78/52 - Movie Review

Details: By Loron Hays; 12 October 2017

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4 stars

The woman in the center of the camera’s frame has just made a decision. She is going to return the money she stole. Satisfied, she pivots away from the desk and walks into the bathroom. It is a clean, white place. The bathrooms in Alfred Hitchcock’s movies are always spotless; always white. Clean. And so is the toilet. This is, in fact, the first time we will see a toilet on screen and it, too, is spotless.

The woman – her name is Marion (but really a combination of Janet Leigh and, for the fleshy parts, pinup girl Marli Renfro) – drops her clothes. We see a leg. (Later on, we will see her bellybutton and a side shot of her breast.) She enters the shower and turns on the water. She doesn’t let it warm up. No. She is eager to cleanse the guiltiness from off her skin and so she smiles; spreading the water all over her hands, arms, neck, and then face. She is happy to be making this change in her life.

And then, in all the negative space of the camera’s shot, we are aware of a door opening. A figure enters the bathroom but we have no idea who it is. Is it a woman? A man? Whoever it is, it is more than obvious that the woman enjoying her shower has no idea a perfect stranger has entered into frame. And then the stranger lunges, pulling back the shower curtain. He raises his arm and strikes. She tries to block each swing of the arm. But the force of the plunging arm movement is too much.

She is struck repeatedly by the knife and then, as the music – which was once so immediately piercing with its striking chords – leaves us with only the sound of the running water and the noise her head makes as she hits the linoleum, pulling the entire shower curtain down with the weight of her now lifeless and very dead body. Wait. Did Janet Leigh’s eye just twitch? Damn it.

“CUT!”

Opening on Friday the 13th this October in some parts of the country is a very interesting and important black-and-white documentary that deconstructs one of the most infamous scenes in Hollywood’s history and then, thanks to archival materials, explains just how it was put together edit by edit, doubling down on its overall impact upon the medium. It is, of course, THE shower scene in Psycho and, in a quick 91-minutes, those few minutes get thoughtfully analyzed.

Writer/director Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary, 78/52, tackles this memorable moment and examines – thanks to interviews with Alan Barnette, Justin Benson, Peter Bogdanovich, Marco Calavita, Tere Carrubba, Amy E. Duddleston, Eli Roth, Danny Elfman, Guillermo del Toro, and (why?) Elijah Wood (again, why?!) among others – its influence upon American cinema…much to the chagrin of the censors...for good.

Thanks to Guillermo del Toro and Eli Roth’s wisdom, we get some pretty unique perspectives on the scene that explains some of Hitchcock’s Catholic guilt, as well as how important directors of the Italian giallo movement (specifically Dario Argento) were in spreading Hitchcock’s influence in the use (and abuse) of the female body and, because it IS there, the role of mothers in the atomic age.

You can call Psycho Hitchcock’s spin down B-movie lane. You can call it an angry film, targeting a whole lot more than the censors. Whatever the reason for its existence, you must recognize the power that Psycho STILL holds over its audience. And, as much as he did deny it, the knife DOES touch Renfro’s skin. They simply filmed the stabbing as the knife pulled away from her skin and then played it in reverse; it's an old trick. She reveals that much in her interviews. There is a lot more revealed in the documentary. Hitch's fans are going to enjoy what Philippe has done here.

This is a documentary (okay, maybe a love letter) that shines a spotlight on the significance that 78 camera setups and 52 edits did to film. Sex and violence were always taboo before 1960 but, thanks to Hitchcock’s willingness to exploit the cracks in our culture, a little glimpse of a steel blade and a bare bosom went a long, long way.

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MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 91 mins
Director: Alexandre O. Philippe
Cast: Alan Barnette, Justin Benson, Peter Bogdanovich
Genre: Documentary
Tagline: 78 shots in 52 cuts that changed cinema forever.
Memorable Movie Quote: "I once made a povie that was intended to make people scream and yell, but I was horrified to find that some people took it seriously."
Theatrical Distributor: IFC Midnight
Official Site:
Release Date: October 13, 2017 (limited and internet)
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: No details available.
Synopsis: An unprecedented look at the iconic shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the "man behind the curtain", and the screen murder that profoundly changed the course of world cinema..