Psycho October 29, 2010

From Bernard Hermann’s piercing, threatening score to Marion Crane’s (Leigh) staring eyeball and Norman Bates’ (Perkins) vulnerable veneer—the atmosphere and images of Hitchock’s Psycho are iconic, deeply rooted in American culture ever since the film premiered fifty years ago. Based on Robert Bloch’s novel, which was inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, the film’s story is not particularly novel.

Rather, it was Hitchock’s vision—bold, macabre, not-unsympathetic to its psychotic killer—that brands Psycho with unforgettable terror. Andrew Sarris, in his first Village Voice review, insisted that any discerning film-goer should see the “ghoulish” film at least three times, and declared Hitchcock “the most-daring avant-garde film-maker in America today,” in admiration for his “richly symbolic commentary on the modern world as a public swamp in which human feelings and passions are flushed down the drain.”

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