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Analysis of the psycho film
Analysis of the psycho film
Analysis of the psycho film
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In Hitchcock’s film Psycho (1960) the entry of the plumb businessman Cassidy (Frank Albertson) can be compared to Hitchcock the businessman and this can be taken as a joke on the culture ie the consumer culture which Hitchcock lets the viewers to enjoy at his expense (Erb 59). Cassidy has purchased the Harris Street property as a wedding gift for his daughter and he paid $40,000 to the realtor Mr. George Lowery (Vaughn Taylor). He flirted with Marion (Janet Leigh) in at the real estate office and later executes a private investigator Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) to trace her when she steals the money. First part of Psycho revolves around terms of production and reproduction: Sex on lunch hour; office labour; a house as a wedding gift; a fast-talking car salesman …show more content…
who complains about fast talk; newly built highway. Marion steals money to live a luxuriant life and be a part of the consumer world (Erb 59). When money enters Norman’s (Anthony Perkins) realm for whom such things are irrelevant and nonexistent, it passes into oblivion. Norman is operating a motel no one can find and it is unusually hiding away from the postwar highway construction. Marion attracted by the “vacancy” sign and enters Norman’s realm where he performs tasks routinely for the guests who are not presents and repeats welcome speech for the few who arrive there by chance. This itself seems bizarre. The dream of a girl shattered by the lure of the consumer culture is effectively portrayed by Hitchcock through Marion Crane. Marion Crane is a woman who harbours a respectable vision of married life but she cannot marry her boy friend Sam Loomis because of his financial liabilities. She had no other alternative but to share bed with him during the lunch hour on the lurid shadows of a Phoenix hotel room. In the consumer culture prevalent in America, money was necessary to buy the desired things and to live a happy, luxurious life. Sam cannot marry Marion as he was sweating hard to pay off other’s debt and to send his wife alimony. He cannot even think of bringing Marion to his storeroom behind a hardware store in Fairvale. Marion had no other option but to steal the money from the real estate broker Mr.Lowrey.
On the way she is struck by guilt conscience as she has unlawfully acquired the money. She is not a thief. To flee successfully from the place she must sell her car and buy another, for that she had to spend $ 700. But after the transaction she makes up her mind to return back to Phoenix with the remaining money intact after taking rest through a stormy night at the Bates’ Motel. But her plan doesn’t come off. She wanted to go back to her traditional American values of honesty, self-reliance, privacy, and keeping up fences to esteem one’s neighbours. According to Pomerance:“The lapse occurred back in the city, a place full of strangers with strange values, where too much cash floats around unattached and too many dreams collide” (145). There is a slight difference between taking something that is not one’s own and possessing something by persuading an innocent to hand it over to you. Roger O. Thornhill belongs to the latter category. Roger an advertising executive is not a thief but also not in a habit of cheering others to be satisfied and content with what they have. Marion is a victim of the consumer age, imperilled/endangered because a prize came too close to her to
neglect it. (Pomerance 145-146).
Rebello, Stephen. Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. New York: Red Dembner Enterprises Corporation, 1990.
Psycho is a suspense-horror film written by Joseph Stefano and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film was loosely adapted from Robert Bloch’s 1959 suspense novel, Psycho. A majority of the movie was filmed in 1960 at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Psycho is about Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary from Arizona who steals $40,000 from her employer’s client. She takes that money and drives off to California to meet her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) in order to start a new life. After a long drive, she pulls off the main highway and ends up taking refuge at an isolated motel owned and managed by a deranged Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). In Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, symbols, character and point of view are three literary aspects used in the film to manipulate the audience’s emotions and to build suspense in the film.
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"-the movie the world recognised-was first premiered in the home town of New York on the 16th June 1960.The film follows the life and strife of a young beautiful woman Marion Crane, played by the Janet Leigh, who is on the run from the police after stealing $40.000, she manages to find refuge at the Bates motel where she makes her worst mistake possible. During and after the film production of "Psycho" Alfred Hitchcock had his aids buy as many copies as possible of the novel "Psycho"-written by Robert Bloch. Why? To conceal the ending form the public's eye so when the film was shown in cinemas the audience would'nt know the ending. When people found out the title of the movie Hitchcock said it was based on a greek love story "Psyche".
