Overview

It was made like a television movie, and completed in less than three months. It killed off its star in forty minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to date in American film, punctuated by shrieking strings that seared the national consciousness. Nothing like Psycho had existed before; the movie industryeven America itselfwould never be the same. In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situates Psycho in Alfred Hitchcocks career, recreating the mood and time when the seminal film erupted onto film screens worldwide. Thomson shows that Psycho was not just a sensation in film: it altered the very nature of our desires. Sex, violence, and horror took on new life. Psycho, all of a sudden, represented all America wanted from a filmand, as Thomson brilliantly demonstrates, still does.

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9780465003396

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Reviews

BookPage [A]uthoritative.... Thomson's detailed and insightful primer is the perfect book for Hitchcock aficionados and general film fans alike. The Weekly Standard Psycho 's impact on the movies is undeniable, a key moment in Hitchcock's oeuvre that has had as lasting an impact as anything the great auteur ever directed. David Thomson's rereading of Psycho a half-century after its release shows us just how far we've come. And in some ways, how far we've fallen. Booklist Thomson offers a close reading [of Psycho] distinguished by insight and illumination, particularly about the problematic second half. Film Comment [I]lluminating.... [T]he book's pleasures arise from reverent insights into the film's labyrinth of detail and moral math.... [T]he note Thomson closes on resonates beautifully, conveying a keen understanding of the things great movies hold for us, either in their historical moment, or some 50 years later. Buffalo News [A] virtuoso piece of movie criticism.... [A] truly great piece of film criticism by our finest living film critic.... It tells the story of 'Psycho'...in such an original and brilliant way that you're almost hearing about a film you've either never seen before or only dimly and inadequately remembered. SF Weekly [A] slender, clever volume, with its deceptive breeziness, its confident scarcity of photographs, its sportive blood-red endpaper, and a general sense that Hitchcock's most famous movie should be an ideal subject for the tirelessly observant local cinema essayist to write about. The Week Thomson captures the film's milieu in such a 'brilliant way' that you'll feel as if you're seeing it for the first time. Kansas City Star Just in time to please the picky movie buff on your shopping list: David Thomson's The Moment of Psycho. I love this book.... Thomson is one of our best writers about cinema, combining intellectu

Buffalo News [A] virtuoso piece of movie criticism.... [A] truly great piece of film criticism by our finest living film critic.... It tells the story of 'Psycho'...in such an original and brilliant way that you're almost hearing about a film you've either never seen before or only dimly and inadequately remembered. SF Weekly [A] slender, clever volume, with its deceptive breeziness, its confident scarcity of photographs, its sportive blood-red endpaper, and a general sense that Hitchcock's most famous movie should be an ideal subject for the tirelessly observant local cinema essayist to write about. The Week Thomson captures the film's milieu in such a 'brilliant way' that you'll feel as if you're seeing it for the first time. Kansas City Star Just in time to please the picky movie buff on your shopping list: David Thomson's The Moment of Psycho. I love this book.... Thomson is one of our best writers about cinema, combining intellectual rigor with snappy, entertaining prose. No film-professor stuffiness here.

BookPage <br> [A]uthoritative.... Thomson's detailed and insightful primer is the perfect book for Hitchcock aficionados and general film fans alike. <br> The Weekly Standard <br> Psycho 's impact on the movies is undeniable, a key moment in Hitchcock's oeuvre that has had as lasting an impact as anything the great auteur ever directed. David Thomson's rereading of Psycho a half-century after its release shows us just how far we've come. And in some ways, how far we've fallen. <br> Booklist <br> Thomson offers a close reading [of Psycho] distinguished by insight and illumination, particularly about the problematic second half. <br> Film Comment <br> [I]lluminating.... [T]he book's pleasures arise from reverent insights into the film's labyrinth of detail and moral math.... [T]he note Thomson closes on resonates beautifully, conveying a keen understanding of the things great movies hold for us, either in their historical moment, or some 50 years later. <br> Buffalo News <br> [A] virtuoso piece of movie criticism.... [A] truly great piece of film criticism by our finest living film critic.... It tells the story of 'Psycho'...in such an original and brilliant way that you're almost hearing about a film you've either never seen before or only dimly and inadequately remembered. <br> SF Weekly <br> [A] slender, clever volume, with its deceptive breeziness, its confident scarcity of photographs, its sportive blood-red endpaper, and a general sense that Hitchcock's most famous movie should be an ideal subject for the tirelessly observant local cinema essayist to write about. <br> The Week <br> Thomson captures the film's milieu in such a 'brilliant way' that you'll feel as if you're seeing it for the first time. <br> Kansas City Star <br> Just in time to please the picky movie buff on your shopping list: David Thomson's The Moment of Psycho. I love this book.... Thomson is one of our best writers about cinema, combining intellectu

Author Information

"English-American writer David Thomson is the author of many books on film, including ""Have You Seen...?"" A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, which the New York Times called, ""passionate, illuminating, rich, and eccentric""; and the massively influential Biographical Dictionary of Film called ""the best book on the movies ever written in English"" (The New Republic). He lives in San Francisco with his family."

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