![]() His previous album, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, was comprised mostly (7/10) of ‘socially conscious’ songs. He was the poet laureate of the protest movement, voice of the burgeoning subculture fighting for civil rights and against the Vietnam war. In February, 1964, Dylan was a phenomenon that neither the suits nor the audience quite knew what to make of. It’s one of my favorite books in the whole world. The quotes from Hitch, by the way, are from the book “Hitchcock” by Francois Truffaut, a series of interviews by one great critic/director with The Master, covering his entire oeuvre. To the end of her life, Janet Leigh took only baths. The violins, the blood going down the drain. (AH: “The killing is pretty much like a rape.”) The scene is absolutely unexpected, horrifyingly graphic without penetration (of the knife). Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is an awkward, likeable young man. Female leads don’t get killed a third of the way into the movie. ![]() We think we’re watching a story about whether Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) will get away with her theft or not. It is so memorable because it’s shocking in so many ways. No one who has seen the movie can take a shower in a hotel room without trying to not think about it. You might say I was playing them, like an organ.”)Īnd of course, the shower scene. Martin Balsam climbing the stairs (I’m guessing this scene is the origin of what has become a cliché.) Our rooting for the car with the detective’s body to sink all the way into the swamp. The graphically half-dressed Janet Leigh cavorting with her boyfriend, shocking for 1960 moviegoers (AH: “I wanted to give a visual impression of despair and solitude in that scene.”). Many of its scenes, setups, even frames, have become indelible in our collective minds. ![]() It was the most profitable black-and-white sound film ever made, and the most profitable in the career of Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). “ Psycho” is too often misremembered today as an ‘old horror movie’, whereas in fact it is a most profound work of art expressing our deepest fears and anxieties, the same seam mined by Franz Kafka. It usually includes the beast of two backs, dénouement, and a hurried getaway accompanied by a lot of shouting and a shotgun. Later that night…, and then comes the specific Farmer’s Daughter Joke. The farmer agrees to house him, on the condition that he not go near his luscious, innocent daughter. He knocks at the nearest farmhouse asking for shelter. The farmer’s daughter is a stock character in a template of dirty jokes in which the salesman’s car breaks down on a country road (on a rainy night, obviously). The Traveling Salesman and the Farmer’s Daughter Have you ever thought about what happens when a brilliant, brash, young overthetop songwriter amalgamates a corny old dirty joke with the cinematic masterpiece of our deepest insecurities? Have you heard the one about the traveling salesman and the farmer’s daughter? It will stay with you for as long as you live. If not, do yourself a giant favor-stop reading, and go watch the movie. Spoiler alert! This post assumes that you’ve seen “Psycho” and remember the plot. But while you’re waiting in line to purchase it, here’s a reminder of what the Nobel Laureate was doing in his glory days. Today Bob Dylan is releasing “Rough and Rowdy Ways”, his first album of original material in umpteen years.
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