Spatial Perspectives

The Diary of Anne Frank - (1959) Directed by George Stevens

Starring Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters

Great picture. Suspenseful, endearing, and sad. History never truly learns its lesson, so I can't help but imagine what if this were to happen again.

Winner of both Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Cinematography at the 1959 Academy Awards, every scene in this film was so rich; the kiss scene in the shadows between Anna and Peter made one forget they weren't watching a romantic drama. And the magic of Stevens is, I sat there just as suspenseful, waiting for that kiss, as I was when the curious gestapo inspected the office...In fact, I held my breath as if I was there myself.

Millie Perkins is beautiful. I had to say it.

Rear Window - (1954) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly

I wish I could erase parts of my memory temporarily, for instance, that Tiny Toons episode where Plucky has a broken leg and they pay homage to Rear Window...Or was that Bart in a Simpsons' episode. In any case I wish the film didn't precede itself so much that I already knew the plot. It still didn't ruin the film for me and I'll tell you why. No one, especially no cartoon can take the place of either James Stewart or Grace Kelly. The latter doesn't even look human, that's how beautiful she is.

I wish I could've met Hitchcock, he seems like the kind of friend I would have; though, he's probably quiet like me so I can't imagine our conversations being that good.

Yo Spliff, Where Tha Weed At?

Psycho - (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin

and Janet Leigh.

Finally saw this in its entirety. I was wondering about the films of Alfred Hitchcock because he was a well known director in his time. I mean when a Hitchcock film hit theatres I'm assuming it was anticipated before hand and a rather popular awareness of its release did float about among moviegoers. Watching Vertigo and Psycho last night I realized that some of the images are, when contrasted to today's commercial films, a bit strange. For instance the close up on Janet Leigh's eye after she gets poked, or the lingering shots of the running shower head, this we only expect in independent films, where such "artsy" aesthetics seem welcomed. I say strange, but its not strange as much as it is just good film making, as these shots are very effective and affective images on screen. Most of today's thrillers lack imagination and make up for this through loud sound effects and split second camera cuts.

Alfred Hitchcock did finance Psycho out of his own pockets so in a sense it was an independent film but Paramount distributed many of his films to theatres, including Psycho. And Hitchcock was definitely not a freshman in Hollywood at the time, although it was his first horror film. Watching Psycho and Vertigo, I got a feeling that experimentation in film is popularly, less acceptable today as it was 40 or 50 years ago. There are a few sporadic instances, but for every bright spot of today's cinema there are 10 new dark clouds that cancer the sky.

Marion Crane is a woman. I love her voice and her manner of speaking, its intelligently probing, maybe rude for its boldness and straight-forward delivery. She should've came to my town with that money. Something tells me that Sammy Boy would've played the boy scout had she actually made it to his town with a stolen 40,000 dollars. A woman like that and a man like me are precisely the purposes for which, $40,000 and True Love were specifically created. Maybe then she could've gotten poked by something else in the shower. I'll stop here.