Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" at the Bryant Park Summer Film Festival

We thought it would be raining harshly last night, but we took the risk and went on our way to wait and watch "Psycho," Alfred Hitchcock's (as remade by Gus Van Sant in 1998) disturbingly well crafted black and white movie made in 1960. Bryant Park's 15th year Summer Film Festival, as spearheaded by HBO, ended last night with the screening of this pre-eminent film among a tradition of suspense movies that try to catch our fancy and hidden fears that lie deep within ourselves. The park last night was not crowded, as many might have thought the screening would be canceled due to bad weather. However, those brave souls who persisted got rewarded with another fascinating experience of a free screening of a well-dissected film known for bringing out primal fears out in the open. All in all, the weather seemed to have joined in making the screening experience more scary than usual. We even had to open the umbrella from time to time as the rains continuously threatened to smash the experience to something more less exciting.


I took great fancy indeed, and went out of my way to take shots onscreen on the famous sequence of shots while Janet Leigh was being stabbed while taking her hot shower in the Bates Motel(that eerily always had all its 12 rooms vacant all the time). It's the first time I've done this as I've watched other films screened at the Bryant Park with my friend, Madeline, these past few weeks on Mondays. I wanted to pay homage to something of a great art work onscreen. Earlier in the film, she showed how sexy she was as she parlayed in her undies, only to be murdered soon enough in the film, and be the subject of a search, primarily for the money she stole, and not mainly for her being a tragic character in this wonderful movie.


I also could not help myself but be disturbed with & start analyzing the role that Anthony Perkins played so exceedingly well, that he would eventually make a career on similar roles until he died of AIDs in the early 90s[watch him play a similar role in "Pretty Poison"]. This film's role is actually a very gay role that's hidden in the depths of schizophrenic typecasting of gays who've seemed to have fancied themselves in fascinating personalities of women, men and back to being comfortably gay at any convenient moment in their daily lives. "Norman Bates" showed how he got enamored (as it seemed to me) with the presence of that other actor (Gavin is his movie screen surname), while Vera Miles, the sister of Janet Leigh in the movie, wandered bravely throughout the house where she found what looked like the ghastly decaying remains of " Norman Bates' " mother in the cellar. The supposedly long dead mother turned out to be "Norman Bates" himself in drag. How on earth can you beat that for a marvelous film role that flipped all over from "Mother Bates" to "Norman Bates the son" in a matter of minutes, plus other characters, that struggled from one personality to another, and have in turned showcased for us viewers a scary, suspense-holding event on the celluloid. This could have been very well a series of continuing scenes in our own lives, though, not as crime, grisly laden, ugly as they were on film. Of course, we've heard of real people's lives, the details of which are far stranger than fiction (as they say!). How many times have we thought of actually & struggling against committing murder scenes out of our own enemies we face in real life. These enemies could very well be some roles we play in our selves, but thankfully, we've done strategically well not to commit actual murders. In the meantime, we could always watch other well made films! Hurrah again for Hitchcock!