Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has been commended for forming the
archetypical basis of all horror films that followed its 1960 release. The mass
appeal that Psycho has maintained for over three decades can undoubtedly be
attributed to its universality. In Psycho, Hitchcock allows the audience to
become a subjective character within the plot to enhance the film's
psychological effects for an audience that is forced to recognise its own
neurosis and psychological inadequacies as it is compelled to identify, for
varying lengths of time, with the contrasting personalities of the film's main
characters. Hitchcock conveys an intensifying theme in Psycho, that bases itself
on the unending subconscious battle between good and evil that exists in
everyone through the audience's subjective participation and implicit character
parallels.
Psycho begins with a view of a city that is arbitrarily identified along
with an exact date and time. The camera, seemingly at random, chooses first one
of the many buildings and then one of the many windows to explore before the
audience is introduced to Marion and Sam. Hitchcock's use of random selection
creates a sense of normalcy for the audience. The fact that the city and room
were arbitrarily identified impresses upon the audience that their own lives
could randomly be applied to the events that are about to follow.
In the opening sequence of Psycho, Hitchcock succeeds in capturing the
audience's initial senses of awareness and suspicion while allowing it to
identify with Marion's helpless situation. The audience's sympathy toward Marion
is heightened with the introduction of Cassidy whose crude boasting encourages
the audience's dislike of his character. Cassidy's blatant statement that all
unhappiness can be bought away with money, provokes the audience to form a
justification for Marion's theft of his forty thousand dollars. As Marion begins
her journey, the audience is drawn farther into the depths of what is
disturbingly abnormal behaviour although it is compelled to identify and
sympathize with her actions.
It is with Marion's character that Hitchcock first introduces the notion
of a split personality to the audience. Throughout the first part of the film,
Marion's reflection is often noted in several mirrors and windows. Hitchcock is
therefore able to create a voyeuristic sensation within the audience as it can
visualise the effects of any situation through Marion's conscious mind. In the
car dealership, for example, Marion enters the secluded bathroom in order to
have privacy while counting her money. Hitchcock, however, with upper camera
angles and the convenient placing of a mirror is able to convey the sense of an
ever lingering conscious mind that makes privacy impossible. Hitchcock brings
On March 25, 1911, 146 garment factory workers their lives in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. In less than an hour, these workers died from asphyxiation, burns, or jumping to their deaths in a futile attempt at escape (McGuire, 2011). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory the eighth through tenth floors of New York City’s Asch building, and employed approximately 700 workers, 500 of them young women and girls (McGuire, 2011). A fire quickly broke out on the eighth floor shortly before the end of the work day. Loose fabric was strewn about the floor and stuffed under equipment, providing kindling for the fire to quickly become an inferno. As women attempted to exit, they were met with locked doors and forced to find other means of escape, including jumping from the eight floor windows, climbing down elevator cables, and scampering down the fire escape - each route of escape tragically failed, costing many their lives. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is an example of how quickly dangerous and neglectful conditions can quickly take many lives, but it has also served as the impetus for great changes in workplace and fire safety codes and regulations, including the development of Fire Safety Codes, implementation of state-based worker’s compensation laws, and the formation of New York State’s Industrial Code. The impacts of these changes and many others are still felt today, more than 100 years later. There is, however, still work to be done in the area of workplace fire safety, as evidenced in the Kader Toy Factory fire and the Imperial Chicken Processing Plant fire.
25 US Department of Labor. "The New York Factory Investigating Commission." . http://www.dol.gov/ Accessed May 16, 2014. http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafepart07.htm
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was remembered as one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was owned by Max Blank and Isaac Harris. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory grew quickly as Max and Isaac moved their business from a little shop by 1901 to the new ten-story Asch building at the top three floors. There were approximately five hundred workers who worked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company at the time while the fire broke out. The workers were mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women (Campbell 210-212). The incident happened in Manhattan, New York City in March, 25, 1911; also, as one important event that held relevance in American .This incident was the deadliest industrial disaster. 146 workers died, and they either died from the fire or jumped from the window. They jumped out from the window because the fire trucks’ ladders could only reach up to the seventh floor. After the incident, there were demands for enhanced law to protect workers health and safety, including factory fire codes and child labor law that helped shape future labor laws; however, there was evidence that the fire wouldn’t have happened if the company owners had listened to the warnings, and the owners were found unfairly not guilty in the court.
Disasters can be so impactful; some can forever change the course of history. While many at the time thought this story would soon pass, and with it all the potential bad publicity, the story of the Triangle fire spread quickly, and outraged many people. On a beautiful spring day in March 1911 when 146 workers lost their lives, a fire would prove it could do what years of reformers had failed to do, get the government on the side of the workers. I would argue that the fire largely impacted the country. Specifically, the Triangle Fire ended up changing New York’s interconnected political and economic scene, and spurred on the creation of stricter safety codes. For the first time owners would hold responsibility for their actions. Max Blanck and Isaac Harris; being indicted for manslaughter was proof of this. Social change seemed to be spurred as well; the general public and newspapers would come back the workers of New York. Large institutions would suffer as well. Tammany Hall would be feared less and less by waves of new immigrants. The largest change brought about by the blaze would be legislation. Twenty-five bills, recasting the labor laws of the state
Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after this fire, and the work industry would never remain the same again.
The changes after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire involved 4 main groups and public voters. No single group alone had the far reaching effects like the progressive movement, politically liberal and socially democratic. Without all four groups putting pressure on the legal system, the media exposing the flaws of the current industrial, political system along with the uprising that is the beginning of women’s suffrage, the labor laws would not have undergone the radical changes that are the backbone of modern day labor laws. The fact all doors must remain open and unlocked during business hours, in 21st century America, arose from the ashes of the fatal Triangle Shirtwaist fire, To the deceased, American manufacturing employees are grateful, though they may not be entirely knowledgeable about the origins of their current labor laws.
