Alfred Hitchcock Film Psycho Analysis Essay

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The “mother” of all other horror movies, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho transformed the directorial, cinematographic, and narrative style of cinema (“Psycho - How Alfred Hitchcock Manipulates An Audience”). Especially in the way Hitchcock attempted to involve the audience directly by creating a subjective, unreliable narrator, it was possible to generate the intense suspense and tension that permeates the film. As a result, viewers place themselves into Marian’s shoes. Even though Hitchcock uses editorial cuts at the beginning the viewer is led into it as one long scene, as we become voyeurs looking into the life of the protagonist who is at a sort of crossroads or turning point in her life (“Psycho - How Alfred Hitchcock Manipulates An Audience”). A close-up on the wad of money in the envelope is shown because Marian is thinking about stealing it, an illegal and unethical act carried out for unselfish reasons; the audience is now inside the protagonist’s head and about to go on the journey to the Bates motel with her. Hitchcock continues to alternate between different types of shots and camera angles to manipulate the mind of the reader, to help the reader see what Marian sees and feel what she feels. Music underscores the emotional content of the film, paralleling the visual elements.



Marian’s guilt is palpable throughout the first half of the film, as she is sure someone is following her as she drives.

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The audience knows she is being paranoid because she glances in the rear-view mirror; Hitchcock shows the audience the image in the mirror and not an objective display of the traffic. Marian’s perception of Norman at the hotel, her careful, meticulous moves, and her monitoring of the money all show how Marian is nervous. The famous shower scene is where sound and visuals truly converge during the climax of suspense. A shower is an act of cleansing, but Marian is stripped of the ability to cleanse her soul of the guilt that permeates her consciousness after taking the money. Marian is being violated; the audience does not gain immediate insight into who the killer is because Marian never knows either. All the audience sees is the shadowy figure and the murder weapon: the knife. The staccato stabs are accompanied by staccato violins, both of which subside as blood drains from Marian and her head hits the floor. When the audience again glimpses the wad of money on Marian’s bedside table, there is a brief and necessary return to an objective narrator now that Marian is dead.



The shift from Marian’s point of view to a more objective narrator also represents a change in pace and perspective of the entire film.….....

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Works Cited

Hitchcock, Alfred. Psycho. [Feature Film].
“Psycho - How Alfred Hitchcock Manipulates An Audience.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm-9E275D9c
 

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