“78 / 52” My rating: B+
91 minutes | No MPAA rating
The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” required 78 camera setups and 52 individual cuts.
The upshot: The most famous movie sequence ever, equalling and ultimately surpassing the “Odessa steps” montage in the silent classic “Battleship Potemkin.”
Now we have “78 / 52,” a nerdgasm posing as a feature-length documentary about that four-minute shower scene. It’s like a master class in geek cinema obsessiveness.
It’s also pretty great.
Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, “78 / 52” brings together dozens of film types — directors (Guillermo del Toro, Peter Bogdonovich), composers (Danny Elfman) writers (Stephen Rubello, Bret Easton Ellis), film editors, sound artists (Walter Murch), actors (Elijah Wood, Jamie Lee Curtis) — and other “Pyscho” fanatics who analyze Hitchcock’s creepy masterpiece from every artistic, commercial, historic and social angle imaginable.
Philippe even tracked down Marli Refro, the 21-year-old model who spent days nude in the shower as star Janet Leigh’s body double. (more…)
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