“He [Norman] only half-existed,” the psychiatrist stated after taking a look at Norman himself (Psycho). Norman Bates is a character in the movie Psycho, whose mental illness caused him to turn murderous. Psycho is not the only film that uses a mental illness to produce a villain. The Joker from the Batman series is diagnosed by the viewers to be psychopathic, and he is known to be a mass murderer. From the 1960 film to modern movies, many producers create their villains with mental disabilities. Because the mentally ill are portrayed as villains, this causes the viewers to classify them as capable of turning monstrous and harming those around them. This stereotype leads to the vilification of all those with a mental illness. Producers create
Deckard lives in a world with man made animals, flying cars, off world colonies and more importantly manufactured humans called replicants. The fact that the replicants are equal to humans physically and even mentally is troubling and brings forward major questions. But with all these advancements Los Angeles is portrayed by Scott as a dark and gloomy wasteland of mostly empty high rise buildings and full of dark alleys and dirty streets. It is not a nice looking place and...
As the credits roll we see the blinds of a three-pane window slowly being lifted up, after they finish the camera moves forward revealing to our gaze the reality on the other side of the open window. It faces the back of many other buildings, the courtyard they enclose, and a sliver view of the backstreet. More importantly, it faces many other windows just like it. Behind each one of those there are people, going about their day, doing mundane tasks, unaware of being observed. In his 1954 movie “Rear Window” Alfred Hitchcock invites us to engage in the guilt free observation of the lives of others. The main character, photographer L. B. Jefferies, is home stuck with a broken leg encased in a cast that goes all the way to his hip, providing the perfect excuse for him to amuse himself in this hot Manhattan summer by engaging in the seemly harmless act of looking into the many windows he can see from his back apartment. Casual, harmless, voyeurism has been part of the human behavior for ages but in the sixty years since the movie was released it has gained increasing traction. Reality television, Movies, TV shows, YouTube, blogging, Instagram and Facebook are examples of modern tools that allow us to engage in the observation of others while remaining protectively hidden from their returning gaze. In its essence the casual voyeuristic actions we engage in while observing others when using these new media tools follows the same pattern of behavior described in the movie, with the same positive and negative consequences. Casual voyeurism distinguishes itself from pathological voyeurism, which is characterized by a preference in obtaining sexual gratification only from spying others, by the removal of the sexual component from the equat...
The film, Vertigo (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is classified as a genre combination of mystery, romance, suspense and thriller about psychological obsession and murder. Filmed on location in San Francisco and on the Paramount lot in Hollywood, California in 1957, the cultural features of the late 1950’s America were depicted in the films mise en scène by costume and set designs current for that time period. The film was produced at the end of the golden age of Hollywood when the studio system was still in place. At the time Vertigo was produced, Hollywood studios were still very much in control of film production and of actor’s contracts. Hitchcock’s groundbreaking cinematic language and camera techniques has had great impact on film and American popular culture and created a cult following of his films to this day.
There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan, New York City on March 25, 1911 was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the history of the city, and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. Triangle Waist Company was one of the largest blouse makers in New York City. They specialized in making shirtwaists, the very popular women's blouse that had a tight waist and puffy sleeves. Approximately 500 people, mostly immigrant women, worked at the Triangle Waist Company's factory, in the Asch Building. They worked long hours, six days a week, in cramped quarters and were paid low wages. Many of the workers were young, some only age 13 or 14. The source of this fire was due to a lit cigarette on the ninth floor. The women on the ninth floor were not able to escape. The exit doors were locked, and the owners on the tenth floor were able to escape. One recalled, the clawed nails of the women being trapped. The large number of deaths exposed the dangerous conditions in high-rise factories prompted the creation of new building, fire, and safety codes around the United States. Most of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. The trag...
On July 13, 1900 Joseph Aschs’ new building plans in New York City are approved and by January 5, 1901 the building is complete. In 1906, the eighth floor of the Asch building is bought by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company who opens a factory there. Three years later, a letter is sent to the management of the Triangle Shirtwaist building from a fire prevention expert. He suggests they that a discussion about evaluating and enhancing safety measures. Unfortunately, management does not take the letter seriously and “the letter is ignored.” (Linder, “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial”) The inhumane work conditions in the factory led to the decision of twenty-five ILGWU workers to declare strike against th...
...being held accountable, the city officials themselves were also held accountable because of improper safety regulations. Showing that the city itself should be at fault for not enforcing safety regulations for such things as fire escapes, that were not in working order. These unprecedented circumstances just lay down the blueprint for what is now the correct way to set regulations for industrial factory conditions.
I am choosing to write about gestalt therapy. Gestalt’s founding theorists were Frederick (Fritz) S. Perls and Laura Posner Perls. In 1952 Fritz and Laura and other associates established the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. Gestalt theory is an existential, phenomenological and process-based theory made on the basis that people must be understood in the setting of their ongoing relationships with their atmosphere. Awareness, choice, and responsibility are the base fundamentals of the theory. Contemporary gestalt therapy is sometimes called relational gestalt therapy which stresses a dialogue and relationship between a client and a therapist must be had. Fritz is often seen in one of two ways, either people are in awe of him or find him tough and aggressively confrontational. Today’s gestalt therapists seek to be more supportive, accepting, respectful, dialogical, and empathic and challenging (Corey, 2013).