Some films are things of beauty in their own right, but possessed with rotten DNA. I am referring to movies that are masterpieces in their own right, but horrible influences on the future. It's easy enough to compile a long list, but I am going to start with just two. Both are in black and white, they were released within three years of each other, they are both superb pictures, and they are both grandfather and godfather to a whole slew of ghastly spawn.
The first is Hitchcock's picture 'Psycho', which debuted in 1960. 'Psycho' is an undoubted masterpiece, an enthralling movie. The shock scenes, in the shower and on the staircase, as well as the revelation at the end, are so famous (aka notorious) that it is easy to forget that the picture is basically 'plotty'. The screen violence has the impact it does because the story starts life as an energetically told tale of a frustrated woman attempting to burst the confines of her life by an impulsive act of embezzlement. Her sudden death, totally unrelated to the major plot line, comes straight out of nowhere. The audience walks into the twist like a prizefighter leaning into a right hook. It is impossible to recapture that now, when the outlines of the plot are so well known, but the surprise was the reason it scared the initial audiences out of their wits in way back when. Add to that a career making (and ending) performance by Anthony Perkins, strong support from Martin Balsam and Janet Leigh (nominated for an Academy Award as a supporting actress), and you have quite a movie.
Which unfortunately became the inspiration for the 'slasher' movie, a million and two of which have been cluttering up theaters ever since. Hitchcock may have made 'Psycho' with a lot of art and droll wit. But the moral a ton of second raters drew is that quite an effect can be obtained simply with a little shrill music and someone jumping out of nowhere holding a big knife - never mind the intricacies of plot. I am not a film historian, just a random observer, so perhaps in error, and correct me if if so. But I don't believe the 'slasher' genre existed before the success of 'Psycho'. As good as that movie is, its prestige came at a considerable price. Too great a price? That's a question beyond the scope of this essay.
Three years later, in 1963, Frederico Fellini presented '8-1/2' to the world. It too is a masterpiece. The movie is as plotless as 'Psycho' is plotty, a discursive series of events and recollections of a film director trying to create an authentic picture. It was almost impossible to make coherent sense out of it from the subtitled dialog when it first came out (almost the only movie I know where viewing a dubbed version works better than the original). But I don't know anyone that wasn't completely dazzled by the picture. A superb performance by Mastroianni, a wonderful ensemble cast, a magnificent score by Nino Rota - but above all, the collage of events and recollections worked at some subliminal level. Energized by Fellini's autobiographical intensity, the mishmash of imagery somehow coalesced into a satisfying, coherent whole.
Which success establishes Fellini as a close-to-unique talent if not a genius (a word I like to avoid.) Unfortunately, it was also an open invitation to a lot of not-so-uniqe talents and anything-but-geniuses over the next two decades to put out all sorts of similar collages of arresting imagery that were internally vague and incoherent. The totally erroneous moral these auteurs drew from '8 1/2' was that consistency and clarity were dispensable qualities if the photography was arresting (and mystifying) enough. The result was a series of thoroughly wretched Fellini-esque imitations over the next two decades. The technique worked for Fellini (sometimes). But you have to possess a talent of Fellini's magnitude - which very few do - to make it work.
Both 'Psycho' and '8 1/2' are masterpieces. They are both very good movies. They were both very bad influences.
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