Describe Hitchcock's techniques and themes in his classic film, "Psycho"

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Describe Hitchcock’s techniques and themes in his classic film, “Psycho”

Sir Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was a British film director. Having established his reputation in Britain in the 1930’s with films such as The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), he moved to Hollywood where his first film was Rebecca (1940). Outstanding among his numerous later works are the thrillers Strangers on a Train (1951), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963).  

Though considered tame by today’s standards, Psycho has done more to advance the horror genre than any other film of its time. Despite its low budget of £800,000, which was cheap even by 1960 standards, no other Hitchcock film had greater impact.  

The main themes that Psycho is based around are guilt, voyeurism, madness, paranoia and duality in people, parental influences, sexual desires and murder.

Hitchcock invokes the guilt of the audience by making us see things we think we should not be watching, such as Marion in the shower, Marion in her underwear in the scenes where she is changing her clothes and she has just had sex with her boyfriend, Sam. In films in the 1960’s, shower scenes or any other nudity was very risky. In the first scene, lots of flesh is shown as we see Janet Leigh in her bra. Bras were not shown in films before Psycho, as they were considered to be exposing too much.  It was shocking for the audience, because areas such as the bathroom and the bedroom were thought of as private areas, not to be seen in films. However, this scene links to our own sexual desires, as the nudity of Janet Leigh in the shower scene provided a form of titillation for the audience, especially as she appeared to be enjoying herself so much. The audience is punished for the watching the shower scene, by seeing Marion’s ruthless death.

The beginning of the first scene is an establishing shot of the Phoenix skyline. The camera pans across the skyline, searching and scouring its subject like an eye, relating to the notion of watching or following someone. The camera goes past the window of Sam and Marion’s hotel room before returning back to it, similar to the movement of Norman’s hand as he chooses a room key for Marion. The camera focuses on the window and goes in under the blinds, suggesting that we are going to see something private and seedy, because the blinds are closed even though it’s the middle of the afternoon.

The theme of voyeurism is portrayed further by the highway policeman that follows Marion, Norman that watches Marion through his peephole in the wall and the lecherous real estate customer Cassidy that stares at Marion in the office. All of these scenes set up Marion as the victim. In the scene where Marion is invited to have dinner with Norman, he asks her to come into “the parlour”. The use of the word “parlour” – as in “come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly”, establishes the route that Marion will inevitably take as the victim. The significance of this brief line becomes all the more apparent at the end of the film when Mother, who has now consumed Norman’s mind and soul, looks directly at the camera and says that she “would not even hurt a fly”. This perhaps impels the audience to question whether the real victim of the film is Marion or Norman, because Norman is the victim of Mother, who has completely taken over his mind and body by the end of the film.  

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An example of how the guilt of the audience is evoked is the last scene where Marion’s car is being pulled out of the swamp, by a chain wrench. It recalls Marion’s dying gesture as her hand reached out towards us for help after being stabbed in the shower. Here, the chain stretches directly towards the audience, so it is a point of view shot, from the viewpoint of whoever is operating the wrench. It is as if we are reaching into the screen to pull the car out. But we are, of course, too late.

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