What made Hitchcock Unique?

Rating: 9/10 (28 March 2006)

I do not know which film has attracted the greatest number of IMDb user comments or ratings, but the database for Psycho currently includes a total of 511 comments, and there are 64,372 users who have rated this film at an average of 8.6 - giving it the #23 spot in the all time top 250 films. Hitchcock's Psycho was released in 1960, before most of today's cinema patrons were born, and today it is not often seen either in the few remaining repertory cinemas or even on TV movie channels. Younger viewers will never be able to experience the shock that this film created when first released. Seeing it on a home DVD can give no hint of its original impact in the theatre. In principle one might expect that by now this film would be nothing more than a fading memory for most of today's movie goers, but instead new comments on it are being submitted to IMDb on an ongoing basis and major film reviewers also continue to discuss it in numerous other publications. Such facts probably tell us all that we need to know about Psycho; but, even if they do not, there can be very little left to say to add to the 511 comments already published by IMDb.
Although I originally had no intention of adding any comments, I have gradually become forced to change my mind by the flood of copies, near copies and look alike films that attempt in one way or another to trade on the reputation of Hitchcock's masterpiece. We have an almost shot for shot remake with the same title (1998), as well as Psycho II (1983), Psycho III 1986, Psycho IV (1990), and American Psycho (2000). In total IMDb now lists 97 films with Psycho in their title and many of these clearly hope to exploit the reputation of this 1960 film in one way or another. There are others which also exploit it, sometimes even more blatantly, without trading on its actual title; even though they may be released with titles such as The Psychopath or Psychotic. It is difficult to comment meaningfully on most of these films before my comments on Hitchcock's original are on record, so here goes: Firstly I must take issue with those who imply that Hitchcock was the originator of horror films per se, or even that he was the first director who understood how to use a movie camera to create horror, suspense and tension. If you really believe this, go back and carefully look again at the early masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) in which the use of many techniques later so effectively exploited by Hitchcock can be found. Although Hitchcock actually directed one film in 1914, long before Dr Caligari was released, only part of this survives; and even his greatest fans would find it difficult to claim him precedence in the exploitation of these techniques. Hitchcock success was due to his mastery of cinematographic imagery combined with a very adept hand in using whatever technological or artistic developments were available to the maximum advantage. Most of his early work was carried out in the period when colour stock was not readily available or was very expensive and potentially unreliable. Until his reputation as a director was firmly established, Hitchcock was not free to make his films in colour and most of his early ones were shot in monochrome. But before he created Psycho he had filmed a long string of successes, in full colour, starting I believe with the period drama Under Capricorn in 1949. He had also experimented with one important film released in 3D format (Dial M for murder), and his choice of monochrome for Psycho was clearly made because he believed that it would be artistically more effective made in this way. This judgement was so accurate that even today when every movie goer has some familiarity with the story, it is almost universally agreed the visual impact from watching Psycho is far greater than that from a whole library of more recently made horror films.
Psycho did not however become the classic it is simply because it is a very effective horror film. The horrors of World War II and the fears associated with the development of the atomic bomb provided more than enough material to occupy most movie makers during the period immediately before 1960, but these horrors remained remote from everyday life in normal North American communities. Hitchcocks genius probably lay primarily in recognising this, and becoming the first major filmmaker to exploit the horrors that result when individuals with normally insipid personalities undergo some experience or trauma that leads them to behave in ways which those who know them can neither understand or comprehend. To see a Hitchcock film generally involves not viewing in a detached way what might happen in some remote and hazardous locale far away from home, but watching with mounting horror what might easily occur in ones own home community in the not too distant future. There are more and more directors who try to make horror films today, but unfortunately very few of them even understand this is why Hitchcock's films remain so much superior to their own.
Hitchcock has frequently met well justified criticism for unduly cavalier treatment of the novels that he filmed - he regarded a novel as no more than a framework on which to hang an often very different story created in a different medium, and for this reason his films often irritated readers of well loved books such as Buchan's "The ThirtyNine Steps". Although this may also apply to Psycho, we should consider how many readers today would be familiar with the works of Robert Bloch if his novel had not been filmed by Hitchcock?