Documentary ’78/52′ Dissects Shower Scene In ‘Psycho’

One of American cinema’s most iconic scenes takes place in a shower. There’s a woman, Marion, in her room’s bathroom at the Bates Motel, and she is being stabbed to death.

This scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” fundamentally changed filmmaking. That’s the thesis from Alexander Philippe whose documentary “78/52” dissects every element of the murder.

“It was kind of like opening a Pandora’s Box. There were movies before ‘Psycho,’ and there were movies after ‘Psycho,’” said Philippe in an interview with City Lights host Lois Reitzes. “It had both a positive and negative impact on movies. The cultural landscape would be very different without it.”