[All the Titles Link to Trailers, and then some!]
First, let me start off by saying that I
love Anthony Hopkins. He has done some
great work, and not just when he’s playing a certain famous cold and
calculating cannibal. Although critics
are more likely to tout his more restrained English performances in films like The Remains of the Day and Howards End as some of his best, though
they were good, I’d be more likely to cite his performances and characters in
films like Shadowlands, The Elephant Man, and Magic, and let’s not forget he’s played everyone from Abraham Van Helsing
and Nixon to John Quincy Adams, Pablo Picasso, and Zorro, as well as the WolfMan’s and Thor’s fathers! Here, I’m not so
sure. Alfred Hitchcock is a very difficult
performance to pull off since Hitchcock’s own mannerisms border on caricature,
and there’s just something slightly off about Hopkins’ routine and makeup. I’ll chalk it up to “a good try”.
By
the same token, I love some of Hitchcock’s old films. He’s got quite a long list, and I’ve only
seen a few, but I’ve liked what I’ve seen, such as Rebecca, Strangers on a Train, Rope, Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest. But, along with The Birds, Psycho is by
far my favorite (and how delicious was it that they ended this movie with a
crow flying in to land on Hopkins’ shoulder when he started talking about what
might inspire his next film?)
Psycho was such a phenomenal hit that it
eventually spawned three sequels (trailers linked here for 2, 3, & 4, the second was still the best of those), a
shot-for-shot remake, and a captivating new series called Bates Motel, starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga.
For
this film, however, I loved the story set around the filming of the original,
and it was quite fun seeing Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh and Jessica Biel
as Vera Miles, and I thought actor James D’Arcy captured the unhinged
boy-next-door creepiness of Anthony Perkins that he so effortlessly brought to
the role of twitchy Norman Bates.
Although there were other things to really like about this film, such as
Helen Mirren’s performance as Hitchcock’s long-suffering wife Alma Reville, and
things I didn’t much care for, such as Hitchcock’s intense fascination with
mass murderer Ed Gein, to such a point that Gein became a physical presence for
him at times, in the end, the film had more good qualities than bad.
The
thing I loved the most was [SPOILER ALERT!] how they turned Hitchcock’s life and suspicions
about his wife possibly having an affair with screenwriter Whitfield Cook into
something straight out of a Hitchcock movie, and the way his obsession with the
young blond actresses who were his film’s heroines finally came to a head was
handled very well, which led to this very witty exchange between Hitchcock and
his wife:
Hitchcock: “I will never find a
Hitchcock blonde as beautiful as you.”
Alma: “Oh Hitch, I’ve waited thirty
years to hear you say that.”
Hitchcock: “That, my dear, is why they
call me the Master of Suspense.”
I don’t know if he ever really had that
exchange with his wife, but if not, he should have! That’s some smart writing.
A
film like this is nearly irresistible to a movie lover like me! Next up, I’d like to see the HBO movie The Girl, which is all about Hitchcock’s
fascination for Tippi Hedren during the filming of The Birds. It might make for
a good companion piece to this one.
I'm behind on this series, and have yet to watch the final three episodes that started this first season. I find this to be a fresh and interesting look at the legend surrounding the book,
film, and characters from Psycho,
which I just talked about in movies when reviewing the movie Hitchcock, and which is about the
filming of Psycho. This is a prequel of sorts, with Freddie
Highmore playing the young psycho-in-training Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as
his rather unhinged, jealous, murderous mother Norma. Although the original film came out in 1960,
this “prequel” takes place in modern times, with cell phones and texting, and I
for one find the show quite interesting.
It moves slightly beyond the motel and the mother-son bond between
Norman and Norma, and introduces a few other characters, both within the Bates
family and in the fictional town. Norman
is torn between two girls, one a tease, the other a nice girl with cystic
fibrosis. His mother becomes involved
with the deputy sheriff (Mike Vogel of TheDeaths of Ian Stone), who seems to be part of an underground slave
trade. And then there’s Max Thieriot as
Norman’s half brother Dylan, who doesn’t get along with his mother (he calls
her Norma) but makes several attempts to try to connect with Norman. I’m excited to see where this story will go,
even if we all know where it will eventually end up, of course.
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