Tag Archives: Psycho

Friday Fundas

How Hitchcock altered ideas on Censorship

How Hitchcock altered ideas on Censorship

For the past few days, the movie Udta Punjab produced by Anurag Kashyap is trending for the reason that it is being demanded to make unreasonable cuts by the censor board. Well, Mr. Kashyap said it is his fight and he would fight for it. I sincerely hope he wins. In this week’s Friday Fundas, I would like to highlight how the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock had constantly challenged the censor board in many ridiculous ways, broke many of their rules and in effect changed the idea of Censorship.

Out of the many instances, two of Hitchcock’s movies are still very popular for the kind of controversies they evoked with the Censorship. Notorious released in 1946 starred Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. The signature scene in the movie is the kissing scene between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Hitchcock wanted to shoot a two and half minute kissing scene. But the censor board at that time allowed only three seconds long kissing scene. In order to achieve what he wanted, he had interrupted the scene every three seconds to pass the movie through the three-second rule in the production code.

The movie Psycho which he had made in 1960 evoked more controversies right from the production stage. You could watch the movie Hitchcock or read the book “Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho” written by Stephen Rebello to learn more about it. Out of the many controversial scenes, there was a scene in which the toilet is shown with visible notes being flushed. Till that date, none of the movies had shown a toilet in the movie and censor board initially rejected it and eventually had to give in as there was hardly any logic behind it. The shower scene is the money shot for the movie. Hitchcock knew he would be ridiculed by the censor board. So he had deliberately made it more violent so that he had negotiated with the board to arrive at the output he wanted. The board also had objection over the opening scene of the movie. He negotiated with them that he would change the scene and reshoot it provided they allow him to keep the shower scene. He also had said he would reshoot with the censor board members on the set under their advice. As they did not turn up for the reshoot the scene remained.

Post the release of Psycho the censor board was never the same again. The movie relaxed many of the censorship rules giving more freedom to the filmmakers.

Hope you liked this article. Leave your comments and thoughts below. In case you are interested, you can read more articles from Friday Fundas section.

 

Friday Fundas

Friday Fundas: Reaction Shot

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Reaction Shot 

In this week’s Friday Fundas we would see one of the basic units of film grammar – Reaction Shot.

A Reaction shot is the one where the camera moves away from the main sequence to show the reaction of a character to the main sequence. It could be a response to a dialogue or an event in the preceding shot. Reaction shots are usually a medium close up shot.

The famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a great example of a reaction shot. You see the killer approaching the shower and opening the screen. Immediately the next shot is the woman screaming and then the scene shifts back to the killer and proceeds from there. This might appear to be trivial. Now try to imagine the entire sequence without this single shot you would not feel connected to it.

Reaction Shot - Psycho

Reaction Shot – Psycho

The reaction shot is usually present in the shooting script. When the screenplay is written there would be no mention of the reaction shot but when the script is converted to a shooting script there would be mentions of reaction shot.

Usually this is determined by the director’s vision for the script.

Panchathanthiram
Panchathanthiram

In a comedy film the reaction shots play a very important role in making audience laugh. If you can think of comedy movies like Panchanthanthiram you would now be able to relate to some of the very effective reaction shots.

Usually the reaction shot occurs post the actual main shot. However many film makers have improvised on this to show a reaction shot before the actual main shot to make it more dramatic.

Jurassic Park - Reaction Shot
Jurassic Park – Reaction Shot

In the movie Jurassic Park as the crew is taken for the first tour around the Park they spot the huge herbivores walking around. Initially Spielberg shows the reaction of the people in the Jeep and then later shows the actual scene to which they are reacting to. This is the first time the audience see a full dinosaur in the movie and this just increases the anticipation and prepares the audience for something spectacular.

Few directors have omitted reaction shots on certain occasions to create a suspense that would be later revealed in the movie.

Sixth Sense Restaurant Scene
Sixth Sense Restaurant Scene

In the movie Sixth sense restaurant scene director Manoj Night Shyamalan does not show many reaction shots during the most part of the conversation Crowe’s wife’s face is not shown. Only later when she is signing the cheque her face is shown which works effectively to conceal the secret the climax would reveal later.

Whether reaction shots are present or not present they are very essential to the visuals. Effective use of it is elementary to an engaging movie.

Friday Fundas

Friday Fundas: Neo-noir films

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Neo-noir films

Neo noir films refer to a category of the films that have a dark theme attached to it. The word is derived from the French word noir which means black and neo in Greek means new. These are new black films. These were derived from the film noir genre which was very prevalent between 1940 and 1950. From then on there have been many films which adopted this genre. Neo-noir films are usually characterized by a conflicting antihero who is pressured to take extreme and immoral measures to come out of it. It has a nihilistic angle of seeing negative side of a system or practice which would be normally considered as good. Usually these movies use a shadow effects and are shot in low light.

Hitchcock’s Psycho is an excellent example of a neo noir film. In the modern times Tarantino’s movies like the Reservoir Dogs, Pulp fiction and Kill bill come under this category. Although not many Indian movies have adopted this to a great extent, there have been movies, like Being Cyrus and Aaranya Kaandam which have adopted this genre and have been successful as well.