Psycho - The Roger Ebert Cut v2

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psychoebert_front
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
1960
Original Running Time:
109
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
104
Time Cut:
5
Subtitles Available?
Available in HD?
Brief Synopsis:
A fresh attempt to implement Roger Ebert's suggestion for the climax of Psycho by cutting down five minutes of anticlimactic psychiatric exposition that would already be obvious to modern viewers. A new, more seamless edit than the one apparently used by Stomachworm in their original version of this edit.
Intention:
I couldn't locate Stomachworm's edit from several years ago so I decided to make my own version. (Plus, from the description in the review of the Stomachworm edit, there was a fade transition used which bypassed more than just the psychiatrist's monologue, so I wanted to hew closer to Ebert's suggestion.)
Special Thanks:
Thanks to DigModification for help above-and-beyond.
Release Information:
Digital
Editing Details:
Changes Cut from the survivors' reaction after the line "maybe for all time" directly to the psychiatrist lighting a cigarette and a police officer entering the room to ask if he can give Norman Bates a blanket, bypassing the several minutes of talk about split personalities that was, according to scholarship on the film, used to allay censors' concerns and contemporary audiences' confusion about psychatric disorders.
DigModification's tips on the proper use of "room noise" and the correct beat for a reaction shot made the edit much smoother than my initial attempt.
Cuts and Additions:
Five minutes of (more or less) monologue removed.

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No treatise on Psycho the film itself, which has been written about to death.

This is a long-needed edit. I remember reading Roger’s review and wholeheartedly agreeing with him on the edit idea.

Even as an impressionable lad of 13, and being shocked to the socks by Psycho, I could tell the psychiatrist’s exposition for the characters (no, for us, the audience “dimwits”) was unnecessary. Let the weirdness of the mystery be, and allow it to seep into your consciousness (as it did anyway!)

This edit makes the simple move towards a long needed correction of a classic undermined by its own “tell, don’t show” moment. Without the ramble, it’s “show don’t tell” cinema at its finest.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
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