"78/52: HITCHCOCK'S SHOWER SCENE".........WHEN CINEMA FOREVER CHANGED........

78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene"  (2017)   Is it possible to base an entire 90 minute documentary on the astonishing Janet Leigh shower-murder in "Psycho"?

           No doubt.......there's more than enough to talk about. And plenty of today's filmmakers willing to amiably chat about it......including Eli Roth, Elijah Wood, Peter Bogdonovich, Mick Garris, Danny Elfman, Guillermo Del Toro, Jamie Lee Curtis and many, many others......the hour and a half flies by.

             In fact, documentary writers and directors could make multiple movies about some of the topics briefly touched on here........before the film settles down to its main event, a shot-by-shot examination of the iconic scene.....(the title refers to the 78 camera set-ups and 52 separate cuts that make up the sequence....)

            Specifically, we refer to the cultural landmark that "Psycho" became........how the film stands as a borderline signpost dividing the 1950's from the 1960's........

             With the capriciously startling slaughter of Janet Leigh, we knew we'd left the moral civility, comfort and solid conservative values of the 50's.  "Psycho"was the perfect touchstone to usher us in to the taboo-breaking, rollercoaster world of the 60's........filled with random cruelty, paranoia, sudden violence, distrust of authority and upending of all normal values that we used to hold dear.

               Irony rules here.......since Hitchcock viewed the film as an elaborate practical joke played on the audience.......the equivalent of pulling the theater seats out from under moviegoers after they'd already sat down.......

                 While American audiences embraced Hitchcock's new Cinema Of Cruelty and reveled in the nasty tricks the film played on them........across the pond, Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" met with revulsion and rejection.  Hitchcock's little tour through psychosis and murder made him a director-superstar.......Powell's film, more than equal to "Psycho" in its plunge into utter madness, ruined the director's career.

                  As we said......more than enough food for thought here to make a variety of movies about "Psycho" and its continued ripple effect through pop culture. (Don't think so?   One of the film's participants points out that even his 7 year old daughter can replicate Bernard Herrmann's shrieking violins.....)

                 Getting back to the....uh.....meat of the film....(including the decision to use the stabbing of a casaba melon and sirloin steak for the sound of a knife plunged into Janet Leigh).....the meticulous breakdown of the shower scene is a hardcore movie buff's dream come true.

                 For anyone who grooves on Hitchcock and holds fond memories of what it was like to experience "Psycho" for the first time, track down "78/52" a.s.a.p.......stabbin' out 4 bloody stars for this one (****).....