What film shall I watch tonight?

catalog

Well-known member
i've not seen vertigo for ages, but i remember at the time i saw it that i didn't think it was quite as good as some of the other hitchcocks. like, i much prefer the birds, psycho, rear window.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I think Vertigo and Rear Window are the pinnacle Hitchcocks, but Psycho is right up there.

Should watch some Hitches again soon, its been too long.

I wish there was a director like him around now. Making popular thrillers with virtuoso direction and subversive, dark themes. A genre genius.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I suppose for its time Psycho would have been too shocking to be a film you could conceivably watch with your kids. Maybe it still is?
 

catalog

Well-known member
i went through a phase of trying to watch them all. his obvious psychosis/sexual hangups start to get a bit much, particularly by the time of the really brutal one set in london. Frenzy I think? that's really sleazy and not at all like a normal hitchcock film.

but all the ones where he was prevented from showing too much cos of the moral code of the day are really excellent.
psycho i saw quite young (like 10?) at a friends house and they told me it would shit me up and it really did.
have you seen the test footage and stills for an unrealised project? http://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Kaleidoscope
very weird.

he's a bit like kubrick - total master but even more fucked up as a person and in terms of what he did to the actresses etc
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
When I say crude Freudian ideas I mean all those ones like Spellbound and Marnie where it was quite a new thing and so they are introduced in a very simplistic and literal manner. Same goes for the way his fear of heights is dealt with in Vertigo.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Funny... I watched through all the Hitchcock stuff at one point and I too thought that Frenzy is a kinda turning point. Not for the better.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Mildly interesting somethings... I meant the plot twists etc
I don't agree that it feels modern though, I think it's surprising how little social media features and it's a mistake (often made) to think that making it about winning a PR war is a recent idea.
 

catalog

Well-known member
"Another round" by Thomas Winterburg, the guy who did Festen. About a group of 40ish teachers who decide to become alcoholics for performance reason.

Really good performance by Mads Mikkelson playing against type, plus got the same actor who played the fuck up brother in Festen as a PE teacher. Very fun. Not sure the profundity comes through. But there's something there and I think winterburg is a really good director.

Some beautiful scenes of drinking and getting drunk. Like a lot more hipster than something like wake in fright, but still a good laugh.

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
he's a bit like kubrick - total master but even more fucked up as a person and in terms of what he did to the actresses etc
More and more I see comparisons between Psycho and Peeping Tom, I was reading about the latter the other day somewhere (maybe in that Dead Fashion Girl book) and it was talking about a scene where the actress - in a bikini or otherwise pretty much unprotected - is being lit up by this super bright light that can actually damage your skin or eyes and he kept wanting it brighter and saying to put another light on and the crew are all going no Michael it's gonna burn her and he kept insisting on more and more being added. Really weird, like he wanted to kill her for real
 
Top