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Psycho – Essay

Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who is famously known for his cameo’s on movies directed by himself, is a very important movie in terms of the slasher genre. Although Hitchcock is not a slasher genre director, as the genre did not exist in the 1960’s, he plays an important role in the slasher genre film history even up till today, where most of his work is influence upon other directors and therefore copied in order to give the audience pleasures which Hitchcock’s audience had achieved then.

Many influences such as different elements were originated from the film Psycho, although other films did contain these elements at the time. These are all key factors now-a-days to be considered in typical slasher genre films, that many repetoire of elements were first seen through Hitchcocks work. For example, iconography such as screaming is typical to re occur in a slasher genre film today. This adds emphasis on what is happening and the fact that the character is screaming is drummed into our ears and it almost seems as though we as the audience cannot escape from what is going on, when ironically, most people watch films for escapism. This is not hugely the case in Psycho, however, the actress is shown, excessively scared, when she is being stabbed continuously, trying to escape. However, the audience does not see the blade actually go into her body.

The image that we see of the blade, is a reoccuring image we see typically in a slasher genre film nowadays, however this was not the case in the 1960's as seeing an image of a knife was rae, because murder was something that people showed fear towards and turned a blind eye to.

Hitchcock decided to use a reoccurring image of a close up of an eye, with appears now and then throughout the film which reminds us of the fact that the hotel owner is enjoying voyeuristic pleasures by peeping through a hole in the wall behind the photo. This is seen to be wrong, and in a newer version of this film, we see that the fact that he is just looking through the hole in the wall, is been exaggerated into the hotel owner to show sexual desires whilst just looking. This is seen to be wrong, for a man to be spying on a women and enjoy the view, however the protagonist, doesn’t seem as though she is innocent towards sexual contact, as we see in the beginning opening scene, her sharing a bed with a man, who assuming she had sexual intercourse with, the night before.

Following this, the two characters then have a conversation about running away, and getting married. Therefore, when she steals the money from one of her clients, we as the audience are instantly made to believe that the story will be based on her taking the money. Hitchcock has a tendency of misleading the audience to thinking one thing; therefore we do not guess what will happen at the end.

However, after having talked to the hotel owner and by him she was implied at to be selfish for not thinking of her family, the protagonist admitted to wanting to go back, to redeem her sins. Yet she was still killed. This was a mystery to the audience, because when we knew she would be going back, we assumed that everything would be back to normal and the story will have been resolved. Instead she was murdered whilst in the shower scene by the Norman Bates’ “mother”, which we find out in the end, was a disguise of the son (hotel owner).

The fact that Hitchcock chose to use a knife to kill the character shows a slight sense of intimacy, as the murderer is forced to make physical contact with the person he is about to kill. An interpretation of this, is the person who actually continuously stabs a person, is releasing their sexual frustration out on a person who has actually had sex, and in the case of where I had read it, the director was talking about the “final girl”, who was seen to be someone who had fought off any kind of temptation for sexual intercourse with another person during the course of the film.

Similarly, this is the case in the film Creep, where the protagonist fights off temptation of having sex at the very beginning and at the end, we see that she is still living and therefore is the “final girl”. However, in this case, Hitchcock kills off the potential “final girl” within the first third of the film, however, the story line still lingers on about her. This shows that predominantly she was ideal for the “final girl”, however, at the end of the film, her sister fights off her sisters killer, and is therefore labelled as the “final girl” because she managed to get the murderer of her sister put in prison. Although, in the contemporary time, killing the killer was a theme that occurred within films, however, now we see that has changed, as all evil is killed off at the end and one or two good heroes remain.

This can then be linked with the character roles theory, where Prop says that every film includes different, yet same character roles. Usually, a Hero, Villain, Princess (not always in human form), and at the end the villain is found guilty, and faces consequences. This happens in Psycho, when the psycho himself (ironically the film is named after him, when he is meant to be the criminal), is arrested.

The story does not hold a tight resolution, as it still holds enigmas towards the end. The audience are still left confused as to what he went through, however this was resolved by the way in which the detective has a speech at the end and explains what the hotel owner had gone through previously with his mother. The fact that the film left with a disequilibrium, suggests that the situation was not bound to continue.

Hitchcock chose to use low key lighting in order to set suspense and black and white in order to primarily tp save money, but also so that the film isn’t too gory with the fact that there was a lot of blood shown in the shower scene. Long shots and close ups are used in order to vary uses of camera angles and also to allow audiences to identify with different characters. Hitchcock chose to use a lot of point of view shots, from the beginning of the film he used plenty in order to force the audiences to identify with the female protagonist. This was excellent technique, as in the 1960’s the type of equipment was not provided and nor was the editing software. After the female protagonist is killed, the audience start to identify with the Norman Bates, who killed her. This is because, we see things from his point of view, when he is clearing up the blood. We tend to sympathise with him, as we are still in confusion about his mother killing her.

The audience respond in many different ways towards this situation and are left in confusion towards the end. Audience tend to feel visceral pleasures as they are shocked at times, and tend to physically react towards what is going on. Sadistic pleasures, when the knife is being vigorously stabbed into her, but this is not all the audiences. Finally, we experience voyeurism as we are watching something we shouldn’t be watching.