Latest news with #NorthByNorthwest
Scroll.in
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Book versus film: How Alfred Hitchcock transported the spine-chilling ‘Psycho' to the screen
'Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him.' Thus begins Robert Bloch's best-known novel Psycho, which inspired the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. Published in 1959, the book about a serial killer with a mother fixation was quickly snapped up for a screen adaptation that came out in 1960. Hitchcock's money-spinning version inspired three sequels, a remake and a contemporary series. Bloch was a prolific writer in the genres of crime, science fiction and fantasy ('Things were very quiet in ladies' underwear that morning' is the opening line of his novella The Miracle of Ronald Weems). Bloch churned out more Psycho books too, which had nothing to do with the film sequels. While the movie diverges from the book, the two Psychos are united in their concentrated impact. Hitchcock's genius lies in locating the correct tone and visuals to match Bloch's chilling prose. Hitchcock's Psycho will be screened on July 24 at Mumbai's Regal cinema by the Film Heritage Foundation, as part of its annual restoration workshop. The foundation previously showed the suspense maestro's North By Northwest, and will screen Rear Window (on July 31) and Vertigo (on August 7). View this post on Instagram A post shared by Film Heritage Foundation (@filmheritagefoundation) A landmark of the horror genre, Psycho remains the subject of numerous dissections and debates. The black-and-white movie's gruesome centrepiece is a roughly 45-second sequence in which a woman is knifed to death while taking a shower. The stabbing was one of the most explicit portrayals of violence in cinema at the time. In an interview in 1990, Bloch recalled telling the director, 'Mr Hitchcock, I think this is either going to be your greatest success, or your biggest bomb.' Bloch dreams up a worse fate for the showering woman, Mary Crane. Mary spots a 'crazy old woman' peering at her through the curtain. 'Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife,' Bloch writes. 'It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream. And her head.' It was the 'suddenness of the murder in the shower, coming, as it were, out of the blue', that intrigued Hitchcock, he told filmmaker Francois Truffaut for the conversation book Hitchcock/Truffaut. Psycho supplied Hitchcock the opportunity to get audiences 'aroused by pure film', he said. Bloch's crisp writing and vivid imagery gave Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano ample cues to create graphic, abrupt scenes. Bloch based Norman Bates on Ed Gein, the American serial killer who in the 1950s made souvenirs from the body parts of his victims. Norman's reading list includes a book about the Incas, who have fashioned drums out of human skin – a foreshadowing of Norman's subsequent actions as well as a link to Ed Gein. In an essay The Shambles of Ed Gein from 1962, Bloch wrote, 'The real chamber of horrors is the gray, twisted, pulsating, blood-flecked interior of the human mind.' In Bloch's novel, readers meet his deranged creation in the first chapter itself. Norman is unnerved by a sound that turns out to be that of rain, not of 'someone tapping on the window pane'. Norman has lived his entire life in the house adjoining the Bates Motel. The only other occupant, who looms large over Norman's fragile mind, is his beloved and hated mother Norma. Bloch writes: 'Here everything was orderly and ordained: it was only there, outside, that the changes took place. And most of the changes held a potential threat.' Norma disapproves of 40-year-old Norman's stay-at-home behaviour, his sexual impotence, his submissiveness. 'Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed,' Bloch observes. Mary Crane wanders into Norman's isolated world by accident. She is on the run after having stolen money from her employer in order to help her boyfriend Sam Loomis pay off a debt. Heavy rain forces Mary to stay the night at Bates Motel, where Norman, his collection of stuffed animals – he is a taxidermist by hobby – and Mother await her. After Mary's disappearance, the detective Arbogast, Sam and Mary's sister Lila arrive at Bates Motel. The book's final chapters are replicated in the film adaptation. The movie finds innovative ways to transport Bloch's observations to the screen. A line that compares Norman's house to a jail inspires Saul Bass's opening titles, in which the names resemble distorted bars in a prison cell. Hitchcock made some key changes to the book. Mary Crane is now Marion Crane. Norman doesn't have a plump face, thinning sandy hair or rimless glasses. He is tall and slim, with a full head of hair, piercing black eyes and a boyish appearance. The film begins with Marion, rather than Norman. The camera hovers over a city and then moves downward and through the window of the room where Marion (Janet Leigh) is in bed with Sam (John Gavin). Voyeurism, the act of seeing what is meant to be shielded from the gaze, will be echoed later in the film, culminating in the shower. '…the public always likes to be one jump ahead of the story; they like to feel that they know what's coming next,' Hitchcock told Truffaut. 