A Murder in the Shower that Transformed Cinema

The first edition of the El Gouna International Film Festival in Egypt (which has quickly become one of the largest film festivals in the Middle East, with a $200,000 prize) is hosting a documentary film titled 'Seventy-Eight/Fifty-Two' by Alexandra O. Philippe. This may be the first time a professional feature film has been made entirely about a sequence from a film: the famous shower murder scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960). There is no doubt about Hitchcock's genius and status in film history; so much so that the creation of a ninety-minute film about a few minutes of his film does not seem strange. This astonishing sequence - which is taught in film schools - transformed the history of cinema. After the vibrant color film 'North by Northwest', Hitchcock suddenly presented a small black-and-white film made with a low budget, which he himself said was one of the most difficult tasks to convince studios to produce, yet this small film became very popular with the general audience - achieving incredible sales - and also gained a special place among critics. The shower scene in this film is one of the most shocking scenes in film history; the filming of which took seven days. In this documentary, we see images of audiences in the cinema hall screaming while watching this scene. Some interviewees also mention that during the first screenings of the film in the cinema hall, the sound of women's screams was louder than the sound of the film itself. The first strange point is that Hitchcock takes you along with the film's heroine, a girl played by Janet Leigh, for almost an hour and suddenly she is killed in the shower in the middle of the film. Above all, this was a strange innovation that the film's heroine would exit in the middle of the film; on the other hand, no one believed that Janet Leigh, a cinema star, would suddenly be killed in the middle of the film and exit the story. However, the more strange is the astonishing structure of this sequence that impacted the history of cinema. On one hand, the editing style of this film was exactly the opposite of the established Eisenstein editing style, and on the other hand, such short shots had fewer similarities and seemed unusual and strange (perhaps this sequence should be considered the mother of all modern music videos, which are mainly based on short shots). Fortunately, the film explores all aspects of this sequence in relation to Hitchcock's complex world. Filmmakers, critics, and actors each refer to aspects of this sequence and its significance and impact. Jennifer Jason Leigh, while discussing this sequence, refers to a television comedy in which she plays Janet Leigh's role in the shower: where we see her in the shower, but when the killer pulls back the curtain, she, who has been hiding behind the door, comes out and says, 'Fool, I've seen this movie fifty times!' Janet Leigh's double is also interviewed in the film; someone whose naked body we see instead of Janet Leigh. She explains about the filming and points out interesting details, including that when the knife is positioned near her navel, Hitchcock himself placed the knife on her stomach and actually did the reverse motion, pulling the knife away from her stomach. This shot is shown in reverse in the film, making it appear as if the knife is approaching her stomach. The connection of this film with other Hitchcock films continues with interesting references about this filmmaker's view of 'mother', and on the other hand, Hitchcock's Catholic perspective is examined; where for him - with a strict Catholic upbringing - the sin of the main female character (theft) must be accompanied by retribution, and this sin is not something that can be washed away with water (the shower scene). Regarding Hitchcock's sources of inspiration for this scene, two films from the 1940s by Jacques Tourneur (Cat People and Leopard Man) are mentioned, which do not seem to be very precise references, but the display of a lesser-seen scene from Cecil B. DeMille reveals an interesting similarity regarding the curtain drop shot in this Hitchcock sequence and this old DeMille film.