The shots as Bernard Herrmann scored them. |
The Shots with Herrmann's score extracted. |
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| We descend in eight notes until we cross the threshold of the window. From there the notes retrace their descent, ascending in the same eight stages. The day is 12/11/59 (December 11), a date of twos and ones. The city is Phoenix, namesake of the bird that rises from the dead. In eighteen seconds, composer Bernard Herrmann conveys with strings the reversal theme of the movie—sinner and saint meet as one in a looking glass. | Unscored, the pair of shots Hitchcock uses to enter the bedroom seem clumsily matched—they jump cut. So the "entering the mirror" theme vanishes. The camera intrudes and drives out the magic. |
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November 1, 1959. Bird's eye view of the Phoenix State Fair |
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