Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho

Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, was shocking for its time. Made in the

1960's when film censorship was very tight to today's standards,

Hitchcock pushed the limits of what could be shown and did with psycho

things that had never been done before. The cinematic art, symbolism

and sub-conscious images in this film were brilliant for the time and

still are now. Realised for this, psycho has been copied in many ways

and the things that made it great have become very clichéd.

From the very first scene in psycho, it is clear that the viewer will

be sucked into the world of Marion Crane and Norman Bates. The opening

shot is an aerial shot from the sky, pausing momentarily and seeming

to pick a window at random, suggesting these were randomly chosen

people, normal people like you and I, Hitchcock includes very normal

things in psycho to let us relate to it, creating sympathy and

empathy.

The film is generally about guilt. Two different personalities are

brought together because of their secrets based on sex, Marion's

affair with a married man and Normans murder of his mother and her

lover in bed.

Hitchcock uses either conscious or sub conscious symbolism,

concentrating on the story, we get the feelings Hitchcock wants us to

have, based on the symbolism, without even properly realising it, for

example one I didn't notice while watching psycho for the first time

was that Marion's underwear changed from white to black after she

decided to steal the money. Knowing that showing a girl in her

underwear was going to shock people, Hitchcock knew that this is what

the focus would be on, he used this to show th...

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...ast between silence and

the screaming stringed music plus the screaming Lila is massive and

scares the audience to death. Hitchcock did exactly what he wanted to

do to the audience.

After this, Norman runs in wearing his mothers clothing, with the

scream still ringing through the room. He tries to stab Lila, Sam

stops him and Norman almost melts to the floor in a spasm, the

suspense of this scene deflates and the audience is left in shock.

In conclusion, there are many interesting ways Hitchcock created and

sustained tension in psycho. He used the audiences imagination to make

what very little he was allowed to show on screen much more powerful,

Hitchcock knew how people would react to symbols he placed in Psycho

and used that to his advantage in making them feel what he wanted them

to, and it worked very well.