In what ways is "Psycho" (Alfred Hitchcock) a film for the modern audience? Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 "Psycho is one of the most successful films ever made, even to this very day

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Sofia DaCosta        English Coursework        10x1

In what ways is “Psycho” (Alfred Hitchcock)

a film for the modern audience?

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 “Psycho is one of the most successful films ever made, even to this very day. Part of its success is due to the fact that it was one of the first films shown on screen that did not follow the ordinary and almost bland sequence that so many films used to portray. It was made to completely terrify and hold the audience firmly in their seats, as well as to capture people all over the world with its remarkably thrilling music, making hearts beat faster every second. The film even managed to effect people in such drastic ways that they actually suffered from heart attacks in the process of watching this compelling masterpiece. There is no denying the effect that Alfred Hitchcock was probing for. This effect might just have been the cause of the different direction that films took immediately after, which is not surprising when the film is considered as the “Mother of modern suspense films”.

However, the effect that the film had on the 1960s audience is very different to that of the audience of the “soap opera” generation. The 21st century audience are, in fact, not likely to react at all as we are all so used to seeing such depressing, controversial and sickening things in this day and age. It is also a film that does not really catch our attention mainly because it is in black and white, meaning that we don’t really take it seriously. The lack of special effects is also something that almost makes the blasé audience of now cringe, as we are all so used to such realistic responses. However, for the 1960s audience the effects of the film would have petrified them and completely rooted them to their seats, so much so that they wouldn’t have noticed certain badly edited scenes, like that of which when Norman’s “mother” kills the detective.

There are also many different aspects between a modern film and one of the 1960s. In a modern film you are almost always going to expect sex scenes and crudeness. These scenes are also likely to be a lot more explicit than the scene where Norman Bates spies on Marion undressing. This is because the modern audience grew up with such things on their television, so much so that we are almost immunised by such controversy. In the 1960s, people were a lot more reserved than the people are now and it was a time when stereotypes were actually followed to some extent. Sex before marriage used to be a very controversial topic, so the audience would most likely gasped in repugnance if they saw some of the material circulating in our world today.

Now-a-days, horror is a lot more suspenseful and thrilling when compared to the likes of “Psycho”, mainly because directors have to actually work a lot harder just to receive a slight jump from a crowd. Modern directors also have the tendency of concentrating a lot more on violence and action scenes by using special effects to distort and manipulate the imagery, whilst other directors take a completely opposite route. Many modern films obtain credit just because their scenery was “pretty” and the special effects were “amazing to watch”, but none on the actual plot. This is exactly why films today are not necessarily better than those in the 1960s. They just have more effect. At least in 1960s what you saw was actually what you got.

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However, many things are still the same. Genres, for example, are still very much as they use to be in the 1960s. However, the genres then sometimes were not as obvious as they are now, meaning that they were a little more restricted on the content and material that they dared use.

The content in “Psycho” would have shocked the audiences of the ‘60s, because they were all so unused to seeing such reality on screen. The reality of schizophrenia would have shocked, but it might have also fascinated the audience of the time, whilst the subject of ...

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