Analyse the Techniques used by Hitchcock to Create and maintain Suspense in his film

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Analyse the Techniques used by Hitchcock

To Create and Maintain Suspense

In his film “Psycho”

This essay will look at how Alfred Hitchcock created and maintained suspense in his 1960 motion picture “Psycho”. The film Psycho was originally a book wrote by Robert Bloch, which was based on real life killings. Psycho was Hitchcock’s forty-seventh film. This shows that Hitchcock was already an experienced film director. Psycho was an immediate Box-office success, and obtained the slogan “The film you must see from the start”. This is because one of the main characters is killed early on in the film. Hitchcock’s directing carer started in 1922. By 1959 he was one of Hollywood’s best-known personalities. These factors contribute to the suspense and tension in Hitchcock’s film Psycho.

Irony whether verbal or visual plays an important role in the film Psycho, it also comes around quite frequently. One of the first examples of visual irony is when Marion is at work getting shown $40,000 by the client. After she has been given the money she is sitting under a picture of a swamp, and after she is killed she gets driven into a swamp, then sinks under it.

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Therefore this is a case of visual irony. Another case some people may class as visual irony is when Bates and Marion are in the bedroom and there is a vivid outline of Bates’ shadow. This could show that Bates has a split personality. Another thing that could show about Bates split personality is when Bates is standing under a tree that splits into two branches. A branch for each part of Bates personality.

The cases of verbal irony are as important as the cases of visual irony. They are more cases of verbal irony than that of ...

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