Hitchcock’s ingenuity did not stop at his ability to get round the censors but he was also a master at creating suspense, horror and making his films unpredictable. Often to create suspense Hitchcock will use none diagetic sounds (sounds which are unflowing or out of tune) which will making the audience feel uneasy, especially uneasy for the character that the camera is facing (if there is only one). Hitchcock would often throw in red herrings into his films to make the audience feel at ease before something terribly awful happens therefore magnifying the feeling of horror through the feeling of surprise. Hitchcock may also throw in plot twists commonly known, as ‘red herrings’ into the film just to make sure that the film was unpredictable and constantly entertaining. In fact Hitchcock is so good at this that he does it through writing at the very start of the film. As the camera comes into the room where Marion and her boyfriend are embracing semi-naked on the bed writing comes up on the screen in block capitals
This format is not one that is associated to the horror genre but more to the detective thriller type genre. This sort of writing is seen in programmes such as the X-Files and Police programmes. Immediately this throws the audience off track and then when Marion steals $40,000 dollars from her workplace runs away with the money and is being followed by a policeman who is clearly highly suspicious of her the audience is utterly convinced that the film could be nothing other than a detective thriller with Janet Leigh (the star actor of her time) as the main actor in the film. In fact the audience is thrown off the track so badly that they start wondering why the film is called Psycho. However this is just a trick thrown in by Alfred Hitchcock to make the death of what is thought to be the main actor in the film one third of the way through at a seemingly pleasant motel all the more shocking. The other thing to look out for in Hitchcock’s films are the use of ironic lines that seem meaningless at the time but when put together at the end of at the end of the seem to fit together into a little riddle to reveal the storyline e.g. You ought to pull into a motel somewhere you know just to be safe.
The first instance when Hitchcock makes the audience feel really uneasy is when Marion is driving out of town with $40000 and her employer spots her after Marion told her boss that ‘she was not feeling to good and she was going home to lie down’. What is particularly worrying for the audience is that her boss is with the man that the money has been lent from. When her boss looks Marion straight in the eye and we have a view from Marion’s eyes the audience immediately jumps to Marion’s side and thinks ‘Oh no Marion is going to get caught’ (although Marion is the one that is committing the crime and therefore we should really want her to get caught if anything) as the music gets loader and her boss has been looking at her for longer and has clearly recognised her the tension and tension builds up and we get more and more nervous for Marion’s plight unaware that later in the film we will be on the side of her killer to get away with her murder.
The other purpose that this scene fulfils is to throw the audience off the trail of a slasher movie by manipulating the audience into thinking that the film is all about the $40,000 that Marion has stolen. Hitchcock does this by showing that her employer is suspicious of her and thinks that she may have the money. Hitchcock also follows up this ‘red herring’ by having a policeman follow her who is also clearly highly suspicious of the women. Hitchcock makes us feel particularly nervous in this scene (especially whilst she is actually buying the car) even though this is only a red herring Hitchcock clearly wants to hide this fact by making it seem, as it is particularly important to the plot of the film. Hitchcock makes us feel nervous for Marion in the car salesmen scene by constantly flashing back at the policeman’s face to see what he is doing and whether he is going to do anything to Marion or not. Marion also is showing signs of nervousness herself and by asking the salesman if she can find a lady’s room when she is supposed to be in a hurry she attracts a large degree of unnecessary attention to herself.
The next important scene that we meet in the film is the parlour scene. The interesting part in this scene is not the way that Hitchcock builds up tension or horror but the use of ironic lines and the irony in the scene. To start with Norman seems like a very friendly guy but during this scene we find out how protective ‘mother is of him’ and also how protective he is of ‘mother’. We find this out after ‘mother’ has a row with Norman in the house, which does (undoubtedly not by coincidence) look rather more suspicious than the Motel itself. Norman also protects Mother after a hint by Marion that perhaps ‘mother ’should be sent to a mental institution. He defends her by saying arguably the most ironic line in the film, ’It’s not as if mother were a maniac a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t You? Norman also suggests that ‘mother’ is completely harmless. The fact that Norman is readily discussing mother and has had a conversation with her (albeit out of sight) means that we are not at all expecting for Norman to be ‘mother’. Neither is we expecting mother to go and kill anyone because she is supposedly harmless. The mise en scene of this particular scene is very interesting there are two birds of prey there (the owl and the crow) which both represent death. The birds are also stuffed to keep them new, the same as he has done to his mother. This is one of the most meaningful and ironic mise scenes that is seen through the whole film. The position of the birds is also particularly interesting they are towering over Marion suggesting perhaps that death is going to come to her soon, although at the time we do not notice this or think it through enough to guess that she is going to get killed.