'So you deliberately play upon this fact to control their thoughts. The more we go into the details of the girl's story, the more the audience becomes absorbed in her flight.' The movie withholds the introduction to Norman – a necessary device for creating suspense. The movie's Norman is a cipher, without any indication of his proclivities. In the book, Norman has an outburst when Mary suggests that he should institutionalise his ailing mother. In the film, Norman doesn't visibly react to Marion's remark. Rather, his mental state is revealed through camera angles and subtle editing. Cinematographer John L Russell moves around and closer to Norman and the stuffed birds in the background during his conversation with Marion. The film's iconic bit of dialogue 'We all go a little mad sometimes' is a reworking of Bloch's line 'I think perhaps all us go a little crazy at times.' Norman's poignant statement about his loneliness is an invention of the film: 'We scratch and claw but only at the air and each other. And for all of it we never budge an inch.' Hitchcock's mastery is most evident in the opening section, the build-up to Marion's killing and the shower sequence. While the woman's beheading is excised for the movie, Hitchcock conjures up an equally terrible end for the character. Hitchcock told Truffaut that he deliberately cast Janet Leigh as Marion. By killing a well-known actor so early into the narrative, Hitchcock was 'directing the viewers', he added, 'playing them, like an organ'. Marion's murder is sliced into numerous shots that last mere seconds and match the frenzied stabs on her naked body. Bernard Hermann's strings-heavy background score mimics the sound of shrieking. A match cut links Marion's eye to the drain into which her blood is flowing. The shoot took a week, required 72 camera set-ups and involved 52 editing cuts. Marli Renfro played Leigh's body double. Renfro was among the actors, filmmakers and critics interviewed by Alexandre O Philippe for his insightful documentary 78/52 (2017). Director Karyn Kusama notes in 78/52 that Psycho was 'the first modern, pure expression of the female body under assault'. Hermann's iconic tune – which was partially lifted by composer Sandeep Chowta for a scene in Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1988) – could not be heard in cinemas because of the audience's screams, Peter Bogdanovich recalls in 78/52. Play The stabbing montage eclipses Hitchcock's other feats in the movie. The truth about Norma and Norman comes off better in the novel. Despite peaking a bit too soon, the film distils the twisted spirit of Bloch's novel, while also giving a face to Norman Bates that is impossible to forget. Anthony Perkins, the father of horror filmmaker Osgood Perkins, brilliantly played Norman in Psycho and its sequels, his interpretation of the maniac overshadowing his other roles. Film scholars have pointed to Psycho 's predecessors, among them Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955). Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, which was released two months before Psycho in 1960, is considered a worthier and weightier exploration of deviance. Yet, Psycho 's contribution to the serial killer genre is vast and enduring. In 1998, Gus Van Sant directed a shot-by-shot remake in colour. His Psycho starred Vince Vaughn as Norman, Anne Heche as Marion and Julianne Moore as Lila. The film is a curio, adding nothing to the original production. The continuing fascination with Norman's house of horrors also inspired the long-running television series Bates Motel (2013-2017). The prequel takes place in the present and explores Norman's formative years. Freddie Highmore plays a young Norman, while Vera Farmiga is Norma. The show is aimed at completists who want to know every inch of the twinned Norman-Norma. But Bloch's novel and Hitchcock's adaptation are adequate as starter and main course. Each is complete in itself, best consumed in one terrified gulp.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Movies to see this week: 'John Wick' marathon, Laurel & Hardy, 'The Hidden Fortress'
