Note. This article is neither a review of the movie “Hitchcock” nor of the movie “Psycho”.

Recently, I had the opportunity to watch the 2012 movie “Hitchcock”, which tells the story of the creation of the movie “Psycho”. Today it’s considered one of the masterpieces of the great director Alfred Hitchcock and in general among the best movies in the history of cinema but its production was difficult and can be a lesson.

In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock was already 60 years old and was at the height of his success after the theatrical release of “North by Northwest”, now considered among his best movies. Paramount executives wanted him to keep on directing that kind of thriller to exploit the fame he had accumulated over the years but he was looking for a more daring project.

Writer Robert Bloch was inspired by the true story of Ed Gein, a murderess with fetish tendencies, to write the novel “Psycho”. When Alfred Hitchcock read the book, he decided that he wanted to make a movie from it but soon realized that he was practically the only one to be convinced of that choice.

Even Alma Reville, Hitchcock’s wife, was far from convinced by the idea of making a movie based on “Psycho”. Her opinion was very important, also because in addition to their personal relationship the two of them also had a working one. Alma was a close collaborator of the great director in his work so her opinion was based on her professional experience.

Paramount didn’t want to finance the new Alfred Hitchcock’s project so the director decided to mortgage his villa to be able to finance it on his own. For this reason, the budget was limited and “Psycho” had to be shot in a manner more like a TV show than a movie, in black and white and using the staff of the TV shows “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”.

It was only thanks to his reputation that eventually Alfred Hitchcock was able to produce the movie and convince Paramount to at least distribute it. At the time, the movie was really bold for the level of violence, making the shower scene one of the most iconic in cinema’s history, but also for the sexual and deviant elements in the story.

Alfred Hitchcock’s reputation was at stake but he wanted to do something different and daring. He could have kept on making movies with elements of thriller and espionage contained in his previous successes. Instead he decided to face difficulties he hadn’t been used to for a long time to produce a movie based on a story that conquered his imagination.

In my opinion this is a great lesson that shows us that true greatness is seen in those who have the courage to follow a certain vision. Developing a controversial project can be really difficult but the result can be really special, much more than try to play it safe doing the same things over and over again.