Psycho and Gladiator

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Zeta Blakeley                                            

How is death and gender represented in Psycho Alfred Hitchcock and Gladiator by Ridley Scott?

  Films are a masterful blend of artistic perfection and superb casual viewing. Like a painting is made up of colours, shapes and many brush strokes, a film is made up of camera angles, camera shots, and sound. Both existing within a context and a culture. Psycho and Gladiator are based in two different time periods with different perceptions of death and gender. Psycho, which was released in 1960 and set in, what was then modern time, a horror movie taken from the novel by Robert Bloch was influenced by life in 1960, viewers wanted to see something realistic and similar to how the viewers lived to have a better effect on scaring them. Gladiator, released in 2000, a roman epic set in 180ad was influenced by life in 180ad, as well as what viewers wanted to see in 2000, they wanted to be taken into another world, or see what life was like before them whilst being entertained by a gripping story line. Plus to set a film in the past, it needs to be accurate so it’s believable. Ridley Scott had the upper hand in creating realism in his film, he had had better technology and although he had restrictions he had more freedom from censorship than Hitchcock. Hitchcock faced many restrictions due to Marian’s lack of clothing and the fact he didn’t have the equipment Scott used, yet produced an iconic film that has influenced many other films since.

  The two films were aimed at completely different audiences. Psycho was aimed a wide audience as it was the first film of its kind. An audience that wasn’t expectant of what was going to happen. Whereas Gladiator was aiming for a more modern audience with higher expectation of film. The audience was expecting a lot more than what a 1960’s audience would expect, leaving Scott under a lot more pressure than Hitchcock was.

  Both films illustrated the use of cinematography perfectly, showing each action, or facial expression. Hitchcock, with lack of equipment, had to choose what angles and shots to use very carefully for his film to be effective on scaring his audience. Which he did by using a wide range of different shots and linking them together through shapes. In this shower scene he links each shot through circles and water. Starting with the showerhead, a low angle medium close-up shot where we can see what Marian is focused on and we can see where the water starts, fresh and clean. Leading into the shot of her mouth, an eyelevel extreme close up, where we are focused on her scream, which Hitchcock has used to manipulate the audience to scream as well, and although she is in the shower being murdered she still has flawless lipstick to show her femininity to keep the audience on her side. We are not her anymore, we are just watching, not able to help. This shot is then linked to the next ‘circle’ shot of the plug hole, a bird’s eye close up shot where we see the bloody water and her life going down the drain, to darkness, symbolising death as empty, dark, and lonely. This shot also shows the water finishing its journey after being the only witness of Marian’s murder. The shot then leads onto the final shot, eye level extreme close-up of her eye, which has seen everything in this little shape story, seen the shower, seen her killer, seen the knife, and seen her life drain away and now her eye is just like the plug hole, empty.

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 In comparison to Psycho, Gladiator is completely opposite. There is no story of shapes, but there are many more shots. During the establishing shot the camera pans over the colloseum showing the size of the colloseum and the size of the crowd, it also emphasises the phallic statues that convey the overt masculinity of the environment. This is in contrast to the establishing shot of Psycho, where the camera pans over a small motel room showing that Marian is alone rather than surrounded by thousands of people, plus Marian wearing a thin silk robe showing all her feminine features. The ...

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