The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love MurderIt was made like a television movie, and completed in less than three months. It killed off its star in forty minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to date in American film, punctuated by shrieking strings that seared the national consciousness. Nothing like Psycho had existed before; the movie industry -- even America itself -- would never be the same. In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situates Psycho in Alfred Hitchcock's career, recreating the mood and time when the seminal film erupted onto film screens worldwide. Thomson shows that Psycho was not just a sensation in film: it altered the very nature of our desires. Sex, violence, and horror took on new life. Psycho, all of a sudden, represented all America wanted from a film -- and, as Thomson brilliantly demonstrates, still does. |
Contents
Room Service | 51 |
Housekeeping | 69 |
HitchCock | 91 |
Other Bodies in the Swamp | 115 |
A Noir Society | 137 |
Lonely People | 151 |
Other editions - View all
The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder David Thomson Limited preview - 2010 |
The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder David Thomson Limited preview - 2009 |
The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder David Thomson No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
actor Alfred Hitchcock American Arbogast asks audience Bates become birds blood called camera carried character cinema clear close comes course Crane dark direct director doubt dream drive face Fairvale feel fifty figure film followed goes going hand Hannibal Lecter helped highway Hitch Hitchcock idea It’s Janet Leigh John killing kind knife later less light Lila live look Marion matter mean miles missed motel mother movie murder nearly never night Norman novel once opened Perkins picture pieces played Psycho question road Robert scene screen seems seen sense sexual shot shower standing story suppose sure takes talk tell There’s things Thomson thought Tippi Hedren turn Vertigo violence voice watching wife Window woman writing young