Jeff Bernstein

SOME NOTES ON PSYCHO As a teenager Scroob watched, night by night, one of three films, over and over again, to the tune of many hundreds of times each, so that each film was complete in Scroob's head, shot by shot, and therewith the true work of evaluating story principles could begin. Rear Window. Vertigo. Psycho. Later in the same period, The Third Man, After Hours, and Kubrick. All these years later, Scroob is still watching. Art not only makes us what we are, Art can make us what we want to be. But as for the latter, we have to make it happen, we have to make Art work as it might; and everything, and Scroob means EVERYTHING, is against Art from working as it might, from bringing the Spectator to Revelation and Strength. But all is not lost for the faithful Reader. Cruel world. Hitchcock's cursory glance at Marion seems to convey a contempt : AH, SHE'S A NOBODY. Consider this bozo importuning Marion. First he says to her, thick with sexual innuendo, YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES I CAN KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT. But just seconds later Big Daddy announces that he withholds essential financial information from the IRS, thereby publically admitting his criminality. Marion is already caught red-handed (so to speak) before she even leaves the city, yet she persists on and on in her ill-considered charade of escape. She thinks she's being clever, but to everyone else she's being irrational. ¶ One should get smart as soon as possible. What utility is there in wising up too late? Marion dies so that the audience can wise up just in time. LONELINESS. Marion is so often alone. Not only alone, but hunted and haunted. SOUND DESIGN. Everyone speaks of Hitchcock's artful camera, but what of the magnificent sound design of Rear Window, which Scrooby considers a landmark of world cinema? Here, Marion mistakenly veers off onto a secondary road, heading to the doom and gloom of the Bates Motel, and the sound world, anticipating the worst, suddenly contrasts from loud and tense to spare and bleak and creepy. (cf. the audio of Dr Bill approaching Somerton.) CRINGEWORTHY. Norman Bates' lonely spiel, entirely superfluous. Might an amused audience have judged him, at this point, a "silly weakling"? Did some enterprising audience member even speculate, "Ha! She might lead him astray!" ¶ Art plays with the Spectator's confidence and thereby queries, "What is confidence? Why do you have it?" WRITING. How fascinating a study of insanity here. Note the significant number of times Norman Bates, even while attempting to be polite to his guest, contradicts or otherwise disagrees with Marion. Such awkwardness demonstrates social ineptitude, sure, but Norman's negativity reveals something more sinister : Insanity's fail-safe efforts to counter any agreement whatsoever, what Freud termed Resistance, a part of the perversity of mental illness on prominent show in this scene in Psycho. * Now comes an especially artful shot construction : What Scrooby has in mind here recalls the general geometry of : In Psycho, Marion, standing, looks down at Norman Bates, sitting. She takes her leave, and as she exits to the right the camera follows her out; then Norman rises up into the frame from behind (cf. Wacky Jack's one rise into the frame in The Shining). The geometry of the shot is unorthodox for Hollywood, but is in keeping with the ongoing destabilisation of Psycho. Norman invades the frame here, so to speak, invades Marion's personal space; he is active here, a predator, someone knowing and aggressive and dangerous, dominating the frame (that was Marion's). At this momentary eyeball move, what unutterable something is going on inside his head? (O fallax bonum, quantum malorum fronte quam blanda tegis! O false goodness, what evils are hidden behind your pleasant face!) ¶ The scene reveals that Norman knows very well that he is insane; and like a Howard Hughes figure he covers it up by hiding in a hotel. Day by day say the lonely insane, "Hear me, baby? Hold together."

