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Durgnat — A Long Hard Look at Psycho (2002)

A shot-by-shot, scene-by-scene reading of the whole film. The model for what a maximal close reading looks like.

  • book
  • close-reading
  • hitchcock

Raymond Durgnat, A Long Hard Look at Psycho (BFI Publishing, 2002; reissued in the BFI Silver series). A whole book that simply walks the film from first shot to last. Publisher page ↗

Good for

Demonstrating method. Durgnat treats every scene — not just the famous ones — as worth the full apparatus, which is why this wiki leans on him for Psycho — the parlour scene and for tracking the narration transfer in Point of view and Killing the protagonist at minute 47. Also the best corrective to shower-scene tunnel vision.

Handle with care

Digressive by design; he entertains readings rather than settling them. Quote him as "a reading", not "the reading".