78/52

2017 "78 shots & 52 cuts that changed cinema forever"
7.3| 1h31m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 13 October 2017 Released
Producted By: ARTE
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/7852
Info

The most famous murder scene in movie history comprises 78 camera settings and 52 cuts: the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. 78/52 tells the story of the man behind the curtain and his greatest obsession.

Genre

Documentary

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78/52 (2017) is now streaming with subscription on AMC+

Director

Alexandre O. Philippe

Production Companies

ARTE

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78/52 Audience Reviews

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Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!
Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.
Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Prismark10 This documentary about the infamous shower scene in Psycho has a technical title. 78 camera setups and 52 cuts that took seven days to film.Contributors include Elijah Wood, Bret Easton Ellis, Peter Bogdanovich, David Thomson, Richard Stanley, Sam Raimi, Walter Murch, Eli Roth, Mick Garris, Guillermo del Toro and Jamie Curtis who talk about the shower scene and how it was put together. Bogdanovich also does his trademarked mimicry.There are important aspects discussed such as how to get round the censors. Shooting in black and white helped as you do not see any red blood. We even find out how influential the violence in Psycho was for other films. Italian filmmakers took it to a visceral horror art level. Martin Scorsese even mirrored it in Raging Bull.However at 90 minutes it does feel a bit overlong, there was a lot of waffle and Psycho has been examined to death already.
zkonedog Considering that "Psycho" has long been a "top movie of all-time" in my book, I knew I would be watching this documentary when I first saw the trailer. Considering how many times I've seen the movie and how many stories I've already heard from it, perhaps the most impressive thing I gleaned from "78/52" was how it was able to approach the topic from such a new, fresh perspective.Basically, this documentary looks at "Psycho" from the perspective of its now-infamous "shower scene". While other topics are discussed and other stories are told, the narrative always shifts back to the construction of that sequence, which was truly momentous both in its time and even today. It completely changed the game of American cinema forever.I really liked how this documentary was basically just a whole bunch of film geeks and/or industry insiders sitting around watching/talking about certain scenes. I mean, that's what it's all about, right? As movie fans, a large part of the fun of the experience is to discuss it with others after the fact, and that is the tone that "78/52" hits on. I felt like I was sitting around discussing the shower scene and everything that springs forth from it with family or friends.So, I highly recommend "78/52" to any fans of "Psycho", obviously, but also for those who just love to discuss movies! It's technical enough to be enlightening, but not technical enough to keep it from being a great discussion/history of certain aspects of the scene, "Psycho" as a whole, & Hitchcock (and Co.) in general.
Michael_Elliott 78/52 (2017) **** (out of 4)The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO lasted for less than a minute yet it took seven days to shoot. This wonderfully entertaining documentary takes a look at that minute worth of footage and breaks everything down from the score, to the edits, to the violence and certain things throughout the movie that foreshadows it.78/52 is a highly entertaining documentary that fans of PSYCHO are going to really enjoy. A lot of documentaries (like the one on THE SHINING) are a bit far-fetched in their ideas but that's not the case here as everyone interviewed is basically a fan and we break the sequence down in so many ways that you'll be seeing things for the first time. I've seen this movie countless times in my life and yet I learned a few new things here.The people interviewed include: Peter Bogdanovich, Jamie Lee Curtis, Guillermo del Toro, Alan Barnette, Justin Benson, Danny Elfman, Bret Easton Ellis, Jeffrey Ford, Mick Garris, Neil Marshall, Bob Murawski, Elijah Wood and Richard Stanley. We also get archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock, Janet Leigh and Joseph Stefano. Also interviewed is Marli Renfro who was Leigh's body double during the shower sequence.The documentary does a really great job at showing how marvelous the sequence was. We get to watch it slowed down as well as getting comments on various edits, why the edits were done and countless other stories. This documentary covers a lot of ground in its running time and there's really not a weak moment to be found. If you're a fan of PSYCHO then I'm sure you've seen other documentaries on the sequence but this one here takes it to a new level. Of course, one of the biggest highlights is having Renfro discuss how she got the part, what Hitchcock was like and how the shooting of the scene went. She was certainly a major player in this sequence so it was great getting to hear from her and get her stories.
Will Jeffery A 91-minute analysis of the famous shower scene from Hitchcock's 'Psycho' and how it changed the course of cinema. The first of its kind, a feature length documentary on one scene. The film gets its name '78/52' from 52 shots in a 78 second sequence. It's very entertaining and incredibly rich with goodies you never considered went into the making of the famous scene. I loved the archival Hitchcock commentary they recovered. Though, as I personally feel the movie horror scene has drastically changed (you can decide for the better or for worse), to have young horror film makers (of some damn awful films) and irrelevant actors interviewed to share their thoughts in quite enthusiastic ways suggests that Hitchcock's achievement is less pioneering than the film makes it seem. That aside, I'm surprised they pulled it off, you can tell the director (who is obviously a massive Hitchcock nerd) adores the content and it really shows.