Alex Burns

Psycho (1960)

Music critic Alex Ross noted in a recent New Yorker interview about film composer Michael Giacchino that contemporary audiences were rediscovering old films and classical soundtracks via ‘events’ with live orchestras.

Today original geekgirl Rosie X and I saw the Bates Motel Orchestra – probably the entrepreneurial string section of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on a non-contractual side-gig – perform Bernard Hermann‘s influential score to Alfred Hitchcock‘s psychological thriller Psycho (1960). We were seated in a position to be able to watch both the Orchestra and the film. At its conclusion the theatre lights came on and the Orchestra reprised Hermann’s opening theme to several minutes of sustained applause from the theatre’s audience.

Psycho has far more than just the infamous shower murder stabbing of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) by Bates Motel owner Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). The Orchestra’s most memorable playing occurred during two early scenes. In the ‘Prelude’ title sequence Marion laments her relationship with paramour Sam Loomis (John Gavin) in a Phoenix motel and then steals $40,000 from rancher Tom Cassidy (Frank Albertson) and her boss, real estate manager George Lowery (Vaughn Taylor). During the ‘Flight’ sequence Marion escapes and state police (Mort Mills) pursue her in a rainstorm. These scenes – and the Orchestra’s performance – underscore how Hitchcock spends almost a third of Psycho establishing Marion’s character, guilt, and psychological dilemmas.

Marion’s murder abruptly switches Psycho from a bank heist or unconventional romantic melodrama into a film noir with dark psychological undertones. As film critic Robin Wood noted, Marion’s death stunned audiences who had expected her to be the film’s main character and to be redeemed for her early transgression. The subsequent investigation by Sam, Marion’s sister Lila Crane (Vera Miles) and private investigator Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) dominates Psycho’s last third and the Orchestra counterpointed the series of revelations about the Bates Motel, Norman’s psychological past and his mother Norma’s true identity.

In contrast, Sheriff Al Chambers (John McIntire) and Mrs Chambers (Lurene Tuttle) appear to almost collude with Norman Bates in not wanting to confront his dark id. Arbogast senses that something is not right but does not protect himself and is killed on the Bates House stairwell. Sam’s diversion tactic fails as the inquisitive Lila is drawn towards the Bates House cellar. In Psycho‘s epilogue Dr. Fred Richmond (Simon Oakland) provides a clinical, forensic explanation about Norman’s behaviour: he developed a dissociative, split personality with amnesia.

Cinema Studies scholar Geoff Mayer shaped how I first viewed Psycho in an undergraduate class about twelve years ago. Mayer observed that Leigh and Gavin have their feet on the ground during the opening scene’s bedroom talk because of Production Code restrictions about unmarried couples. Despite the confrontational nature of Marion’s shower murder the scene passed the Production Code because of George Tomasini‘s editing and due to Hitchcock’s Catholic morality over Marion’s transgressions. Hitchcock filmed Psycho using his television crew and experimented with rapid takes and other handheld-like techniques.

Psychoanalyst-influenced scholars would intensely study Psycho through Freudian, Lacanian and other frameworks in the mid-to-late 1960s and 1970s. Richmond’s testimony however also be the public’s first introduction to forensic psychiatry and psychological profiling. It is perhaps the forerunner of television dramas dominated by medical examiners and diagnosticians such as Quincy ME and House. Norman Bates’ interest in taxidermy – and Marion’s revealing interview with him about this hobby – also foreshadowed Fabian Bielinsky‘s masterful neo-noir film The Aura (2005) in which a taxidermist survives a bank heist gone wrong because of his epilepsy.

The Bates Motel Orchestra brought an emotional intensity and immediacy to Psycho. Ross is into a powerful trend here: the fusion of mixed media and live elements to reawaken historical media for new, appreciative audiences. I agree with Rosie X‘s suggestion: how about a live performance of Giacchino’s epic score for J.J. Abrams‘  Star Trek ‘reboot’ (2009)?

Why does Hollywood’s upcoming production slate have so many remakes of classic science fiction, horror and fantasy films?  Depending on your viewpoint, several reasons.

The Writer’s Guild of America‘s 2008 strike affected the ‘deal flow’ of new scripts that Hollywood’s studios may have purchased and fast-tracked out of development hell and into pre-production.  In the language of managerial economics the studios lacked the willingness to pay (WTP) the willingness to sell (WTS) price demanded by WGA members for their services.  Faced with months of industrial action the studios pursued a fallback option: remakes of existing properties.

WGA’s delay tactics have given the studios a potential financial windfall in the near-term future.  The studios often already own the intellectual property rights for the remakes.  Demographics such as inter-generational shifts creates two consumer segments: people who remember the original films, and Gen X and Gen-Y viewers who are new.  Ancillary markets can be tapped, from cable television re-runs of the original films to DVD repackages/re-releases, ‘versioned’ editions for collectors, and ‘bundled’ packs of both films.  The studios’ windfall is a short-term boost in cashflow which can be used for working capital management or debt-equity leverage.  New Zealand’s Weta Digital also benefits as the films require its expertise in digital special effects; the studios can minimise their production costs through currency hedging and business process outsourcing.

The global financial crisis also benefits the studios through a market timing strategy for film portfolio management.  The production slate announced so far for 2009-2010 is heavily weighted towards dystopian science fiction films from the turbulent late 1960s and the energy crisis/stagflation early 1970s.  There’s also a few 1930s Depression era monster films and 1950s Cold War science fiction.  American journalist Annalee Newitz, amongst others, has observed that Hollywood studios turn to genre films during times of social dislocation; this thesis is central to 1950s film noir and its neo-noir remanifestation in the early 1990s recession, and may also fit the micro-trend of counterterrorism films in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.  Cinema Studies scholar Geoff Mayer has also explored this thesis in Pre-Code Hollywood cinema and the Western genre.

However, there’s another potential pattern here that might be worth further research, even though correlation is not causation.  The 1930s Depression era films appear to fit the 54-to-70 year long macroeconomic cycle (aka the KWave) that Soviet mathematician Nikolai Kondratieff proposed, particularly the Fall and Winter periods of stagnation and recession/depression.  The time period between the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s films also roughly fits the 18-year Kuznets Wave identified by Simon Kuznets, and which might explain the deeper/unconscious interest in 1970s film properties.  Add a mid-1990s wave of films (perhaps neo-noir or the heroin chic of My Own Private Idaho and Trainspotting), and you have a series of macreconomic cycles that span film genres, subcultural imagery, inter-generational audiences and new cohorts of film actors, directors, scriptwriters and producers.

It may be a neat backtesting/retrospective explanation of how Hollywood studios can revitalise their institutional power.  Or, it just may be the theoretical framework for the Entourage crew to shed their up-and-coming careers and achieve some real deal-making longevity.