And last but not least is the villain in these movies. Most of the killers in these films are portrayed as mentally deranged and/or has some type of facial or bodily deformation and who have been traumatized at an early age. Even though these characters terrorized and murder people they have taken on the persona of anti-heroes in pop culture. Characters like Halloween’s Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees have become the reason to go see these movies. However, over time,”their familiarity and the audience’s ability to identify and sympathize with them over the protagonist made these villains less threatening (Slasher Film (5))”.
bank. Marion went home there was a close up shot on the money then on
The two films Psycho and The Birds, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, share similar themes and elements. These recurring themes and elements are often prevalent in many of Hitchcock’s works. In Psycho and The Birds, Hitchcock uses thematic elements like the ideal blonde woman, “the motherly figure”, birds, and unusual factors that often leave the viewer thinking. Hitchcock’s works consist of melodramatic films, while also using pure cinema to help convey messages throughout the film.
This paper has attempted to investigate the ways in which Alfred Hitchcock blended conventions of film noir with those of a small town domestic comedy. It first looked at the opening scenes of the film in which the two conventions were introdruced. It then went on to analyse the film with the aid of Robin Wood's article Ideology, Genre, Auteur. From these two forms we can see that film noir and small town comedy were used as a means of commenting on the contradictions in American values.
Inspired by the life of the demented, cannibalistic Wisconsin killer Ed Gein (whose heinous acts would also inspire THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, 1974 and DERANGED, 1974), PSYCHO is probably Hitchcock's most gruesome and dark film. Its importance to its genre cannot be overestimated. PSYCHO's enduring influence comes not only from the Norman Bates character (who has since been reincarnated in a staggering variety of forms), but also from the psychological themes Hitchcock develops.
PSYCHO is a unique film because it is a black and white film in the
Responding to her guilt, Marion decides to return the stolen money. Responding to the guilt of betraying Norma, this alter ego of Norman’s murders Marion.
Norman Bates is arguably the most unforgettable character in the horror genre. His movements, voice and aura at first radiate a shy young man but transform into something more sinister as the movie Psycho (Hitchcock, USA, 1960) progresses. How has the director, Alfred Hitchcock, achieved this? Norman Bates was a careful construct: the casting, body language, lighting and even the subtle use of sound and mise-en-scène created the character.
In the film Psycho, by Hitchcock, a rich man was flirting with a woman named Karen. He tried to seduce her with 40,000 that he had. He was showing off how much money he had, so she can give herself to him. Meaning that he wanted her to please his desires that he had imagine. Karen then stole the 40,000 dollars and ran away, but it did not go as she planned. In the film, Karen was the gold diggers, simply because she cannot offer what men can offer, or she does not work as hard as men do. In the film Psycho, marxism is observe when the man shows off his money to a woman who is working for a man This is then suppress when she runs away with the money but ends up dying.
In the article, “Psycho at Fifty: Pure Cinema or Invitation to an Orgy?” by John A. Bertolini, he describes how the images and scenes throughout the whole movie and its more arguable parts are what made the film stick with the imagination of Hitchcock’s audience. He goes on to give an explanation of how Hitchcock is as well one of few directors who is able to mix a little humor to go along with his vicious plot. Bertolini speculates that the audience was thrown off by savagery depicted in this film and more concerned with the emotions that were created by Hitchcock’s movie. He also outlines how much controversy the film created Psycho by stating how it, “reflected the changes at work in the larger society, especially the increasing insiste...
Through the use of irony, mis en scene and recurring symbols, Hitchcock has reinforced the fundamental idea of duality throughout his film, Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960’s American psychological horror thriller, was one of the most awarded films of its time, proposing contrasting connections between characters, Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, and cinematic/film techniques to develop this idea. Irony identifies contrasts between the dual personalities of Marion Crane and Norman Bates, often foreshadowing the future events of the film. Mis en scene is particularly influential to enforcing the idea of duality, evidently shown through the music and diegetic sounds used. The recurring symbols including the mirrors and specifically the birds, underpin a representation of the character’s dual personalities. Hitchcock’s use of devices reinforces the dual personalities of characters Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.
The film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is a psychological thriller that was created in 1960. The main theme of this film revolves around psychological illnesses. The film focuses on the main character, Norman Bates, and his psychological problems which include a split personality, voyeurism, sadism, guilt and self-punishment, and anal fixation. Throughout the movie you can see Bates exhibit these traits at different points; however, some traits are not as clearly evident as others. This film takes an in-depth look at how someone who possesses a mental illness might behave or think.