Alfred Hitchcock's Specific Audience Reached by Psycho and The Birds

Alfred Hitchcock's Specific Audience Reached by Psycho and The Birds

For this piece of coursework I am going to compare and contrast two

Alfred Hitchcock Films in order to show how Hitchcock reached a

specific target audience. The films, to which I will be referring are

'Psycho (1960)' and 'The Birds (1963)', I will illustrate the

techniques, which the director (Alfred Hitchcock) used to appeal to

specific audiences. In particular I will be paying close attention to

"the shower scene" from "Psycho" and "the school scene" from "The

Birds".

I will firstly give you an overview of what happens in each film.

"Psycho" is a horror/thriller. It stars Janet Leigh, John Gavin, and

Anthony Perkins. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is an office worker from

Phoenix who is in a relationship with Sam (John Gavin). She is asked

by her employer to deposit £40,000 dollars (a great amount of money at

the time when the film was made) in a bank. Since she is unhappy with

life due to the fact that she has to meet Sam in secret, she decides

to take the money and start a new life. She heads towards California

but tiredness and a storm force her to get off the main highway and go

to the Bates motel. The motel is owned and managed by Norman Bates

(Anthony Perkins) who appears to be under the control of his mother.

In fact Norman has a Multiple Personality disorder, he kills Marion

and disposes of her body and the money, which is in a newspaper, in a

bog.

"The Birds" is also a horror/thriller. It stars Tippi Hedren and Rod

Tailor. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is the daughter of a rich San

Francisco businessman who seems to like to play practical jokes. She

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...llers of all time with Psycho being at number

1. I think this is a huge achievement taking into consideration the

fact that Alfred had much greater restraints placed on him by the Hays

Code. He has created films which will be watched by generations to

come simply because he achieved something which most people would

think was impossible. He cleverly used editing and music to symbolise

things that he could not legally show. Alfred Hitchcock himself sums

up how he created such effective thrillers when he simply says: "I

ensure that terror is accompanied by suspense". So basically Alfred

Hitchcock reached a specific audience by staying within the limits of

the rules and working around them where possible. The audience's

imagination was of great help to him as he triggered it in scenes such

as the shower scene from "Psycho".