D a r i a 5. DARIA. Lying beside you, I now see myself clearly, what I was; what I could have been. CRIS. I can’t believe my luck. Good Daria! I knew you were special even before you spoke. Together we will do good works. DARIA. I wish what you say were true, my husband. CRIS. What reason do you have to doubt my words? DARIA. It’s that I have no doubt of Roman law. CRIS. Why is that any of your concern now? DARIA. There’s something, good husband, I have not said. CRIS. Daria? DARIA. Ah, this city will kill us! CRIS. Daria! What? If I just stay quiet, if I don’t proclaim our word in the street— DARIA. That is not what I mean at all. CRIS. What then? DARIA. There’s nowhere anywhere your wife can hide. CRIS. What are you saying? DARIA. Do you know what I am? CRIS. I think I do; it’s too amazing to say. DARIA. Say it to me. CRIS. No, you say it to me. DARIA. Yes, I am a Vestal Virgin. It’s true. I impersonated a courtesan. I knew well the terrible punishment, —and yet “So what?” I said. My body said it. I thought up from my body and my head obeyed and I could not be stopped. But when I came here I decided I would not continue, but when I saw your face I fell in love. CRIS. Daria! My wife! DARIA. Crysauntus, my husband! Now I understand—the body leads us on; if we ignore it we die inside. CRIS. No one’s dying. DARIA. I think so. CRIS. We’ll run away. DARIA. I’ll not run; all they can do is kill me. SCROOBY. Pardon me, but that’s not exactly true. tbc [ Rose/light pink Photograph Olena Zubach Ukraine 2022 ]

JEFFERIES : Lisa . . . It's perfect. As always. "How do I look?" "Perfect. . . . You always look beautiful."

D a r i a 4. POLYME. It is three days and my boy’s still cosy with the ladies of the night. We have seen nor hide nor hair of him, nor any of them, so I trust my plan’s a successful one. We should celebrate, eh, my friend? SERVANT. How so? You don’t mean it, sir. POLYME. The door is opening! MOTHER. Dear me! Cryst is God! DAUGHTER. Cryst is God! CAMILLA. Ah God! POLYME. What is this they say? CAMILLA. Come to Cryst, good Sir, He is the one way to eternal life. POLYME. What? All of you, out of my sight at once! DAUGHTER. He will forgive you your sins. POLYME. Go away! FOURTH. I need to get my head together now. SERVANT. All honoured guests out of the house at once! POLYME. Heavens, what have I done? SERVANT. You’ve gained the church new converts, sir. POLYME. Heavens! The boy’s still in there! tbc [ botanical Eros Photograph Erika Matsunami Germany 2014 ]

THE SHORT PAN : to reinforce the principal. Exemplary use. Let us recall three others : Shanghai Express : LENS FLARE : A fine double feature with Shanghai Express is Rome Express (1932) :

D a r i a 3. CRIS. Thus I pray to you, mighty Jhesu Cryst. Ah, Cris, listen to the peace and quiet. This peace is priceless. I'm harmonious with the little things of life, and am happy. May my life be this quiet all the rest of my days. Hello? What mischief is this? Why is my window locked, and from outside? I go at once to learn what's what. Hello! Hey! I knock, but no one hears; no one comes. Ah, I hear the key, turning in the lock! CAMILLA. Hello, dearie. CRIS. Who are you? CAMILLA. Camilla. CRIS. Why do you come forward into my room? CAMILLA. I can't resist a well-built body, dearie. CRIS. Woman, your robe is open. You're naked! CAMILLA. Who's the lucky guy? The window's shut; let's you and I snuggle. CRIS. But no one comes into my room! CAMILLA. No? I'm not allowed here? You're looking at the most famous legs in Rome. CRIS. I would rather see them walk out of here! Now who are these who come into my room? MOTHER. Come in, my girl, come on, don't be scared. DAUGHTER. Eh. MOTHER. Play your cards right, you'll get all the dresses you want! DAUGHTER. Yes, mummy. MOTHER. So be a good girl and come in here now, and sleep with this man for money, okay? DAUGHTER. But that's what Daphne's daughter Lyra does. MOTHER. Yes. DAUGHTER. But she's a courtesan. MOTHER. What of it? Don't you see her in her pretty dresses and jewelry? How do you think she got it? DAUGHTER. How, mummy? MOTHER. By being with men, drinking with men, then sleeping with them for money. CRIS. Why are you two tarrying in my room? MOTHER. Hello, young man. My, what a well-built body. If only I were a few years younger . . . This is my daughter. She's very well-bred. Smile, darling. Wait till you hear her speak! She's a charming maiden. She eats with her fingertips. Nothing ill-bred about her. CRIS. Why is she crying? CAMILLA. They're all nervous the first time. MOTHER. She's had a bath. When you see how she plans to please you, you'll want no other. CAMILLA. He's with me! CRIS. I don't want any woman! MOTHER. But, my lord, have pity for the poor girl! Her father was a baker with a great name; when he was alive we wanted for nothing, but now he’s dead, and we are penniless. I've brought the girl up on my own and now I hope she'll see me to my golden years. CRIS. Never will I do such a thing! Who's this? CAMILLA. A child, really? See this jewelry on me? These are gifts from the satisfied. CRIS. There's no substitute for experience. CAMILLA. Do you feel my woman’s breasts on your chest? CRIS. Yes! Your necklaces are digging in me! MOTHER. Just watch them, my dear. CRIS. Now who comes in here? FOURTH. Hello all, is this where the party is? CRIS. There is no party here! Only prayer! FOURTH. Pardon me. Make room. Thank you very much. CRIS. What's that underneath your robe? FOURTH. I’m a man. CRIS. And who's this coming? CAMILLA. Another one! [ Daria, the fifth, enters ] CRIS. God be my strength! He is what I love! Now let us all lower ourselves to our knees— MOTHER. Come on, dearie, you heard the gentleman— CAMILLA. Ah! My knees are not what they used to be. CRIS. Lord God, we bow our heads and pray to you . . . tbc [ The Kiss Photograph Stefanie Schneider United States 2005 ]

