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Brendan
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« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2004, 08:30:49 PM » |
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Poll: 'Psycho' Best Movie Death Ever
The Associated Press
In the gore stakes, Janet Leigh's shower scene in "Psycho" is the "best movie death" of all time, according to a critics' poll published Thursday.
The 44-year-old Hitchcock thriller beat other iconic movies such as "The Godfather" (22nd) and Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (23rd) in the poll by Total Film magazine.
Stanley Kubrick's "Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" (1964) came second, with the surreal ending when Slim Pickens rides an atomic bomb.
Other highly rated movie deaths were the fatal plunge to earth of the ape in the 1933 Fay Wray movie "King Kong," in third place, and the demise of Bambi's mother (6th) in the 1942 Disney movie of the same name.
Alan Rickman's fall from a 30-storey building in "Die Hard" (1988) comes fourth, followed by the killing of the title characters in "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967).
"Some of the deaths in the poll, like The Wicked Witch melting in 'The Wizard Of Oz' (13th), are iconic but laughable, but nearly 45 years on, 'Psycho's' shower scene is still distressing," said Total Film deputy editor Simon Crook.
"It's the sheer violence of the edit rather than any explicit gore — 70 different angles, over 90 cuts and those shrieking violins. It's a masterclass in montage and audience manipulation."
Crook added: "Knowing that the blood is Bosco's chocolate syrup and that a pulped casaba melon stood in for the stabbing noises does nothing to reduce the impact."
Article here. |
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allycat
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« Reply #12 on: May 23, 2004, 09:14:22 AM » |
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I have seen this article too, Brendan. I agree that the death scene in Psycho is one of the best. It's not just the way the whole scene is done, it's where it happens in the film, too. I'm sure I've said this before (when we had a thread on Hitchcock sometime last year) but it's totally brilliant the way that Hitchcock kills off the main character so early in the film. Of course, anyone seeing Psycho after its first release would probably know what was going to happen because it is one of the most famous scenes of all time, and there are few people who don't know what's going to happen when they watch the film, even if they haven't seen it before. I remember saying before that, when I first saw Psycho, I must have been one of the few people to not know what was going to happen...which made the impact of the shower scene all the more powerful, being totally unprepared for it. Hitchcock is a genius at doing that...using his famous 'MacGuffin' or red herring in his films, so that you think the story is going down one track when really it's about something else. In Psycho, we think the story is about Marion Crane and the stolen money, when in fact it's just a device to draw us into the disturbed world of Norman Bates. It's a wonderful way of creating suspense.
I just thought of another classic death scene...what about the scene in Catch 22 when the man (Kid Sampson, apparently) is standing on a raft in the sea and an aeroplane comes and cuts him in two with its propeller. The funny part is, his legs stay standing on the raft for a few seconds before crumpling back into the water! Then if I recall correctly (though it is a long time since I saw this film) the plane crashes into a mountain. I believe this is how it happens in the novel, anyway.
I barely understood that film, let alone the novel! Mind you, I did watch it when I was only a child...(the things you find when you're rooting through your parents' old videos!)
It makes me sound like a pretty sick puppy when I say that, when I saw the aeroplane death scene, I found it pretty cool and funny! (Especially being so young at the time as well!) It's probably about time I watched the film again, I think I would understand it a bit more now I'm older.
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« Last Edit: May 23, 2004, 09:26:20 AM by allycat »
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
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allycat
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« Reply #15 on: May 25, 2004, 02:38:41 PM » |
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I don't recall seeing Scanners, although I thought I hadn't seen American Graffiti and then I watched it last night on DVD and it was so familiar to me, I realised I must have watched it before, ages ago.
I forgot to mention this one - how about at the beginning of Robocop when ED-209 turns a poor office guy to a bloody pulp in a hail of bullets? The guy is literally blasted so much his body is sort of suspended in mid-air by the force of the bullets...I remember being simultaneously mesmerised and horrified, transfixed in morbid fascination as I watched this scene, aged only 11 (another one I saw as a child, at home...the video was rented, so obviously no one had any qualms about letting me see it!).
Oh and one more - how about when Travis Bickle shoots the client in the hotel at the end of Taxi Driver? The worst thing about that was the guy's hand exploding...if you're sick enough to watch it in slo-mo (guilty as charged!) then you can see the fingers flying off...urgh! Fortunately I know it was a fake hand - well duh! But I seem to remember reading about how they made it. I think it was papier mache, I'm not sure exactly). The whole end sequence is one big bloodbath. The end scene is so cool too, when Travis symbolically 'shoots' himself with his bloodied hand, and the camera pulls up, towards the ceiling...what a great ending.
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« Last Edit: May 25, 2004, 02:43:31 PM by allycat »
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
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