Name___________________
Mass Media
Mr. Pugliese
PSYCHO (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Based on the novel by Robert Bloch
As you watch the movie, try to concentrate on what Hitchcock
does with the camera. Try to gauge the effect the different shots
have on you, the audience.
Journal #5– answer questions 1-4 on a separate sheet of paper
Journal #6 – answer questions 5-8 on a separate sheet of paper
Journal #7 – your original review of the film. Back up opinions
with specific examples from the film.
Take notes and answer on a separate sheet of paper.
1. A. What is the setting of the movie?
B. Where does the main action of the movie take place?
2. Briefly explain the plot of the movie.
3. In several scenes Hitchcock brings your attention to
certain objects or actions. Point out two specific scenes
and explain how he does this with the camera.
4. There are several instances of verbal and visual foreshadowing. Give two examples of foreshadowing
and explain the type of foreshadowing used.
5. What is the symbolic use of the stuffed birds?
6. How does Hitchcock heighten or intensify the horror effect in the shower scene?
7. What did Norman Bates do to his mother?
8. How do the music and/or soundtrack heighten or intensify the effect of the suspenseful scenes. Use two
scenes from the movie to explain your answer.
Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense Thrillers
No list of suspense or thriller films can be complete without mention of English film-maker/director Alfred Hitchcock. He helped to
shape the modern-day thriller genre, beginning with his early silent film The Lodger (1926), a suspenseful Jack-the-Ripper story,
followed by his next thriller Blackmail (1929), his first sound film (but also released in a silent version). Hitchcock would make a
signature cameo appearance in his feature films, beginning with his third film The Lodger (1926), although his record was spotty at
first. After 1940, he appeared in every one, except for The Wrong Man (1956). [See all of Hitchcock's cameos here.] Although
nominated five times as Best Director (from 1940-1960), Hitchcock never won an Academy Award.
Alfred Hitchcock is considered the acknowledged auteur master of the thriller or suspense genre, manipulating his audience's fears and
desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. He would often interweave
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a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films, such as the repressed memories of Marnie (Tippi Hedren) in Marnie (1964), the latent
homosexuality in Strangers on a Train (1951), voyeurism in Rear Window (1954), obsession in Vertigo (1958), or the twisted
Oedipus complex in Psycho (1960).
Hitchcock's films often placed an innocent victim (an average, responsible person) into a strange,
life-threatening or terrorizing situation, in a case of mistaken identity, mis identification or wrongful
accusation (i.e., in The 39 Steps (1935), The Wrong Man (1956), and in North by Northwest
(1959)).
He also utilized various cinematic techniques (i.e., the first British 'talking picture' - Blackmail
(1929), the extreme zoom shot of the key in Notorious (1946), the glowing glass of milk in
Suspicion (1941), the prolonged cross-cutting tennis match in Strangers on a Train (1951), the
virtuoso set-piece of the crop duster in North by Northwest (1959), the montage in the shower
sequence accentuated with composer Bernard Herrmann's screeching violin score in Psycho (1960),
the dolly-zoom shots in Vertigo (1958), or the heightening of anticipation with the long pull-back
shot from inside a building to the outside and across the street in Frenzy (1972)).
Visually-expressive motifs were also his specialty (i.e., the surrealistic dream sequences in
Spellbound (1945), the key in Notorious (1946), the staircase or the use of profiles and silhouettes
in Vertigo (1958), the murder reflected in the victim's glasses in Strangers on a Train (1951), the
concept of "pairs" and guilt transference in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)), or the making of
technically-challenging films (such as Lifeboat (1944) and Rope (1948)). [Rope was a film of many
'firsts': it was Hitchcock's first color film and his first film as an independent producer; it was his
first film released by Warner Bros.; it was his first and only attempt to make a film appear as a
single shot, with a series of ten-minute takes cleverly spliced together; and it was his first film with James Stewart. The basis of the
film was the famed Leopold-Loeb case.]
In many of his films, there was the inevitable life and death chase concluding with a showdown at a familiar landmark (for example,
London's Albert Hall in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur (1942), the UN and Mount
Rushmore in North by Northwest (1959), Westminster Cathedral in Foreign Correspondent (1940), and the Golden Gate Bridge in
Vertigo (1958)). He also reveled in tight and confined spaces, to heighten emotion (i.e., Lifeboat (1944), Rope (1948), or Rear
Window (1954), etc.) or restrictive train journeys (i.e., The Lady Vanishes (1937), and North by Northwest (1959), etc).
