Psycho Analysis

Title: Psycho
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Date: 1960
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Certificate: 15

Brief Synopsis:
A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor who is under the domination of his mother.



This is a trailer from the film 'Psycho'

Psycho is a noir Thriller that was made in 1960 starring Anthony Perkins as the character Norman Bates. It connotes a lot of major generic aspects of the Thriller genre, such as chiaroscuro lighting which is used to portray the intense atmosphere of the killer Norman Bates. It specifically indicates the diversities of his character and the way that the film is made, in the sense that even though the story starts to follow Marian Crane, the hidden signifiers link back to the madness of Norman Bates.

In the opening credits the words are presented as strips with the lines looking as if they are cutting into them, as the famous Herrmann’s soundtrack plays. This could demonstrate a premonition of what will happen to Marian Crane in the famous shower scene, when Norman Bates continues to slash and cut into her with a knife.

This shot of Marian Crane looking at herself in the mirror indicates that she is torn between right and wrong, and whether it was a bad idea to steal the money even if it was for her love interest. Hitchcock has used this representation of ideology to portray her confused attitude towards good and evil and how the line between them is ambiguous. Marian is fighting a battle against herself because she stole the money to aid the one she loves, but continues to hear the voices in her head considering the consequences of her actions – how her employer and sister will react when they find out. This anticipates the representation of the voices in Norman’s head (himself and his psychotic mother) and how even though he is a murderer, they are similar to each other.

This shot of the car in the mirror suggests that the policeman is following Marian and that his suspicion could ruin her, making her end up in prison. In the mise en scene the main focus is the car that is following her, the outline of the mirror drawing the eye straight to the car by using the rule of thirds.

Throughout the film there is the theme of rain running and in the scene where Marian is on the run, her window screen becomes blurred by the rain. It affects her vision which indicates that as she has started to become possessed by her thoughts, her personality has also changed and she doesn’t know who or what she has become. The blurred vision, rain/water running, shadows and use of mirrors are recurring features in the mise en scene of psycho. This specific type of cinematography reinforces the sense of confusion and doubt about the characters personalities which link to Bates and the constant split personality battle that he is facing.

This screen is a screen shot of Norman Bates; Hitchcock has used non ambient lighting to produce Norman’s shadow on the wall next to the pictures of the birds of the wall that cover his spy-hole. He has done this to create the idea of Bates’s split personality and that he is not the harmless, stuttering character that he seems. This is the scene where Marian first arrives at the motel and sees all the stuffed birds and notices Bates’s obsession with them. This suggests the misogyny that he has, stereotyping Crane as one of his birds or victims which is ironic because a Crane is a type of bird, suggesting that he can do what he wants with Marian, demonstrating his hatred towards women.

This is a clip of the famous shower scene which uses the diegetic sound of the shower mixed with the non diegetic soundtrack to indicate the danger that is about to happen. The diegetic sound of the running water links to the rain on Marian’s windshield which connotes that the audience knew that something disastrous was going to happen which creates suspense. The use of the shower demonstrates the confined space and claustrophobia that the character is feeling. It suggests the idea that Marian’s world is caving in on her.