Lynch is informed a ton by Hitchcock, I think: I’d say most influential is Hitchcock’s violent (literally) and still-radical shift in PSYCHO from emotional investment in Janet Leigh unto narrative focus upon Anthony Perkins which could be the genesis of Lynch’s “schizophrenic” film narratives (MULLHOLAND DRIVE and LOST HIGHWAY in particular) in which there are jarring schisms in character psychology and film continuity.
Ben – I see what you mean about Psycho. It was a classic “switcheroo” that audiences back then were not accustomed to. I don’t think it would work today. And I definitely see the connection in those Lynch films. It brings Wild at Heart to mind as well.
Brian DePalma’s entire career
Ah yes! How could I have forgotten about DePalma? He’s definitely among the most obvious. Can’t think of one of his films, except maybe Casualties of War, that didn’t have some kind of Hitchcock influence. But I’m sure I can find some kind of a camera shot in that film as well taken from Hitchcock.
Gus Van Sant chose to remake Psycho almost frame for frame. And in spite of my love for Van Sant, I’d have to say that the few changes he made were not an improvement. One can’t imagine the pathologically inhibited Norman Bates jacking off, even through a peep hole. If he was even that comfortable with his sexuality, he probably wouldn’t need to kill. And the inserts of psychotic hallucinations when he does kill are creepy and well-done but ultimately distracting — plus, they sort of give the game away. In the original Psycho, you aren’t sure up until the end whether it really is or isn’t the mother herself going around killing these people. So, even when a genius tackles Hitchcock, it seems that Hitchcock did his thing better.
Dear Justin
Your reading of the end of PSYCHO is somehow I’ve somehow never considered though so much more disturbing that you just blew my mind. Of course, it’s all there: the arcane, the profane, the supernatural, the possession, the loss of control of the self in light of all that has come before Bates/me/I…HOLY SHIT!
In the original PSYCHO: the POV moment he/she/we kill(ed) investigator Martin Balsam is still one of THE MOST CHALLENGING SHOTS in the history of the medium. It just actively confuses SO MUCH of what’s going on/what is being experienced at that moment that it has to be genuflected to. How dare he impose/intrude on us (Balsam/Hitchcock)?
I was purposefully being a little flip about DePalma, so now allow me a chance at a serious answer.
As you may or may not know, the original “Fab Five” of the Cahiers du Cinema group – Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette and Godard – adored Hitchcock. Three of them even went so far as to write two books about him and his work, and they remain definitive analyses.
But of all of them it was Chabrol who really took the style — and stylizing — of the master to heart. So many of his films not only have that Hitchcockian feel to them, but many of them become complementary. The two Chabrol films which usually seem to merit the most praise as his undisputed “masterpieces” — LE BOUCHER and LES BICHES — are very easy to connect to this line of thought, and I urge everyone to seek them out and watch them. They are each superb mysteries. But there is another early Chabrol film which is unbelievable in its delivery and its subsequent impact, LES BONNES FEMMES, from 1958.
If you really want a fantastic peep into places you shouldn’t be putting your eyes — a favorite theme of old Alfred’s — then by all means get this amazing, disturbing little gem from the early days of the New Wave. I promise you you won’t be disappointed. And I bet you’ll see FUTURE influences as well, all the way from Scorsese to Tarantino.
It is available on a Kino Region-1 DVD release. Outstanding film.
Justin – I really don’t understand why Van Sandt opted to do the Psycho remake. It was like trying to remake The Godfather. What’s the point, even if it is at the hands of a great director?
Lester, didn’t Scorsese use that Vertigo reference your speaking of in Goodfellas as well?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y48R6-iIYHs
Its a pretty famous and widely used device now, I even remember seeing it in Shunji Iwai’s Love Letter. Funny though how Scorsese used two references to Hitchcock in that one singular film.
one example that came to mind right away was in What Lies Beneath. The scene in which michelle pfeiffer’s character is checking out her neighbors house with binoculars is a perfect emulation of the scene in Rear Window in which the killer notices Jefferies.
Crap Monster – You’re absolutely right. Scorcese, Spielberg and DePalma are among the directors who use these techniques extensively in their films. If you get a chance to check out the supplementary features on the re-releases of Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo, there’s some really good stuff on them regarding this topic.
Flemmon – Yep! That would definitely qualify. And did you see the film Disturbia? Same thing, only more extensive use.
stanley donan directed CHARADE, which is basically a hitchcock film, created by someone else. it even stars cary grant. i don’t know anything about stanley donan, so i don’t know if it was supposed to be an homage, or parody or what… but it was so hitchcockian as to be… i don’t know. hitchcockian.
maybe someone can explain that film to me???
Charade is Hitchcock Lite.
Pedro Almodovar emulated Hitchcockian-esque filmmaking in a few of his movies, most notably “Bad Education” (there are instances in “Volver” as well, such as when Penelope Cruz is first cleaning up the body). Supposedly, his new movie “Broken Embraces” will also play homage to Hitchcock as well as a slew of noir styles.
Jonathan Demme’s The Last Embrace is heavily influenced by Hitchcock.