Ingmar Bergman's The Silence (1963) may be equated to the experiencing of a nightmare. Like a dream, the elements of the narrative suggest "extra" meanings. But who can say when the storyteller intentionally invested his imagery with "extra" meaning, and when he didn't? The narrative intentionally makes a mockery of that question. An intrinsic element of the nightmare of The Silence is the derangement of communication itself. Derangement has a practical function : Art prompts the spectator to ask, How is Meaning Made? From such questions comes, eventually, with dogged effort, a change of life, fresh air and toward-humanness. One reason why The Silence (1963) matters : one wakes up from the nightmare and is better for it.

ELABORATE SCREEN KISS : Tallulah Bankhead & Robert Montgomery in Faithless (1932) Apart from the first image over this post's title, all of the following screen-images comprise one complex shot (5:54–6:32). This extended "torrid" love scene signals to the audience the shocking sexual matters to come;—the narrative explores the darknesses that some women had to enter to survive through the Great Depression. This Pre-Code film couldn't have been made after 1934. As she wakes him up ("Bill . . . Bill!") the camera tracks out and in the process resets its angle. Montgomery sits upright (extreme rectilinear). As the dialogue continues (MONTGOMERY : "Will you really marry me?"), the camera resets with a pan to the right, with both principals now central in the frame. In love. No cut, no fade out. Instead, the kiss ends, and the camera tracks in at an angle, curving around to reset the principals in intimate close-up and as extreme rectilinear. They laugh over their impending marriage, and end with a second kiss (a second kiss—pretty racy for its day), and fade out.

D a r i a 2. POLYME. So fortunate a man—and such failure! Have I not done my utmost for the boy? Look at him—and he makes me act the spy in my own home—lowered there on his knees in his room, praying to a who knows what! After my long life, do I deserve this? I am much prosperous in business, my family is loving and secure, my position in the city of Rome is firm, yet Cris, my eldest, is shameful! He threatens to bring scandal upon me, and ruin his parents, and the prospects of his sisters, and leave himself penniless. His martyr's church will be the death of us! This house has never seen such a havoc! SERVANT. What do you intend, my excellency? POLYME. I want five of the most sensual women in the city to be brought to me, the five most renowned courtesans on the river. SERVANT. Ah, you're going to console yourself, sir. POLYME. Not me, you idiot! Him! SERVANT. This sickness requires strong medicine. POLYME. Just one woman. Come closer and I will tell you my plan. tbc [ A fairy tale for the night Photograph Kateryna Kutsevol Germany 2019 ]

