Exploring Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

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For this paper I chose to explore Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho because it has remained the only horror movie I’ve seen to date. I went into a couple others but immediately left; let’s just say horror is not my favorite genre of film. People may or may not always call Psycho a horror film, it may be more of a thriller to people nowadays, but I still believe the correct genre analysis is horror because it should always refer to the genre at the time the film was created and released. I chose Psycho because I spent multiple weeks in high school studying Hitchcock, and Psycho specifically, so I feel comfortable writing on it. I also thoroughly enjoy the film, its backstory, and the character development. Plus, it’s been roughly adapted into one of my favorite shows: Bates Motel, which I will also briefly explore.

Any quotes on specific pieces of writing, film, art, or anything else tend to have more meaning because those speaking could be supporters, critics, or neutral minded analysts. Most specific quotes have some sort of direction that go with them, and I enjoy exploring them. With Hitchcock, most of his quotes were deep and insightful, but some really stood out as being analytical and almost responsive to his own work. For my second angle of this paper I chose to explore the prompt where we were to write a thorough analysis based on a single character because everyday we analyze people by watching them and analyzing them based on appearance and personality. When there’s an appearance of very interesting people, we enjoy diving deep into their characters. We explore who they are as a person, where they came from, why they are where they are, and to what extent our relationship would lead. When given the opportunity to explore a char...

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...ere. Only when they are presented to us do we acknowledge them, similarly, when Norman gets arrested he realizes that there is something wrong with him. Hitchcock’s style of film really allows for spectators to develop a relationship with Norman through the desire to not want to lead a similar life. As Norman, he is a fine person and spectators would be more than happy to maintain a healthy relationship with him; however when he presents his alter ego, his mother, spectators are immediately dissuaded from wanting anything to do with Norman. Hitchcock creates this very personal relationship for the spectators, as they want nothing to do with the way Norman acts about, and as, his mother.

Bibliography

Gottlieb, Sidney (ed.). Hitchcock on Hitchcock. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.

Truffaut, François. Hitchcock. London: Secker & Warburg, 1967; orig. pub. 1966.

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