Analysing Psyhco: the pleasure of fear(TM). How does Hitchcock build tension and create suspense and terror through the language of film?

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Dina Zaher L5G

Analysing Psyhco: ‘the pleasure of fear’. How does Hitchcock build tension and create suspense and terror through the language of film? Refer to three scenes in detail.

Films were invented in 1895, and Psycho was released in 1960 so films were a recent phenomena. Hitchcock first worked in film in 1920, but this was silent film and he produced captions to go with the picture of the screen. When he made Psycho, colour film had been invented but he chose to film it in black and white. It was going against the current trends of cinema and it was also cheaper. But he used to conceal things and make the scenes on screen look more dramatic and it was very effective. Using black and white made the seeing blood softer for the sense and made the violence stylised. Bernard Herrmann, who composed the music for Psycho said ‘I felt I was able to complement the black and white photography of the film with black and white sound’.  The music in the film consisted of only string instruments, which were usually used for romantic films not horror – so again Hitchcock was going against conventions again. The cords used in the film were 2 major and 1 minor to create discordance.  The Psycho theme is repeated throughout the film with very little variation. The music has a lack of completeness to it, the sounds aren’t harmonious and they are unsettling.  Hitchcock made strong orders to the cinemas that showed his film that he didn’t want anybody entering to see the film after the film had started. This was abnormal for the time but it was because Hitchcock thought that if people entered the theatre late and did not see the star actress Janet Leigh, they would feel cheated, but after the first day theatre owners enjoyed the long lines of people waiting to see the film.  

        One of the most symbolic scenes in this movie is the parlour scene where Norman, the owner of the motel that, Marion, played by Janet Leigh, goes to stay at. Norman invites her, the only person staying at the hotel to eat with him in his parlour behind his office. We see them together as he is showing her where to sit and is putting down his tray of food. Then as they both sit down and begin to talk we hear their conversation and watch them as a shot reverse shot, both of them separately. Marion is in the light with a modern lamp next to her which makes her look somehow angelic. She is sitting on a soft chair which is curved and there is a milk jug in front of her which is white and also curved, the curved objects suggest her femininity and we feel more in touch with her.  She is wearing fairly light clothing and sates that she is going to return to phoenix, letting us know that she is capable of redemption and this makes us see her as a nice character and causes us to feel sympathy for her. She also has behind her a round picture frame which goes with the rest of the mise en scène around her, which is all delicate, angelic and feminine.  This is a great contrast to Norman, who is sitting in the dark part of the room. The chair that he is sitting on is very angular and dark and isn’t as soft as Marion’s, it reflects his character that is revealed later in the film, the sharp and strange person that he is.  Everything around him is much less modern than what Marion’s sitting in, instead of a lamp he has an unlit candle, which suggest darkness and that he is stuck in the past and cant seem to find a way out .   The fact that further from the light source compared to Marion also suggests that he is further way from reality and from God.  Amongst the old furniture behind him there’s also a heavy and dark chest of drawers which darkens his part of the room and reminds us again of the past. The birds that he stuffs are nearly always in shot, either next to him or from above him, showing his two sides, the one that he’s a predator and kills people while he’s his mother and then his prey side, the side of him where he is a victim of his psychosis.  Norman’s connection with speech is also ominous and his face is in the dark so we feel as if not everything about him has been revealed, that there is another side of him that we have not yet met.  There is a part in this scene where Marion brings up the subject of Normans mother he begins to get very defensive, music begins to play and he leans forward and we see him from a low angle shot as he dominates the screen and the light lights up half his face, he seems more menacing and mysterious. This is a key moment of tension in the film, because the audience begin to feel uneasy of Norman.  Throughout this scene Norman is shot from different angles to show his menace and his vulnerability. We always see him with one side concealed, we see the dark side and the owl that he has stuffed coming down on him and here we see his mother personality coming through.  When Marion is filmed, she is always filmed in mid shot, and face front so we can see her and nothing is hidden. This shows us her normality and stability but can also be fairly static. She is virtually at eye level with us so we can see her clearly and relate to her, but with Norman we never see his face in full view and we feel cut off from him and as if we cannot relate to him and are uneasy of him. We never see them both together when they have both sat down and are talking; we see most of the scene in shot-reverse-shot where both of them are completely separate from each other. This emphasises the difference between them and the gap between them. We can see Marion’s normality and his abnormality very clearly in this scene. At the end of the scene when she stands up to go, she becomes much more dominating of the screen and he becomes to look much more vulnerable because he is smaller and in the corner, so we are reminded that he is also a victim.

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 The next major scene in this film is the shower scene, where Marion, the main character of the film and the one that the audience have come to see gets killed off.  Its was shocking to be let into such a private place, as a bathroom in the 1960s and it was even more outrageous then to see the close up of a toilet being flushed.  We would not expect a murder to take place in a bathroom because we think of a bathroom as a clean place, a haven not where someone is killed because this is a ...

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