D A R I A I am Daria, a Vestal Virgin. I live here in the old city of Rome. I haven't any family, only Rome. When I was six years old I was lifted from my dear father's lap and taken here, this cold temple, where the flame of Rome burns, and we Vestals are meant to keep it lit. There are six of us here in the temple. This white robe I'm wearing is the Vestal's traditional garment, and these six braids winding around my head is the style common among us. We also wear a veil, when we're seen in public on holidays. Here—the eternal flame sacred to Rome, the fire my sisters and I are entrusted to maintain at all costs for the people. This hearth fire represents the spirit of the city. The flame is auspicious and must never go out. If the fire dies it's easily relit, but we're whipped for it. We have to be very careful in here; even slight suspicions lead to punishment. The other day a girl was stripped naked and beaten through a curtain with a stick. I'm not sure what she did to deserve it. Look, my robe is silk; isn't it pretty? It's fastened with these shoulder straps; Ovid's advice is that these narrow straps are best. Living in the temple as a Vestal is considered a very rare privilege. I was chosen for my beauty and speech. No blemishes on my body excluded me, and my power of speech was highly praised. All of us here are from respectable homes. Here in the temple I reached maturity; I'm sixteen years old by my reckoning; and as a Vestal Virgin I must keep my chastity for the next thirty years. I wonder what I should think about this. I live here, have my friends, I do my chores. Unlike other unmarried girls in Rome I make my own financial decisions —and I stand to inherit a great deal one day. But I am not allowed to marry. I will never have a husband beside me. I will have no hearth and home of my own. Gods in Heaven! Will you show me mercy? Is there no god at all who hears my voice? A Virgin was found guilty of incestum, the breaking of our law of chastity— do you want to hear what happened to her? A prison cell was dug under the ground outside the city walls, and a dirt mound was piled up over it. There were steps that led down to it. Inside was a chair, a burning lamp, a jug of water, milk, and oil. The Vestal Virgin was put in a cart that was covered so we heard no sound from her as she made her progress, and all the people stood speechless as she went past, and they followed her silently, looking sad, as on the gloomiest day; and the cart came to the place of the cell. The girl, wearing a veil, went down into it. Then the dirt was collapsed over the steps and the Vestal Virgin was buried alive. Why did she think it worth it, I wonder? tbc [ Eternal flame Photograph Sandra Roberts United States 2014 / Ghost Photograph Javiera Estrada United States 2019 ]

Leave, leave your work; come, readers, come, run into this cool shadow; I bring great news for rejoicing all over. Leave, leave your work; come, readers, come, run into this cool shadow. And one Daria, a noble and a wyse virgyne of the goddess Vesta, arayed herself nobly with clothes as she had ben a goddesse and prayd that she myght be given entree in to him, and that she myght restore hym . . . S O O N [ Darkness : he and I Painting Seongah Park South Korea 2021 / Colors circle Photograph Panos Pliassas Greece 2020 ]

sudden ATMOSPHERIC SHIFT : eg, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) : correspondent transition from open space to moonsand. Gangs of New York (2002) : infernal to icy. The Master (2012) : suddenly, the freedom of open space. The Shining (1980) : sudden snow. The following paragraph appears in the middle of the last chapter of The Sun Also Rises, and is a virtuoso sudden ATMOSPHERIC SHIFT. The novel has been a social one, but here, all of a sudden, appears an elaborate sequence with one character only, the narrator. The climax of the novel is not a character interaction but a solitary physical exertion. By virtue of the fact of its placement in the narrative, the sequence seems expressionistic, and resonant with "extra" meanings (ie the sequence is "symbolic"—eg, the boy and girl and their intimacy, and the narrator set apart from all that—eg, the narrator noticing the "dark" and the "dark shadow" and plunging into it—eg, the Catholic narrator anointing himself with "fresh water"). Hemingway's technique is visual : Bergman could have artfully placed this scene within a film. After lunch I went up to my room, read a while, and went to sleep. When I woke it was half past four. I found my swimming-suit, wrapped it with a comb in a towel, and went down-stairs and walked up the street to the Concha. The tide was about half-way out. The beach was smooth and firm, and the sand yellow. I went into a bathing-cabin, undressed, put on my suit, and walked across the smooth sand to the sea. The sand was warm under bare feet. There were quite a few people in the water and on the beach. Out beyond where the headlands of the Concha almost met to form the harbor there was a white line of breakers and the open sea. Although the tide was going out, there were a few slow rollers. They came in like undulations in the water, gathered weight of water, and then broke smoothly on the warm sand. I waded out. The water was cold. As a roller came I dove, swam out under water, and came to the surface with all the chill gone. I swam out to the raft, pulled myself up, and lay on the hot planks. A boy and girl were at the other end. The girl had undone the top strap of her bathing-suit and was browning her back. The boy lay face downward on the raft and talked to her. She laughed at things he said, and turned her brown back in the sun. I lay on the raft in the sun until I was dry. Then I tried several dives. I dove deep once, swimming down to the bottom. I swam with my eyes open and it was green and dark. The raft made a dark shadow. I came out of water beside the raft, pulled up, dove once more, holding it for length, and then swam ashore. I lay on the beach until I was dry, then went into the bathing-cabin, took off my suit, sloshed myself with fresh water, and rubbed dry.

