Saturday, August 8: Mississippi Mud
PSYCHOBABBLE
by John M. Floyd
Confession time: I am a Netflix junkie. Things have now progressed to the point that our postman would probably have an anxiety attack if my mailbox didn’t contain at least one outgoing or incoming red envelope every day. (Like the glutton at a smorgasbord, I almost certainly make management wish they had set stricter limits on how much one consumer can consume.)
My topic today, though, isn’t my movie addiction. My topic is one movie in particular, one that I (re)watched the other night and that scared the bejesus out of me when I was in high school. It’s “Psycho,” the ultimate date movie, so called because at least twice during the film the young lady with you in the theatre could be counted on to jump right over the armrest and into your lap.
Besides the fact that it’s just a good story, I think there are several things about “Psycho” that make it interesting and informative to writers of fiction, and especially to writers of suspense fiction.
(1) It began as a short story. Yes, I know, it was adapted from the novel by Robert Bloch — but the novel Psycho was an expansion of the Bloch short story, “The Real Bad Friend,” which appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.
(2) It changed genres in the middle of the film. The first half-hour of the movie is standard mystery/crime fare: attractive young lady steals a fortune, pays cash for a new car, escapes (takes a Hitch hike?), and stops on the way at a motel run by an odd but apparently harmless young man. But then, when the lady — now a guest at the motel –feels the need to wash off a little road dirt, it suddenly becomes a horror movie.
(3) It employed a never-before-used technique to keep the audience riveted: the main character and most recognizable actor in the film was suddenly killed a third of the way into the story. This left viewers not only in shock but in almost unbearable suspense — I mean, if that can happen, what else might happen? This was unfamiliar territory, moviewise. All bets were off.
(4) The ending was unusual for a Hitchcock film, or for any suspense movie, in that there was a long and tedious “resolution” following the climax. No one would argue that the moment of highest tension was Marian’s visit to the root cellar and her discovery that one Mom was a mummy and the other Mom was really Norman bewigged — but after that, there was what seemed like ten minutes or so of dreary explanations, during which crazy Norman sat in a padded cell looking, well, crazy. The ending worked, but probably only because viewers were still stunned by the jaw-dropping final twist.
I have heard it said, but don’t know for sure, that “Psycho” broke ground in several other areas as well: that it was the first movie to show a woman in a bra and panties, the first to show a flushing toilet, and the very first “slasher” film. And one reviewer noted that Janet Leigh wore a white bra and carried a white purse before the robbery but wore a black bra and carried a black purse in scenes after the robbery. Talk about symbolism . . .
I do know, however, that there were many other things about the film that were exceptional: the acting, the setting, the mood, the score by Bernard Herrmann, the cinematography, etc. I recall one long, unbroken sequence when the camera shows first the dead body on the bathroom tiles, then pulls slowly back and away to show the folded newspaper that contains the stolen loot, then keeps panning to show a view, through an open window, of the house on the hill, with a figure moving about in a lighted room and Norman’s voice saying something like, “Mother! What have you done?” If that’s not a great scene transition — and setup for the later plot twist — I don’t know what is.
Years ago, on my first visit to Universal Studios in L.A., while my fellow tourists were oohing and aahing over the shark attacks and the simulated earthquakes, my favorite attraction was the Bates Motel and the ugly-as-sin house looming behind it. Even the smaller, sunlit, real-life version gave me the heebiejeebies.
Enough about this. My esteemed Criminal Brief colleagues (and JLW in particular) are probably muttering, “When’s Floyd gonna get off this movie thing and start talking about short stories?” But I swear, cross-genre or not, movies like this one inspire me to write better stories, or at least to try to.
Pass the popcorn . . .
What? Mom was Norman in a wig? That’s it. I’m not going to bother to watch the movie.
Seriously though, I prefer Vertigo.
When’s Floyd gonna get off this movie thing and start talking about short stories?
