Harvey Greenberg wrote:

> Re this string, please be advised that my piece on Hitchcock from MOVIES ON
> YOUR MIND, has been reprinted in my SCREEN MEMORIES: HOLLYWOOD CINEMA ON THE
> PSYCHOANALYTIC COUCH  COlumbia univ press 1993. Piece is entitled: PSYCHO:
> THE APES AT THE WINDOWS. HR Greenberg MD

I read Harvey Greenberg's piece on PSYCHO when it first came out, and remembered
it not unfavourably.  (The only passage I actually pencilled, though, was the
claim that Lila's exploration of the Bates house has 'the authentic ambience of
the dream'.)  I was going to write and praise it here, but thought I had better
look at it again first.  Now I find that its condemnatory tone (we're 'dragged
through the mire of Hitchcock's contempt') hasn't worn well.  This is not the
Hitchcock that those who have studied his art and career in their entirety would
emphasise.  This highly cultured man, who astonished John Houseman by his
amazing dedication and attention to every aspect of his art, such that Houseman
(an associate of Orson Welles) had scarecely ever encountered in the American
theatre, cannot be diminished or belittled in the way that Dr Greenberg, writing
in 1975, has attempted to do.  For a more up-to-date assessment of Hitchcock, I
would recommend Bill Krohn's superb book 'Hitchcock at Work' (London: Phaidon,
2000) and Krohn's article, "Le musée secret de monsieur Hitchcock" (on
Hitchcock's personal art and book collection) in 'Cahiers du Cinéma',
July-August 2001: 66-71.  By all means, read Dr Greenberg's piece as well, and
see what you make of the different evaluations by the two authors.  Here, I have
merely given my personal  response to Dr Greenberg's SCREEN-L post.

- Ken Mogg (Ed., 'The MacGuffin').
Website: http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin

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