The summer movie season is upon us. While there are plenty of Marvel, Mission: Impossible, Karate Kid reboots, and live-action Disney remakes to occupy your evening, there are also some splashy repertory epics on screens right now. Here are the repertory movies playing around the Twin Cities this week. Wednesday, May 28, at Heights Theater Some of Alfred Hitchcock's most iconic films have scenes that burn so brightly in memory that they stand in for the entirety of the film and can obscure their overall greatness. North By Northwest can feel that way. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) gets mistaken for a government agent by a group of spies. It looks like a simple case of mistaken identity, but things go wrong over and over, pulling him deeper and deeper into danger. That includes falling for Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). It's tense and delightfully frustrating every step of the way, especially if your memory of the movie is a bit obscured by its iconic plane scene. 3951 Central Ave. NE, Columbia Heights ($19–$19.75) Wednesday, May 28, at The Trylon Cinema With the Cannes success of Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest, a reimagining of High and Low, we're probably in for a spate of renewed interest in that Akira Kurosawa classic. For now, play at being too cool for the obvious pick and catch another masterful collaboration between Kurosawa and his favorite actor, Toshiro Mifune. Two peasants (Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara) discover a general (Mifune) and a princess (Misa Uehara) hiding in a fortress with a hoard of gold. The peasants, fresh off the failure of another money-making scheme, are convinced to aid the general and princess in sneaking through enemy territory and back to safety. It's entertaining and beautifully shot. First-time viewers may also find that there are more than a few ways that George Lucas took inspiration from Kurosawa's film for that little-known space opera he released in 1977, which is going to play at this same theater in June. (Also, the Trylon once released a shirt with Mifune's face on it, so it's obviously the perfect place to see this one.) 2820 E 33rd St., Minneapolis (free for members, $8 for a member's guest) Thursday, May 29, at Heights Theater The 12-movie collaboration between director Billy Wilder and screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond may be one of the most fruitful partnerships in the history of Hollywood. It gave us comedy classics like The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, as well as the more serious The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and underappreciated comedies like The Front Page and One, Two, Three. Among that latter category is The Fortune Cookie, a goofball comedy that, like many of Wilder's films from this era, starred Jack Lemmon with his longtime foil Walter Matthau. Harry (Lemmon) is a sideline videographer at a football game who gets bowled over by star player Luther "Boom Boom" Jackson (Ron Rich). Harry's crooked lawyer brother-in-law, Willie (Matthau), convinces him to feign an injury in hopes of a fat payday. But Luther's insurmountable guilt has Harry second-guessing the scheme. It may not rank among The Odd Couple or Grumpy Old Men as one of the best Lemmon/Matthau movies, but this was their first of their 10 on-screen collaborations and is just a notch below those classics. 3951 Central Ave. NE, Columbia Heights ($13/$13.75) Friday, May 30, at The Parkway Theater One of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest films — his first thriller and arguably the first to give a glimpse of the director's penchant for tension — was a silent film about a Jack the Ripper-style murderer (Ivor Novello) slinking through London streets at night. A live soundtrack will accompany the screening, with Paris 1919 performing a new composition by bandleader Chris Strouth. He'll be joined by Natalie Nowytski, Kent Militzer, and David J. Ross. 4814 Chicago Ave., Minneapolis ($20.21/$23) Saturday, May 31, and Sunday, June 1, at Heights Theater The Heights' annual screening of Laurel and Hardy classics returns, showcasing digital restorations of six of the comedy duo's short films. This year's lineup includes 'Another Fine Mess' (1930), 'Men o' War' (1929), 'Going Bye-Bye' (1934), 'Perfect Day' (1929), 'Dirty Work' (1933), and 'Hog Wild' (1930). If this is your cup of pratfalls, get tickets in advance. Sunday's screening sold out quickly, pushing the Heights to add a Saturday screening. 3951 Central Ave. NE, Columbia Heights ($15/$15.75) Saturday, May 31, at Oakdale Cinema Who knew that the death of a dog would result in so many movies? About a week before the release of Ballerina, a stand-alone movie set in the John Wick universe, Emagine is hosting a marathon screening of the first four John Wick movies. For nearly nine and a half hours, the Oakdale Cinema will treat viewers to revenge, gun battles, neon lights, and a cadre of well-drawn hitmen. Fortunately, they're not bringing The Continental into this. You probably have to Google that miniseries to remember what it was, and that's probably all you really need to know about it. 5677 Hadley Ave. N, Oakdale ($28.12) Tuesday, June 3, at Alamo Drafthouse Arriving the same year as George A. Romero's third zombie opus, Day of the Dead, The Return of the Living Dead got in on mocking zombie movies early. The story is that two buffoons at a medical supply facility accidentally release a gas that raises the dead. The medical supply guys, the local mortuary owner, and a bunch of punks wind up trapped together in the midst of a zombie attack that they