Everybody knows that Alfred Hitchcock was a smart guy. Far and away from being able to construct a cracker of a thriller, the director was always careful to play with more high-minded concepts in his movies; the amount of psychonalaysis applied to his work lead to him working with surrealist artist Salvador Dali on Spellbound, which had Freudian imagery up the wazoo. You probably appreciate Psycho for essentially defining the slasher movie genre, too, and know there's something cool going on in the shower scene where Anthony Perkins' cross-dressing murder brings Janet Leigh to an untimely demise. It's pretty much about the music and the quick cuts. The real genius of that shower scene, though, is its use of the Kuleshov Effect. A concept coined by Soviet film editor Lev Kuleshov during the twenties, it's all about how judicious combination of sound, picture and editing can evoke images and emotions that aren't actually there on the screen. Like how you think Leigh has been brutally murdered, despite all of three frames showing a knife near her bare flesh.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
