Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
I can honestly admit that I have truly bitten off more than I can chew for this one. Alfred Hitchcock is most likely the most famous director of all time and was undeniably great at what he did. Psycho was his master piece, and everything that he had been working for throughout his entire career was leading up to this one movie. People have literally written their dissertations of Psycho and I personally have known people that spent years studying this film. I, being only a highschooler and it being a Tuesday night, will only be able to talk about a tiny tiny tiny tiny fragment of what is going on behind the scenes of this film. To find a true professionals analysis of this movie I highly encourage all of you to simply Google "Psycho film analysis," because there is some truly phenomenal work out there. If you have not scene this movie then stop reading this right now and go watch this movie. And now I must analyze...here I go.
*AGAIN: IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE THEN TURN AWAY NOW*
Psycho, as previously stated, was Hitchcock's masterpiece. Filmed in 1960, Psycho was filmed in black and white, even though colored film had existed for quite some time by that point. Part of the reason that it was filmed in black and white was because it was cheap. Hitchcock always preferred to film in black and white anyways, feeling that color film was unnecessary and that it took away from the film itself. He was attracted to the contrast that black and white could offer and enjoyed playing with the stark shadows and symbolism between light and dark that would be less apparent in colored films. He also felt that it would be far to gory if he filmed it in color, so reverted to black and white to spare the excess violence.
Psycho was actually based off of a novel by the same title written by Robert Bloch. The novel was also, in fact, based off of true events to a certain extent. In short, a man by the name of Ed Gein robbed graves and murdered people to serve his necrophilia and transvestite desires and also to decorate his house with the various body parts of his victims. He also made many clothing accessories out of human skin or other human features that he would wear around the house (I will talk about Silence of the Lambs later this month). Oh, and he also kept his mother's corpse hanging from the ceiling, the head was, of course, separated and hung on a wall. Even as watered down as Hitchcock made it, this story has haunted people for the past 50 years.
The story outline of Psycho is much less gruesome, but gruesome still. The story revolves around Marion Crane, a young woman working as a real-estate secretary. Her and her boyfriend Sam are living in separate cities, only seeing each other on occasion but dreaming for a future together.
Marion later steals $40,000 dollars (a lot of money in the 60's) from a client of her office. She leaves town, without contacting anyone, in hopes of reaching Sam's place which was a couple of days drive away from her town of residence (Phoenix, Arizona). She sleeps in her car on the side of the road that night, only to be waken by a police officer in the morning. She tries to shrug him away, but he follows her into town. Becoming frantic, Marion quickly buys a new car at a in town dealer in hopes of losing the cop. She continues her trip to Sam's, still unannounced.
When night falls again, she this time stops at the Bates Motel, a motel on the outskirts of town run by a local boy named Norman Bates and his mother, only to be known as Mrs. Bates. After over hearing a seemingly viscous argument between Norman and his mother and eating dinner with Norman, Marion retires to her cabin to take a shower and get some rest. While in the shower, she is attacked without warning by Mrs.Bates, who stabs her to death with a butcher knife. Once he had realized what his mother had done, Norman ran to the bathroom, cleaned up the crime scene (very quickly, almost as if he had done it before...) and pushed Marion's car (that contained the $40,000) into the nearby swamp.
The remainder of the film follows her boyfriend Sam as he quickly realizes she is missing, and Sam's investigation when the private eye hired to find Marion also disappears (he had been murdered by Mrs. Bates while investigating Marion's disappearance). After Mrs. Bates murdered the private eye, Norman has a fight with her, insisting that she hide down in the fruit cellar until the whole thing settles. She protests, but Norman overpowers her and is shown carrying her down stairs and putting her in the fruit cellar.
Sam then goes with Marion's sister Lila, to the Bates Motel. While snooping around they find evidence of Marion's stay at the Motel, and begin to search Norman's house. Hearing Norman approaching, Lila panics and runs down to the fruit cellar to hide. She sees Mrs. Bates sitting in a chair, with their back to the camera, facing the corner of the room. She calls her name, but there is no response. Approaching the Mrs. Bates, Lila taps her on her shoulder, causing the figure to fall out of the chair, revealing that it was really Mrs. Bates' corpse lying preserved in the fruit cellar. Seconds later, Norman comes rushing into the room, screaming and holding a butcher knife, dressed like his mother and wearing a wig; revealing that he had been pretending to be Mrs. Bates the entire time while caring around her corpse, imagining that she was alive. Sam comes into the room at the last second, restraining Norman.
After Norman is taken into custody, a psychiatrist explains that Norman had developed an alternate identity, and would sometimes pretend to be his own mother, and would at times carry a conversation with himself. The film ends with a close up of Norman's smiling face, with the voice of Mrs. Bates in the background, and finally a shot of Marion's car being pulled out of the swamp.
One of the many things that makes Psycho especially great is the fluidity with which Hitchcock switches protagonists. I have yet to see a film in which the protagonist changes midway through the story to a completely different person. In the beginning of the movie, Marion is the protagonist. After she is murdered, however, Norman becomes the new protagonist and remains so for the rest of the film. After the infamous shower scene Norman rushes in to clean up the blood and body, and it is during this clean up scene that our loyalty switches to Norman; leaving us to hope that he won't get caught.
The sound track of Psycho is one of the most iconic and infamous of all time. Composed by Bernard Herrman, the score includes screeching violins that consistently match the pace of the film and has now become the classic horror movie sound. It is said that the screeching strings were meant to sound like screaming birds, which segues nicely into my next topic; birds.
Birds are a major motif in Psycho. They are literally everywhere, and become a symbol for Marion. The main character's name in Marion Crane and she is from Phoenix, Arizona, and while she eats with Norman he even tells her that she eats like a bird. In the same scene his office lounge is covered with dead birds and Norman mentions that he likes stuffing birds- possible hinting at what was about to happen in the shower scene only a couple minutes later. Pictures of birds are also shown inside of Marion's hotel room, and after she is murdered Norman runs in and knocks one off of the wall, subtly confirming her death.
One of the basic themes that Hitchcock includes regularly is that of transformation. In the opening scene, Marion is shown with her boyfriend Sam wearing white lingerie (very daring for the time), but later in the film after she stole the $40,000 she is shown wearing black underwear; illustrating her transformation from light to dark that she will pay the ultimate price for. Then, of course, there's Norman- who's transformation is more than that of clothes. His mind literally transforms into a different person to fill the void left by his dead mother.
Again, I have only touched on the basic key points in Psycho, and later hope to do a more in depth analysis, but this is it for now. This movie has the highest rating out of any movie on the SMS with the exception of one. The rating of 9.8 is given only to Psycho and The Shawshank Redemption, and in my mind represents a near perfect movie. I would love to see a 10, but I'm not sure if that's humanly possible.
This has been a movie review by Severin: the somewhat informed movie critic. Stay safe America, and keep watching movies.
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