The most time consuming horrific and to some the most important scene in the film is to follow. After a slow down in tempo of the film the audience is feeling pretty relaxed, after the voyeuristic shot of Norman peeping through a hole in the wall (voyeurism being something that Hitchcock seems to be particularly obsessed with, and being used to perhaps suggest that he may be doing something that has been shown in the second film under more lax censorship rules), the audience will be utterly shocked. The part of the film that is most shocking and horrific scene in the film (and some would say in any film) is to come.
Hitchcock has slowed down the tempo of the film purposefully, so that the audience will feel more shocked at the sudden death of Marion. Diagetic and rhythmic music is used whilst the audience pleasantly views one of the biggest stars of the day in the shower. As she is one of the biggest stars of her day and also advertised as the star/main actor in the film the audience is fooled into thinking that one third of the way through a ‘detective thriller’ she is highly unlikely to be killed. However Hitchcock had put this in to add extra surprise to her gruesome death.
When ‘mother’ enters the room we see just her shadow creep up but the purposefully dim lighting and the use of the shower curtain to obscure the few hide the large figure of a man and seem to make the killer look smaller. Our instant reaction is Marion turn round, which just goes to show that we have already sided with Marion (so in this scene we are feeling an attachment to Marion). As ‘mother’ gets closer to Marion the sounds that have now turned to non-diagetic sounds gradually get louder building up tension inside us. When mother finally gets to the shower it takes 45 seconds to kill Marion which on camera took 8 days to film due to Hitchcock’s want for perfection. The scene was particularly difficult to film because at the time no nudity was allowed nor would a knife touching human flesh be allowed. Hitchcock however got round this by clever editing therefore outmanoeuvring the Motion Picture Association. You never actually see the murder but it is so obviously happening that your mind puts the jigsaw together to make the story fit. Some people will argue that this technique of making someone put together the pieces is far more horrific than just simply showing it, which meant the Hitchcock got what he wanted from the scene, so much so in fact that for days, weeks and in some cases months after the film people did not take showers because they were scared that they may meet the same fate as Marion. The excellent variety of angles shown in the footage is astonishing and makes you feel ‘lost’ because especially with the use of fast editing. The fast editing makes the audience feel that the attack was particularly sudden and brutal and also leaves the audience shocked who less than a minute ago were sitting in a detective thriller comfortably eating there popcorn and are now sitting in the most horrific horror movie that they had ever seen back then. Some interesting extra facts about this scene is that it was performed on a 12 foot by 12foot stage which is very confined, he used chocolate sauce as blood yet still managed to make it look incredibly realistic and also that 1 woman saw Marion breathe when she was dead after being murdered so Hitchcock had to re-shoot that piece such was his want for perfection in this scene.
The Arboghast killing lets the audience knows that no-one is safe not even a private detective. As Arboghast enters the house the audience thinks that he can handle the killer. As the tense music starts and the crack of light appears through the door we know something is going to happen. The music develops into one long high pitched note; we see birds of prey foreshadowing his death as they did with Marion’s. The jerky violin kicks in; we see the killer as a woman which tries to make the identity of the killer obvious. Again we don’t see the knife stab but we do see the victims wound which is very vicious stretching across his face. Arboghast is reaching out to the audience when he falls down the stairs causing the audience to want to help him but knowing they can’t they feel sorry for him as they what will happen when he reaches the bottom. The stabbing violins again create shock and terror on the audience. The whole killing is done in one continuous shot in contrast with the sharp cuts in Marion’s killing.