I don’t recall specific shots, beacuse I did not care much for the film, but Kenneth Branaugh’s DEAD AGAIN is like Branaugh doing DePalma doing Hitchcock. In fact, for the most part DEAD AGAIN channeled the mood and spirit of Hitchcock films, as opposed to technical forms.It reminded me, in tone at least, of Fritz Lang’s magnificent MINISTRY OF FEAR (A picture I plan to write about shortly) and some of Henry Hathaway’s work. (I can see the uninitiated mistaking NIAGARA for a Hitchcock picture.)
I thought that ENIGMA (2001 Michael Apted) a pretty good picture about the code breakers at Bletchley Park during WWII, brilliantly captured the mood and movement of some of Hitchcock’s wonderful espionage pics, most notably FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and SABOTEUR.
Something about THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE reminds me of VERTIGO, but a specific memory doesn’t come to mind just now.
People often detect a Hitchcockian influence on French postmodernist Francois Ozon, but I don’t know if I see it. Ozon is a more human director, less smirky, also more forthrightly sexual. Watching Swimming Pool or Under the Sand I feel like I am in the hands of a master — a very different kind of master than Hitchcock, but a master nonetheless.
Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive is a very effective take on Hitchcock. But if you look even at the movies Davis made with Steven Seagal (!), you see him using wordless exposition for instance in a Hitchcock mode.
Jaco Van Dormeal’s TOTO LE HÉROS has been influenced by Vertigo. There’s even a very similar scene in the movie.
More on Vertigo: Chris Marker a great fan- see Sans Soleil. Its influence can also be seen in Mulholland Dr (which also brought to mind Persona and Celine + Julie go Boating) and Basic Instinct. I guess Dieterle’s Portrait of Jennie was in turn some sort of influence on Vertigo. Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black is very Hitchcockian, and using typical Herrmann score- and of course Kill Bill took its main plot from the Truffaut….
Speaking of Charade, Niagara by Henry Hathaway was also a heavy emulation of a Hitchcock film. I think it’s one the best imitations aside from Charade,
>>Charade is Hitchcock Lite.<<
So is IT TAKES A THIEF … so what?
The interesting thing about CHARADE is that it takes a very Hitchcockian scipt and does not treference Hitchcock stylistically, unlike some of the other examples cited here.
Mind you, I’m making no case for Stanley Donen, who managed to direct for over two decades without ever developing an identifiable visual style. He may be a hack, in fact, though I quite like several of his movies, particularly BEDAZZLED. But that the same man would turn out ON THE TOWN and SATURN 3 boggles the mind.
“Collateral” has a scene that plays like “Rear Window” in an office tower. Jamie Foxx is standing on a nearby roof top, watching from a far as Tom Cruise enters the building and pursues Jada Pinkett. Foxx is helpless to watch the little figures behind glass in the distance, and is even more helpless when the battery on his cellphone dies (adding a neat, modern technological element). It’s one of my favorite scenes in the film.
Lester, this was probably just a typo, but of course Hitchcock was British, not American.
Yet more on Vertigo: Neil Jordan has returned to that well not once but thrice – The Miracle (Beverly D’Angelo’s character as something of the return of a woman once lost), Mona Lisa, and then – most explicitly – The Crying Game. In both Mona Lisa and The Crying Game, Jordan is not only returning to Vertigo but also, more interestingly, to themes that must be of some personal significance to him. In both films (and of course I’m not the first person to notice!) a black woman with whom the hero falls immediately in love, proves to be more than she seems to be. In both films Jordan pushes a consistent phenotype in the mysterious woman (exactly like Hitch with the blond with the hair up and wearing Edith Head): Cathy Tyson returns, strangely, as Jaye Davidson (so you’ve got an exchange of identity across physical genders, as done more recently by e.g. Solondz and Haynes). Both of the mysterious women are gay, though only in The Crying Game does this work very intimately on the hero and the audience, and leaves you feeling more certain that what you saw in the Forrest Whitaker captivity scenes was what you think you saw. The Crying Game seems an explicit & post-psychological consummation of the Vertigo theme (“it’s in my nature”)—where Hitch was of an era of pure psychology and psychopathology (as in Psycho).
For some reason I see a lot of Hitchcock in David Fincher’s work, more in the sense of timing and pace. The film Panic Room is a perfect example of a Thriller that hits all of the beats just at the right time in the vein of Psycho or Rear Window.
I wish I had seen this topic when it was first going around. I would have recommended THE definitive book on Hitchcock’s influence: AFTER HITCHCOCK, edited by R. Barton Palmer. (It contains my essay on how REAR WINDOW influenced Antonioni’s BLOW-UP.)
Lester Burnam
Alfred Hitchcock is quite possibly the most emulated American film director ever. His films are considered essential film school viewing. I wanted to start a game where we can identify as many scenes from contemporary films (in the last 30 to 40 years) that harbor the stylistic renderings of Hitchcock, or films that just plain stole scenes and sequences right from his films. I’ll start with a couple:
1) Martin Scorcese patterned the opening credits of Goodfellas after the opening credits in Psycho
2) Steven Spielberg used the zoom/shrinking depth of field scene from Jaws that was used in Vertigo.
3) In M. Night Shamalyar’s The Happening, the scene where everyone is holed up in the diner talking about their possible fates and options was taken right from the diner scene in The Birds.
These are just a couple that immediately come to mind.
Go!