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Undescribable Perfection

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This documentary about the infamous shower scene in Psycho has a technical title. 78 camera setups and 52 cuts that took seven days to film.Contributors include Elijah Wood, Bret Easton Ellis, Peter Bogdanovich, David Thomson, Richard Stanley, Sam Raimi, Walter Murch, Eli Roth, Mick Garris, Guillermo del Toro and Jamie Curtis who talk about the shower scene and how it was put together. Bogdanovich also does his trademarked mimicry.There are important aspects discussed such as how to get round the censors. Shooting in black and white helped as you do not see any red blood. We even find out how influential the violence in Psycho was for other films. Italian filmmakers took it to a visceral horror art level. Martin Scorsese even mirrored it in Raging Bull.However at 90 minutes it does feel a bit overlong, there was a lot of waffle and Psycho has been examined to death already.

Let's say you don't have the time for a film class; do you have 1/2 hours to spend to learn a major chunk about film, let's say theme, editing, and auteurism? Then see 78/52, a superb analysis of Hitchcock's famous shower scene.Wayne Miller, who knows more about Hitch than anyone else I know and regularly visits as guest host on It's Movie Time, gave it thumbs up with the observation that the doc was replete with facts and observations he didn't even know.Here is a perfect example of the ideal educational mantra: to teach and delight.

As a Hitchcock fan, the premise of 78/52 really excited me. Like many cinephiles, I love Psycho...for its boldness, brilliant pacing and unforgettable performances. One thing I enjoyed about 78/52 was the collective passion for the subject matter (the famous Psycho "shower scene"). The excitement from the filmmaker and interviewees was quite contagious; making the film very watchable from beginning to end.I enjoyed the film's exploration of the shower scene's impact on cinema; specifically, its influence on Scorsese (and Raging Bull) as well as how the scene inspired an entire genre of subsequent 'slasher' films.BUT...with that said, I struggled to find "new news". There is extensive research and discussion on Hitchcock and Psycho. A lot has already been explored. I found that 78/52 fell short of offering any fresh insight. Maybe it is because the documentary's interviews (mostly with with film editors) felt like a series of fanboys gushing over Hitchcock's brilliance. I found this to be quite tedious. Lastly, I think the film needed to discuss Hitchcock's (unhealthy) relationship with women as an influence on his obsession with the shower scene. It is well-documented that Hitchcock subjected some of his actresses to forms of abuse (Tippi Hedren, Vera Miles). While Janet Leigh was always extremely professional/positive toward Hitchcock, I think the Psycho's shower scene desperately needs examination of Hitchcock, his own sexual obsessions with voyeurism and his general view of women.If you're Hitchcock fan, I think you'll find 78/52 quite satisfying; even if it does fall a bit short of something new.

He says Donat and Mr. Memory appear "at the same theater" in the opening and concluding scenes. I don't think so. The first is a raucous music hall with a lively bar crowd. The last is the more-sober London Palladium. It is now incumbent upon me to provide a full five lines as the site requires.