The next scene that is particularly good to analyse when Lila is looking around Norman’s house. As she walks towards the house it looks much more sinister than the motel itself and the fact that there are steps going up to it and it is on raised ground seem to add an edge to it’s spookiness. The fact that the house looks so spooky immediately puts the audience on the edge of their seats and they feel incredibly nervous for Lila’s plight. Lila goes up into mother’s bedroom she looks inside mother’s cupboard and finds that all of the clothes are still in the cupboard and that everything in the room seems to have been left the same. This is the first point in the film that you see where Norman’s hobby of taxidermy fits in and why Hitchcock put it in. The audience at this point of course knows about mother having been put in the fruit cellar (which the whole point of is to preserve fruit for as long as possible). The audience by now has started to get a growing suspicion that something sinister may be going on inside the house. At this stage of the film you may have also noticed that Hitchcock often puts mirrors in scenes perhaps to add depth to the scene? Norman’s room has also been left relatively untouched since that time that mother died which also makes the audience feel as though something is not quite right. When Norman enters the house the suspense and tension and the nervousness for Lila increases up a gear although we are not yet sure whether Norman would harm her or not we know that he is capable of doing so after his scuffle with Sam. Lila hides down the stairs as Norman goes upstairs and then Hitchcock fits in a part with dramatic irony.
Lila thinks that if she goes into the fruit cellar then she will more than likely be safe however the audience knows or think they know that mother the psychopath will kill her if she goes into the fruit cellar this makes the audience even more nervous tense and feeling under suspense. As Lila enters the room the audience starts biting their fingernails and as she gets closer the tension mounts. She goes closer and closer to mother, as the audience gradually get more and more nervous. Eventually when she reaches mother she turns the chair round only to find that there is a skeleton on it. You would think that this would calm down the audience but in fact it heightens the tension as the audience sees how all of the previous scenes fit together and make sense. The audience now knows that Norman is the killer and that he is inevitably going to find Lila especially after she screamed at the sight of the skeleton (which by the way was quite ‘jumpy’ because of the unexpectancy). The tension heightens again and then up another level when Norman (dressed as mother) enters the room, so much so that it was the most tense moment that I personally have ever experienced in any film that I have ever watched. However Sam then disarms Norman. One interesting thing about that scene is the way that Hitchcock manages to spin round a wooden chair with legs on without squeaking completely unrealistically without the audience noticing. Hitchcock did this to make the scene run more smoothly and what he had to do to achieve this was to put a prop man under the chair to spin it round.
The last scene that I would like to write about is the scene where Norman is attempting to sink Marion’s car along with her body and $40,000. The interesting thing about this scene is that we are willing the car to sink even though we know that it is wrong to think that. Really we know that Norman should not sink it but report it to the police or get his mother put in a mental asylum; however Hitchcock manipulates our thoughts to think what he wants us to think. The first way that Hitchcock did this is by positioning the camera at one point as though we are looking through Norman’s eyes this helps us take Norman’s side and so we will the car to sink. The other reason is that we feel sorry for Norman who at this stage in the film seems to be dominated by a madwomen who will not allow him to do anything. We also do not particularly want mother to be caught as she is mentally ill and so it seems unlikely that she would have done it of her own accord. We also feel that even if Norman did report it to the police they would immediately think it was him rather than a frail old women. It is also just a boy trying to protect his mother.
The film at its time was the scariest thing most people had saw; however today audience have been desensitizes by the amount of horror and thriller films around today. We don’t get hit with the same impact the audience of the 1960’s did as it was a new idea which broke conventions and even created same more setting a standard for all horror-thriller films. I think that the film wasn’t scary as I am a member of today’s desensitized audience however my heart did jump when the stabbing violin combined superbly with the on-screen action. Throughout the film there is transference is guilt for example Marion’s guilt being replaced by Norman’s guilt, innocent characters failings are magnified. Hitchcock also shows things to the audience that the characters don’t know then builds tension around what will happen when the characters the characters find out. The plot also revolves around the money which incites curiosity, desire and motivates the characters. The money however never leaves Marion though audience and characters think that he’d killed her for the money. Hitchcock preferring suspense over surprise, hence the title master of suspense. All of this comes together to make psycho a truly frightening experience for the audience of the time.