On the living and the dead / 20 May 2025 Our responsibility to the dead— consider it, good reader : if we fail to live righteously so that the saviour returns, and with him the Resurrection, then the dead will never come back to life. If we have love for those gone before us, and love each other, we'll stop our pretence of life—and thereby our wasting of it— and feel at last the bond of the human, thereby saving ourselves, and our loved ones, and our world from planetary error, and every soul who has come before us. Fail to live, and more than life is lost.

"Why, my brothers and sisters, we should get down on our knees; we should beg our mercy. You're dead to the knowledge of yourself and your people . . . and to the knowledge of your God."

"Don't let go!" / Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

You who pass by, who live after us, do not harden your hearts against us; for if you pity us God may sooner have mercy on you. You see us hanging here, five or six of us. As for our flesh, which we have tended, now it is rotten and our bones reduced to powder. No one is laughing now. Pray to God that he may have mercy on us all. But not all people have good sense; may his grace not be lost to us. Intercede, then, Art; help us to recover. We are dead and no one can harm us, but pray to God that he may have mercy on us all. The rain has soaked us, the sun has baked us, birds have dug out our eyes and plucked at our eyebrows and beards. There is nothing to laugh at here. Pray to God that he may have mercy on us all. adapted from Villon, L'Epitaphe / Gloris Swanson in Stage Struck (1925) "Dear Director, is the shot over?" "You're really about the best friend I have, Jake." God help you, I thought. The Sun Also Rises

Hydriotaphia : or, Urn-Burial Sir Thomas Browne fourth edition London, 1736.

Agony in the Garden CRYST. Behold, my friends, who are so dear to me, so faithful, my body dreads; I tremble at what is to come. My enemies now will come near to me with all of their strength and destroy this flesh. But you are weary, weary with fear. Look you, lay yourself down and rest a bit. Please, my friends, be not sad at heart, but hold yourself here quietly, and wait for me awhile in this place. Be wise now and witted in your thinking, so that you stay wakeful always. PETER. Yes, O Lord, at your word we shall sit here, for you care for us, and speak for the best. JOHN. You are our help and healing; we shall not leave. JAMES. Which way has he wandered? To east or west? PETER. Let’s sit down. My limbs are as heavy as lead. JOHN. And I must lie down. I feel I must sleep. JAMES. And me. I can no longer hold up my head. CRYST. My flesh dreads and trembles at what’s to come. Father, O healer and builder of bliss, all our help and healing are in your hands. So that I do not go astray, give me strength! I shall now return to my disciples, my friends who have come to show me kindness. What? Are you asleep? Every one of you? Will you leave me so easily? and leave me alone in my sorrow and struggle? Whom may I move and tell my misery? I wish that you were awake and willing. Good Peter, do sit up now. Let me see; you are surely fallen in this struggle. Might you even for the space of an hour have stayed awake to sit mildly with me? What, my friends, are you all so fast asleep? My flesh is full of fear and would defend itself; and soon I must prepare for it. And when I am gone you shall forsake me, one and all, and say you never knew me. Judas, my friend, draw near me. The hour comes that shall prove everything I have said. Go now before us, Judas, show us the way. JUDAS. O my master, I ask you for a kiss, for I give you all my love. CRYST. Take this kiss, Judas. And with this kiss I am betrayed. SOLDIER 1. I am lost! I cannot see in the dark! CRYST. You there! Please, who is it that you look for? SOLDIER 2. We’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth. CRYST. See then, all of you. I am him you seek. SOLDIER 3. Stand, traitor! We come to bring you your death. PETER. What is this? I shall kill you, you bastard! CRYST. Peace, Peter. Neither meddle nor move yourself. Put up your sword. SOLDIER 1. Come, fellows! Let’s grab him! SOLDIER 2. I’ve got a strong hold on him. SOLDIER 3. So do I. CRYST. You throw me about like a common thief? SOLDIER 1. Go on, all of you! Go, I order you! See no more of this but quickly be gone! Adapted and modernised from York Mystery Play No. 28 by Scroob.

