Psycho Motifs

PSYCHO

MOTIFS

Have you ever seen Psycho? I have, and in my opinion this movie is one of the best horror flicks ever. Part of the reason I think this because of the motifs Hitchcock added to the movie. Some of these motifs are the motion down, eyes, and circles.

What is a motif? Better yet, what is the motif I’m about to tell you about? Well, let me start by giving you a definition of the word.

Motif : A recurrent thematic element used in the development of an artistic or literary work. (In this case, a movie.)

One motif in this movie could be circles. For example, the eyes of all the characters, and the Norman’s birds. How about the police man’s sun glasses, they were also circular. Here’s a creepy one, the peep hole that Norman spies on Marion with. Another example could be the drains, which in two cases both had blood being washed down. Eerily, there is the empty eye sockets of Norman’s dead mother. There is even the letter O in Norman’s name. To sum this set of motifs up, circles are shown throughout this film, and to find these really shows the extent Hitchcock would travel to set his movies above the rest.

Throughout the movie PSYCHO, I noticed several points where it seemed that an object or person was going downward. For instance, the rain descending for quite a long period of time in the beginning when Marion left town with the stolen money. Then there’s the water flowing down the sink drain and the bathtub drain. Also, the way everyone seems to be looking down on Marion. Then there’s Norman, and how the you see him always coming down his steps, but rarely up them. For my last spotted example, the bodies and their cars sinking into the swamp is one creepy instance of the downward motif. I don’t know the point of these motifs, this one included, except for the extra spice it just gives to the watchers who plan on picking through the movie to find these “Hitchcock bonuses”.

Do you ever feel like you’re being watched? Well, in Psycho another motif is eyes. One example I used earlier is the police man’s sun glasses. You can’t see his eyes, but you know he’s watching or more likely inspecting Marion for any trace of trouble. Later in the film, Marion pulls into to a car dealership to trade in her car.