Film Review - Psycho

Figure 1. Psycho (1960)

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is the birth of Movie genre The Slasher, amplified with it's rather familiar soundtrack and good use of character misdirection, making psycho a movie with many twists and turns that corners it's viewer into paranoia and shock.

Figure 2.

An interesting part of the movie is our Heroine, Marion Crane whom we are first introduced to and find out she's has an interest in marrying Sam Loomis who recently divorced, and in desperation to be with him she steals $40,000 and flees from town instead of turning it into the bank. On the run she starts to raise suspicion on herself and is forced to stay the night at the bates motel due to stormy weather. "The film is 109 minutes long, but he offs his heroine, the glamorous miscreant with whom he's made us identify, after just 47." (Monahan, 2015) So at this point we've become familiar of her intentions and at first she's quite paranoid, during the parts she is driving we hear other characters voicing their opinions on the matter (possibly her thinking to herself about what they could be saying about her?) but the more she drives towards Fairvale she begins to grin and actually be quite pleased with her decision. Up until the Shower Scene we've become quite settled with her as our heroine as she is the character we are following-- But really she leads us to the main character that is Norman Bates who attracts the story's focus by killing off Marion, so really Marion leads us to the main character but the story was still about her and what happened to her body and the money.

Figure 3

Speaking of the Shower scene, what makes it so famous and worthy is the way it was shot and how the music works towards action. "Seeing the shower scene today, several things stand out. Unlike modern horror films, "Psycho" never shows the knife striking flesh. There are no wounds. There is blood, but not gallons of it." (Ebert, 1998) The shot design of the scene was very suggestive and made it clear of what was going which was Marion being stabbed by her attacker, but what made it more thriller-esque is the music, the violins that screech when the curtain is pulled back and Marion's scream almost matches the tone of the track and when the job is done the tone becomes deeper and has a sort of heart beat tempo as Marion falls to her last moments, it brings the reality of gore and murder without showing it.

Figure 4.

Thinking of Psycho after first viewing it, its about Norman Bates and 'Mother' taking over his identity, that's the Psycho of the movie but really Marion also demonstrates a bit of Psycho in her. "Lonely, frustrated Marion, who yearned for marriage and respectable love … perhaps something within her snapped with rage at the thought of this smug little rich girl and her unearned day of happiness. Part of the film's genius is that this first psycho moment happens silently, invisibly, inside Marion's head." (Bradshaw, 2012) In a conversation between Marion and Norman he asks her if she has ever gone mad before which she believes everyone is a bit mad, and for her - the money she stole and the lengths she took in order to be with Sam it did demonstrate some Psycho in her. We see though that she tries to make up for this and tries to work out how much she owes Tom Cassidy and mentions she would be driving back to Phoneix the next day, proving her conversation with Norman made her feel that her actions were out of hand and wrong.

Bibliography:

Bradshaw, Peter (2012) - My favourite Hitchcock: Psycho At:https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jul/23/my-favourite-hitchcock-psycho [Accessed: 25/01/2018] 

Ebert, Roger (1998) - PSYCHO At:https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-psycho-1960 [Accessed: 25/01/2018]

Monahan, Mark (2015) - Psycho, review At: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11025424/Psycho-review.html [Accessed: 25/01/2018]

Illustrations:

Figure 1. Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock - Movie Poster

Figure 2. Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock - Movie Still

Figure 3. Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock - Movie Still

Figure 4. Psycho (1960) - Alfred Hitchcock - Movie Still