WITT. You ever get lonely? WELSH. Only around people. “Don’t you like it better when we’re alone?” “Yes,” I said. “I felt very lonely when they were all there.” "I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way that you can be most lonely." A Farewell to Arms (ch 20; 34)

A monumental 'glass half full' moment—for Nolan to bring to life. While the two men spoke to one another, a dog lying nearby raised its head, and pricked up its ears : this was Argos, Odysseus’ great-hearted dog, whom his owner had bred before leaving for Troy all those years ago, and so had taken no joy in him. In the old days he had run through the wilds, going off with the house servants on hunts for goats and deer and rabbits. These days, though, he was left alone, his master long gone, his fur matted by the filth of the farmyards and infested with fleas; for he sometimes followed the slaves when they went off to manure the fields. So there lay Argos, smelling of mule and cattle filth; and just now, coming aware of his old master Odysseus standing near, his eyes widened, and his tail began to wag. But he was no longer able to go to his master, for he’d lost the strength to walk. Odysseus, however, had seen the movement of his head, and looked : then he looked away, and wiped the tear that fell from his eye. . . . And Argos, now that he had seen Odysseus his master one more time, in the twentieth year, let black death take hold of him, and his spirit ran away. FRANK CAPRA. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries. ☞ If storyteller Nolan wrings tears from the audience here, he will have unequivocally graduated to the highest level of world storyteller.

LANA. You know what I think? I think we're both going to make it big! LANA. I'm very optimistic!

GORGEOUS LENSING : Halation in Our Betters (1933) CINEMATOGRAPHER : Charles Rosher, the first person to win an Oscar for Best Cinematography (1929). "It's wonderful how you've made your way in London." CONSTANCE BENNETT : "Shall I tell you how I've done it? By force of character, wit, unscrupulousness, and push."

Hemingway and EWS : humorous hanky-panky timeclock TAXI DRIVER : "How long you gonna be?" DR BILL : "I don't know, maybe an hour or more. But maybe only 10 minutes." RINALDI : "I only like two other things; one is bad for my work and the other is over in half an hour or fifteen minutes. Sometimes less.” NARRATOR : “Sometimes a good deal less.” RINALDI : “Perhaps I have improved, baby. You do not know. But there are only the two things and my work.” A Farewell to Arms, ch. 25

The Sisters (1938) : the KUBRICK SWITCH This editing conjunction brings to mind :

Fitzgerald opposing Austen The following character moment in Gatsby exemplifies the difference between Jane Austen's time and Fitzgerald's. In the former, as we just saw in an earlier post, a humanness, an ingenuous expression of the loss of a loved one, appeared on page one of Persuasion. In Gatsby, Mrs. Wilson also mentions the loss of a loved one : "My dear," she cried, "I'm going to give you this dress as soon as I'm through with it. I've got to get another one tomorrow. I'm going to make a list of all the things I've got to get. A massage and a wave and a collar for the dog and one of those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk bow for mother's grave that'll last all summer. I got to write down a list so I won't forget all the things I got to do." Mrs. Wilson mentions the death of her mother. Here, its idle integration in a continuum of blather reduces the force of the loss—here there is no EMOTIONAL REVERSAL—and exposes Mrs. Wilson as exemplarily inhuman.