The famed director often capitalized on a 'red herring' or gimmicky plot element to catch the viewer's attention - dubbed a McGuffin
(or MacGuffin), that would propel the plot along its course. Usually, the McGuffin initially appears to be of utmost importance, but
functions to intentionally misdirect the audience - it then quickly fades into the background and ends up being trivial, irrevelant, or
incidental to the film's story. Here is a list of various MacGuffins:
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The 39 Steps (1935): the nature of the 39 Steps, and the smuggling of secret plans (vital to the country's air defense) out of
the country
The Lady Vanishes (1938): the coded message contained in a piece of music
Rebecca (1940): the character of the first Mrs. De Winter - Rebecca
Notorious (1946): the radioactive material (uranium ore) found in vintage wine bottles
Strangers on a Train (1951): Guy's cigarette lighter
Rear Window (1954): the suspected 'murder' committed by apartment tenant Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr)
North by Northwest (1959): the character of "George Kaplan" (mistakenly thought to be Cary Grant) who is being
chased by spies, and the secret microfilm
Psycho (1960): the stolen money, the $40,000 wrapped up in a newspaper in the motel bedroom
The Birds (1963): the cause of the strange bird attacks
Torn Curtain (1966): the secret formula (known by Professor Gustav Lindt) for an anti-nuclear missile device the East
Germans have been developing
Topaz (1969): what is Topaz? who is it? who is in it?
Hitchcock usually cast leading actors against type (Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Cary Grant) opposite cool blondes (Madeleine
Carroll, Joan Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedren) who were often subject to misogynistic
abuse, threatening humiliation, or murder. Hitchcock would then explore the darker sides of human nature through the situation,
including sexuality and voyeurism, guilt and punishment, or paranoia and obsession. He usually let the viewer know that some
horrible event would happen - creating unbearable suspense while viewers waited for the inevitable.
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Notable examples of Hitchcock's early British suspense-thriller films include The Man Who Knew Too Much (1933), his first great
spy-chase/romantic thriller The 39 Steps (1935) with Robert Donat handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll, and the best film of his British
period - the mystery The Lady Vanishes (1938). Extending his work into the 1940s in a number of brilliant black-and-white films,
Hitchcock continued to perfect his recognizable brand of suspense-thriller, producing Foreign Correspondent (1940), the haunting
Oscar-nominated Rebecca (1940) about the strange romance between a young woman (Joan Fontaine) and an emotionally-distant rich
widower (Laurence Olivier) - overshadowed by a vindictive housekeeper (Judith Anderson), Suspicion (1941) about a woman in peril
from her own husband (cast against type Cary Grant), Saboteur (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - Hitchcock's own personal favorite
and based upon the actual case of a 1920s serial killer known as 'The Merry Widow Murderer', Spellbound (1945), and Notorious
(1946).
In the 1950s, Hitchcock added technicolor to his still-brilliant dark and moody films, now with exotic locales and glamorous stars. He
reached the zenith of his career with a succession of classic films:
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the suspenseful black and white Strangers on a Train (1951) about two train passengers: tennis pro Guy (Farley
Granger) and Bruno (Robert Walker), who staged a battle of wits and traded murders with each other
Dial M For Murder (1954), with Ray Milland as a villainous husband who attempts to murder his wealthy wife (Grace
Kelly) - also shot in 3-D
Rear Window (1954) - a masterful study of voyeurism confined to a Greenwich Village apartment complex and
courtyard, with Grace Kelly as a seductive girlfriend to beau James Stewart
To Catch a Thief (1955), a lightweight thriller set in S. France
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - a remake of Hitchcock's own 1934 spy thriller
Vertigo (1958), one of Hitchcock's greatest films, with James Stewart as a retired police detective who becomes
obsessed with the disturbed enigmatic 'wife' (Kim Novak) of an old friend
and the entertaining, romantic comedy/spy thriller
North By Northwest (1959) about an advertising executive (Cary
Grant) mistakenly acquiring the identity of a fictional governmental agent, and his encounter with an icy blonde Eva Marie
Saint
After Hitchcock's classic films of the 1950s, his films were wildly uneven, although he produced the shocking and engrossing thriller
Psycho (1960) about a loner mother-fixated motel owner and taxidermist - with the classic set piece (the 'shower scene'), and the
suspenseful and strangely terrifying The Birds (1963) about a invasion of birds in a N. California coastal town and its effect upon
archetypal cool blonde Tippi Hedren. His film Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's first British film in almost two decades, was given an R
rating for its vicious and explicit strangulation scene.
Psycho – 1960
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock's powerful, complex psychological thriller, Psycho (1960) is the
"mother" of all modern horror suspense films - it single-handedly ushered in an era of
inferior screen 'slashers' with blood-letting and graphic, shocking killings (e.g., Homicidal
(1961), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), Motel Hell (1980), and
DePalma's Dressed to Kill (1980) - with another transvestite killer and shower scene).
While this was Hitchcock's first real horror film, he was mistakenly labeled as a horror
film
director ever since.
The nightmarish, disturbing film's themes of corruptibility, confused identities,
voyeurism, human vulnerabilities and victimization, the deadly effects of money, Oedipal
murder, and dark past histories are realistically revealed. Its themes were revealed through
repeated uses of motifs, such as birds, eyes, hands, and mirrors.
The low-budget ($800,000), brilliantly-edited, stark black and white film came after
Hitchcock's earlier glossy Technicolor hits Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959),
and
would have been more suited for as an extended episode for his own b/w TV series Alfred
Hitchcock Presents. In fact, the film crew was from the TV show, including
cinematographer John L. Russell.
