for a while) or general silent film histories consumed by geeks like me. The same has happened with tons of big stars from every era. Really, only a few ever get remembrances from younger generations.
Not saying you're wrong, of course. Just the more I read about the history of film and concepts of stardom, the more you realize it's always extremely fleeting and the audiences get narrower over time.
This is a really cool thought experiment and I love all your casting choices, my favorite being Edward G Robinson as Arbogast!
In 1946, there's no way the shower murder would have survived the script phase. That blend of sex and murder had to be much less explicit-- think Robinson murdering his treacherous femme fatale lover with an ice pick (very phallic) in her bed in SCARLET STREET. Hell, I'm not even sure they would have allowed Norman to kill in drag or have that overt a "mother complex." The Breen Office might have filed that under general "sex perversion."
Norman's "mother issues" might have been largely internalized, with mise en scene suggesting the emotional incest of the relationship. Marion definitely would not get killed in the shower. Maybe the hotel bedroom on the bed ( like Ann Savage getting strangled on the bed-- albeit by accident-- in DETOUR or the case I mentioned with SCARLET STREET) in her PJs... but that's it. No suggested nudity at all, certainly. And definitely no mummified corpse in the fruit cellar! They would have snipped that out entirely, maybe only let Norman keep a lock of hair as a fetishistic (but not too macabre) token of his obsession.
It's not even subtext-- it's just plain text, only they could never flat out say abortion. It's an interesting sign of how the Production Code's influence was waning by the early 60s. Lots of films from this period were getting far franker in their depiction of "adult" subject matter.
A very good movie. Saw it tonight and adored it.
The ending is a bit rushed, for sure. And yet, I still really enjoyed the movie. I felt the drama between the characters was authentic to life, particularly the familial stuff and Angie's fear of romantic love and the vulnerability that comes with that.
Saw it tonight on a whim and was blown away. What a beautiful little movie. I loved the slow burn romance and the performances.
You're probably right! That makes much more sense and I imagine it'll be more apparent on a repeat viewing.
Some have said the over the top sleaziness of the fake slasher film was De Palma's way of responding to the critics who thought DRESSED TO KILL was pornographic trash.