don't really understand. It's all played as a very knowing elbow to the ribs. The movie even references Night of the Living Dead before deciding that its own plot doesn't mean a whole lot. It's absurd, sometimes funny, and willing to ask, "Why are these the rules of zombie movies"? The zombies can talk, don't die when you hit them in the head, and don't even really have to be dead to be zombies. It's confusing, but the rules aren't the point, nerd. 9060 Hudson Rd., Woodbury ($11.91)More movies screening this week: May 28: Bajo un Sol Poderoso (Beneath a Powerful Sun) (2022) at The Main Cinema, part of the Minnesota Cuban Film Festival May 28: Blazing Saddles (1974) at Emagine Eagan, Emagine Lakeville, Emagine White Bear, and Emagine Willow Creek May 28: North By Northwest (1959) at Heights Theater May 28: The Hidden Fortress (1958) at The Trylon Cinema May 28: Black Tight Killers (1966) at Emagine Willow Creek May 28: Jaws (1975) movie party at Alamo Drafthouse May 28: The Apartment (1960) at Edina Mann Theatres May 28–29: Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted (2024) at The Main Cinema May 29: Switchblade Sisters (1975) at Alamo Drafthouse May 29: The Fortune Cookie (1966) at Heights Theater May 29: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) at Emagine Willow Creek May 29: Twilight (2008) at Grandview Theatre May 29: The Village Next to Paradise (2024) at The Main Cinema, part of the Images of Africa series May 29: Twisters (2024) at North Loop Green (free) May 29: The Goldfish (2019) at The Trylon Cinema May 30: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) with live music by Paris 1919 at The Parkway Theater May 30–June 1: Slither (1973) at The Trylon Cinema May 31–June 1: Grease (1978) at Emagine Eagan (June 1 only), Emagine Lakeville, Emagine White Bear, and Emagine Willow Creek May 31: Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) at The Parkway Theater May 31–June 1: The Laurel and Hardy Festival at Heights Theater May 31–June 5: The Boss Baby (2017) at St. Michael Cinema May 31: John Wick marathon at Oakdale Cinema June 1: Labyrinth (1986) at Audrey Rose Vintage June 1: Mommie Dearest (1981) at Roxy's Cabaret June 1–3: Outland (1981) at The Trylon Cinema June 1 and 5: The People's Joker (2022) at Grandview Theatres June 2: The Goonies (1985) at Heights Theater June 2, 7, 11, and 22: Dinner in America (2020) at Grandview Theatres June 2: Popcorn (1991) at Emagine Willow Creek June 2: Stand By Me (1986) at Alamo Drafthouse June 2: $5 Mystery Movie at B&B Theatres Mall of America June 2: Marcus Mystery Movie at Oakdale Cinema, Parkwood Cinema, and West End Cinema June 3: Sabbath Queen (2024) at The Main Cinema June 3: The Return of the Living Dead (1985) at Alamo Drafthouse June 3: Sensational Shorts presents Z-Fest Uncut III at Woodbury 10 Theatre
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Emma Rice brings Hitchcock comedy-thriller to Bath stage
EMMA Rice's new stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest is being staged in Bath. The production, which is part of a UK tour, will be at the Theatre Royal Bath from May 27 to May 31. Director Emma Rice has reimagined the classic thriller as a comedy. The story follows Roger Thornhill, a man who is mistaken for someone else and finds himself caught up in a Cold War conspiracy. The production features a cast of six actors, backed by a 1950s soundtrack. The cast includes Ewan Wardrop as Roger Thornhill, Mirabelle Gremaud as Anna, Patrycja Kujawska as Eva Kendall, Simon Oskarsson as Valerian, Katy Owen as The Professor, and Karl Queensborough as Philip Vandamm. Emma Rice, who adapted and directed the production, is the artistic director of Wise Children. She has previously adapted and directed several other productions for the company, including The Buddha of Suburbia, Blue Beard, and The Little Matchgirl and Happier Tales. Prior to that, she worked for Kneehigh theatre as an actor, director and artistic director. The production is a co-production with York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester, and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse. It has already been performed at York Theatre Royal, HOME Manchester and Liverpool Playhouse, and will also be performed at Everyman Theatre Cheltenham and London's Alexandra Palace Theatre. The creative team working alongside Emma Rice includes set and costume designer Rob Howell, sound designer Simon Baker, lighting designer Malcolm Rippeth, choreographer and movement director Etta Murfitt, and creative consultant Mark Kaufman. The original North by Northwest film was produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1959, and starred Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. Tickets for the Bath performances can be booked via the Theatre Royal Bath website. The performances will take place at 7.30pm from Tuesday to Saturday, with additional performances at 2.30pm on Wednesday and Saturday. Ticket prices range from £10.50 to £45.50, with a booking fee applicable.