Keep talking about movies, John! (And you did manage to get in a short-story reference for justification.) There’s one line of dialog in PSYCHO that is one of my favorite examples of misdirection in a detective story: when the sheriff says something like, “If Mrs. Bates is still alive, then who’s that buried in her grave?” Gets the viewer considering precisely the wrong question.
Rob, Norman was a strange boy. Probably wrote too many short stories.
As for Vertigo, it’s one of my favorite Hitchcocks, except for Rear Window — and if I recall, V. was a commercial flop (and blasted by critics) when it came out in the late fifties. Go figure.
JLW, I knew I should have posted this column while you were off globetrotting.
Steven Spielberg once said that composer John Williams’s score was responsible for half the success of JAWS. I think Bernard Herrmann’s score was responsible for half the success of PSYCHO.
I have read the novel on which the movie is based and found it rather underwhelming. If not for the movie, who would even remember that?
I didn’t remember that line you quoted, Jon, until I watched the movie again a few weeks ago — and I thought too, at the time, that it was a nice touch. That kind of misdirection has happened a number of times in Hitchcock films. A remember once (it might have been TOPAZ) seeing a couple of characters get into a taxi and then duck as if at the sound of a gunshot, although no shot was fired. I think AH just liked to keep the audience on edge, all the time.
And I agree with Yoshinori about the PSYCHO soundtrack. How could a viewer (listener) NOT be spooked? Besides the nerve-jangling music during two attack scenes (shower and root cellar), the music that accompanied Janet Leigh’s rainy-night getaway drive was unforgettable.
I think my favorite composers of film music are Williams, Mancini, John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner. I watched a movie the other night (FRANCES) and actually recognized the music as John Barry’s without knowing it beforehand.
I made a mistake in the column, by the way — Lila Crane, not her sister Marian, was the lady who discovered Mom. Oops.
Check out this video! John Williams conducts famous movie themes, including PSYCHO and 3 of his most beloved works STAR WARS, JAWS, and E.T.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnJR5SBmli0
My admiration for him knows no bounds. I believe John Williams is the great storyteller of all time . . . albeit a MUSICAL storyteller, of course. 🙂
I think my favorite composers of film music are Williams, Mancini, John Barry, Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, and James Horner.
Odd that you left out Bernard Herrmann after all that buildup. I think he was the best film composer of all time, and not just for “Psycho”. My favorite of his scores is “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, followed by “North by Northwest”, but everything he did was memorable — “Citizen Kane”, “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad”, “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, “Fahrenheit 451” … the list of great scores is amazing.
I would agree with all of your choices except Horner, whom I regard as a cookie-cutter composer, and John Williams. All of Horner’s scores, excepting his early stuff, sound pretty much the same, and I get really irritated with all the over-orchestrated pap, the soaring violins and cymbals played with soft mallets. It strikes me as ersatz and manipulative. I got extremely annoyed with him when he was quoted as saying that he wrote the equivalent of a Richard Strauss tone poem every six weeks — he may write as many notes, but he’s certainly not on the same level creatively. John Williams I find hot and cold — usually his stuff is a little too derivative for my tastes. “Star Wars”, rousing as it is, owes too much to Bruckner’s 4th Symphony, although I enjoyed the joke when his score for “Superman” riffed on “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the common element there being a sly reference to Friedrich Nietzsche).
I would also add Maurice Jarre, Elmer Bernstein, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Franz Waxman to the list of great film composers. Lately I’ve also been impressed with Michael Giacchino.
Great video, YT, and great music! (All the favorite composers I mentioned were represented except Morricone.) Gives me goosebumps. Many thanks . . .
I’m glad JLW mentioned Elmer Bernstein and Maurice Jarre. I loved much of Bernstein’s work–the theme to ELLERY QUEEN being one of my favorites. He tended not to be derivative of himself–my problem with Williams, though the worst sinner in this department, IMLTHO, is Andrew Lloyd-Webber. I will forgive Jarre almost anything for the scores to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR. ZHIVAGO. In his case, I think Jarre was quite sympathico with David Lean.
