Oedipus Unbound

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2004)

Part of a film's aging process is how it deals with the fact that after 40 years of spin offs and SNL skits, everyone already knows not only how the film ends but the key events as well. "Casablanca" is perhaps the greatest example of this. So what happens when a film becomes a modern fable with every scene recognized and many of the twists expected, especially in a film steeped so heavily in suspense?
Hitchcock's suspense is not simply based on the fact that the viewer doesn't know what's going happen, rather he turns those expectations into fears by limiting our scope to that of the camera. We all know THAT the investigator is going to be killed, it's in the trailer, but the exact moment is as much a mystery to us as it is to the victim.
I was intrigued as to how much parts of the film resembled an Attic tragedy since there is some great foreshadowing (Bates's hesitance to show her the bathroom) and characters who bring something to the table, but who are ultimately lacking. Bates's own downfall would need to be explored more deeply (the psychiatrist's speech doesn't cut it) to really merit such a label, which the now infamously terrible remakes attempted to explore.
What I find most fascinating is the shift, it's as if half the film is devoted to the aftermath and is exceeding the suspense structure that Hitchcock had created. It was daring and worked perfectly. It may seem not that the film was based too much on it's ability to frighten, but there are enough Freudian (albeit, relatively transparent) references as well as some clever arrangements of the camera and the props to keep today's sanest at the most, fascinated, and at the least, entertained.
4 out of 5 - An excellent film.