JLW, your comment came in as I was typing my last one. I too would add Jarre and Bernstein — I love their music, especially Jarre’s WITNESS, ZHIVAGO, and RYAN’S DAUGHTER. Didn’t he also do the first THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR? As for Bernstein, I’ve always been fascinated that the same man who did THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN also scored GHOSTBUSTERS and AIRPLANE.
But I do like Horner. My favorite of his is probably GLORY. More goosebumps, there.
I inadvertently left out Dimitri Tiomkin, Max Steiner, and Miklós Rózsa.
Geez, I’m in over my head again. I was gonna say I liked the music in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and really enjoyed the Hoosier Hot Shots in Singing Spurs.
If a movie is in black and white I like it, but love those noir films of the 1940s. When I go in the living room in late afternoon I switch on TCM. It is my intention to stay there only long enough to eat a sandwich. As often as not I sit there until the end of a b&w film. I have no idea what any of that means.
Dick, I consider TCM one of the best channels on our otherwise-pretty-worthless TV. With almost 200 channels to choose from, I often can’t find a thing I want to watch.
Another Bloch story that provided a germ for Psycho was “Lucy Comes To Stay.” “Lucy” may be short for “hallucination.” Irony: Theodore Sturgeon covered the Ed Gein case which was an inspiration for Psycho. Sturgeon went on to ghostwrite an Ellery Queen novel. Oh, and I’ve delighted in Vic Mizzy’s score for “The Spirit Is Willing” for about 35 years now!
The music for “Singin’ Spurs” was written by Mischa Bakaleinikoff, a stalwart Hollywood music director (and a brother Los Angeles Freemason) from the introduction of talkies in 1929 until his death in 1960. Margaret always gets a kick seeing his name on movie credits. Them Russians wrote some terrific Western music — Tiomkin wrote “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'” from “High Noon”.
The opening of “High Noon” remains one of my favorites, not only because of Tiomkin’s music but also the way that — in the time it takes for one song — it sets up the plot that follows. I think that’s close to perfect.
The best Tiomkin score, to me, is “The High and the Mighty.”
Film composers: how about Aaron Copland? He only did a few scores, but they were great.
Jeff, JLW, and Jon — Thanks for mentioning Mizzy and Bakaleinikoff and Copland. It’s easy to forget how many great composers are out there.
Correction: In one of my comments I said Yoshinori’s YouTube video had left out Ennio Morricone . . . but I watched it again today and realized he was indeed featured, with CINEMA PARADISO.
John Williams is arguably the most massively talented, technically proficient, versatile, and influential film composer of all time (I own close to a hundred of his soundtrack albums and other recordings).
Remember, John Williams is the guy who did JURASSIC PARK and in the same year SCHINDLER’S LIST, STAR WARS EPISODE I – THE PHANTOM MENACE and in the same year ANGELA’S ASHES, WARS OF THE WORLDS and in the same year MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA. His music blows me away every time. In fact, I admire him as much as I admire Agatha Christie, and that’s saying a lot.
I only admire VERY few artists is what I mean to say.
There’s no accounting for taste, Josh. I think Williams is a very talented and professional film composer, but not the greatest of all time by a long stretch. The perception that much of his music is ultimately derivative of other works is not something I invented, although I admit to agreeing with it. It’s hard to see an imitation as being as good as the real thing, no matter how craftsmanlike the job. I’m not bragging when I say that I have some sophistication when it comes to music, especially music involving full orchestras.
As to being the most influential movie composer of all time, that’s simply not true, and Williams himself would be the first to admit it.
JLW—I can’t disagree with you more.
Now, I’m not saying John Williams is the most original composer that ever lived, because he’s not. After all, he DOES pay homages to many great composers living and dead (what you call being derivative; and no, you don’t have to make a list, I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about). However, you only seem to point out the negative and dwell on it. If someone works on 100 film scores during his lifetime—not exactly, maybe, but that’s close enough—you don’t seriously expect him to break new ground with every new piece he writes, do you? Note that I said “piece,” and not “score.” That’s just not humanly possible, you see, just like it’s not possible for a novelist to come up with 100 completely new plot ideas for 100 different novels. No, what’s of much greater importance is how the film music effectively enhances the overall quality of the movies—and there, Williams is second to none.
Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, John Barry, Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone, etc. are (were) all talented and influential, I’m not doubting it, but John Williams has made (and keeps making) the biggest impact on the film music community and the movie industry, and that’s a FACT. Just ask Steven Spielberg if you don’t believe me.
If it works for you, that’s fine. It doesn’t for me, and I don’t see that as “dwelling on the negative”. I like many of Williams’ scores — and “score” is the operative term, since most orchestral film music is ultimately in the tradition of late 19th century/early 20th century through-composed program music, especially opera — and I don’t consider him a hack composer by any stretch. (As I regard Danny Elfman, if you want an example.) I just don’t stretch my regard for him as far as you do.
As to having impact, Steven Spielberg isn’t an authority on film composers. Other film composers are. Name one who considers Williams his primary influence.
We’ll just have to be satisfied with not agreeing on this issue, just as we differ on Tarantino.
Children, children! Don’t make me come over there . . .
The funny thing is, I agree with things both of you have said. I also find it refreshing (and a little surprising) that my friends and fellow writers/readers are this interested in film scores and composers. Most of the music I own is probably soundtracks — I just love ’em.
While I’m afraid I can claim no sophistication when it comes to music, I do know what I like. And every time I listen to a soundtrack by some of the artists we’ve mentioned here, it takes me back to the first time I saw the movie. And that IS entertainment.
I made the distinction between “score” and “piece” to make it clear that a score (as in movie score) is generally made up of many short pieces, aka cues. So if one piece happens to be “derivative,” that doesn’t necessarily mean the whole score is.
Many contemporary film composers admire John Williams. In fact, they frequently cite him as a MAJOR influence and the reason why they aspired to get into the business in the first place (STAR WARS is almost invariably mentioned, I noticed). Examples? James Horner, James Newton Howard, John Ottmann, Sean Callery, Graeme Revell, William Ross, and yes, even Jerry Goldsmith (he once expressed his admiration in an interview, and then John Williams returned the compliment).
I yield, but I stand by my own judgment, just as I expect you to stand by yours. I really don’t have any quibble with John Williams, and as I said, I like many of his scores. I just don’t see him as the greatest, or even among the greatest, of his ilk and I have what I regard as sound reasons for thinking so.
“Star Wars” is a fun score. It suits the film admirably, and I was impressed when I heard the first notes of the fanfare when I first saw the movie back in 1977. But I really don’t think it’s on the same level as, say, the music for “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Gone with The Wind”, or “Alexander Nevsky”. It did have the admirable effect of rejuvenating the “big score” for movies, something that was largely eschewed in the 70s, and I give Williams full credit for pulling off that not-inconsiderable feat.
I hope you’re not offended because I stick to my guns, Josh. I disagree with a lot of people I respect — my good friend Paul Guyot thinks that The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest books ever written; I, on the other hand, think it’s trashy, the most over-rated book in American lit. I dislike almost everything about it, especially that it holds out its corrupt and selfish protagonists as being somehow admirable. But Paul and I still agree on much more than we disagree on. Insisting on only one interpretation of art is an overt act of intellectual fascism, after all, and I wouldn’t dream of insisting that my opinions be regarded as anything like esthetic laws.
Well, everybody has their own opinions and thoughts on art, and if you ask me, that’s what makes it so great and endlessly fascinating. And no, I’m not offended at all, James.
I’ve listened to John Williams’s music my whole life (in fact, I know virtually EVERYTHING he’s done), and for me, he will always be the very best film composer, from the original POSEIDON ADVENTURE to the forthcoming TINTIN. However, I understand that, in the end, it’s all a matter of taste.
As to THE GREAT GATSBY, I’ve never been a big fan, either . . . although maybe I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “trashy.” For me, it’s just plain “boring.”
I’m one of those who thinks that a far better book capturing the 1920’s was Thorne Smith’s TOPPER.