The master of suspense skillfully manipulates and guides the audience into identifying with the main character, luckless victim Marion
(a Phoenix real-estate secretary), and then with that character's murderer - a crazy and timid taxidermist named Norman (a brilliant
typecasting performance by Anthony Perkins). Hitchcock's techniques voyeuristically implicate the audience with the universal, dark
evil forces and secrets present in the film.
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Psycho also broke all film conventions by displaying its leading female protagonist having a lunchtime affair in her sexy white
undergarments in the first scene; also by photographing a toilet bowl - and flush - in a bathroom (a first in an American film), and
killing off its major 'star' Janet Leigh a third of the way into the film (in a shocking, brilliantly-edited shower murder scene
accompanied by screeching violins). The 90-odd shot shower scene was meticulously storyboarded by Saul Bass, but directed by
Hitchcock himself.
[A satirical parody of scenes from various Hitchcock films, including some from Psycho, were included in Mel
Brooks' comedy High Anxiety (1978). The shower scene itself has been referenced, spoofed and parodied in
numerous films, including Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Dressed to Kill (1980),
Squirm (1976), Victor Zimmerman's low-budget Fade to Black (1980), Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981), John
De Bello's Killer Tomatoes Strike Back! (1990), Martin Walz' The Killer Condom (1997, Ger.), Wes Craven's
Scream 2 (1997), Scott Spiegel's From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999), and the animated Looney
Tunes: Back in Action (2003), in which Bugs acts out with the film's black-and-white footage and a can of Hershey's
chocolate syrup poured down the drain.]
In this film, Hitchcock's gimmicky device, termed a MacGuffin (the thing or device that motivates the characters, or propels the plot
and action), is the stolen $40,000 from the realtor's office. Marion Crane becomes a secondary MacGuffin after her murder.
The film's screenplay by Joseph Stefano was adapted from a novel of the same name by author Robert Bloch. Remarkably, Bloch's
1959 novel was based on legendary real-life, Plainfield, Wisconsin psychotic serial killer Edward Gein, whose murderous character
also inspired the mother-obsessed farmer in Deranged (1974), the Leatherface character in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and
serial killer Jame Gumb ("Buffalo Bill") in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
[Bloch became a major horror screenwriter during the 60s decade and beyond, responsible for such suspenseful
horror films and chillers as The Cabinet of Caligari (1962) - an update of the 1919 classic, Strait Jacket (1964), The
Night Walker (1964), The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966), The Deadly Bees (1967), The Torture Garden
(1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), Asylum (1972), the short feature Mannikin (1977), and The Amazing
Captain Nemo (1977).]
Like many of Hitchcock's films, Psycho is so very layered and complex that multiple viewings are necessary to capture all of its
subtlety. Symbolic imagery involving stuffed birds and reflecting mirrors are ever-present. Although it's one of the most frightening
films ever made, it has all the elements of very dark, black comedy. This film wasn't clearly understood by its critics when released.
Hitchcock admitted that Henri-Georges Clouzot's influential thriller Les Diaboliques (1955, Fr.) inspired his film.
This taut masterpiece was followed by three feature film sequels (none directed by Hitchcock) and other imitations or TV films:
Title
Director
Comment
Psycho (1960)
Not rated until 1968, when an
early version of the MPAA
Alfred Hitchcock
ratings system rated it M, for
mature audiences only; a 1984
reissue re-rated the film R
Anthony Perkins as Norman
Bates
Anthony Perkins as Norman,
released from a mental
hospital after 22 years;
Note: This was a record
Richard Franklin
Marion's sister Lila Loomis
interval - 23 years between a 'I'
(again Vera Miles) protests
and 'II' picture.
his release
Anthony Perkins, in his Anthony Perkins as Norman,
Psycho III (1986)
directorial debut
25 years later
TV pilot film, with Bud Cort
Bates Motel (1987)
Richard Rothstein
as Bates Motel manager
Made for Cable-TV film,
with Anthony Perkins as
Psycho IV: The Beginning
Mick Garris
Norman, Henry Thomas as a
(1990)
young Norman, and Olivia
Hussey as Norma Bates
An almost 'scene-by-scene'
(actually 'shot-by-shot')
remake (or replication) of
Psycho (1998)
Gus Van Sant
the original classic, that only
generated interest for the
original film
The film's four Academy Award nominations failed to win Oscars: Best Supporting Actress (Janet Leigh with her sole career
nomination), Best Director (Alfred Hitchcock with the last of his five losing nominations), Best B/W Cinematography, and Best B/W
Psycho II (1983)
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Art Direction/Set Decoration. Bernard Herrmann's famous and memorable score with shrieking, harpie-like piercing violins was unnominated.
When the film was originally aired in theaters in mid-1960, Hitchcock insisted in a publicity gimmick (a la P.T. Barnum) that no one
would be seated after the film had started - the decree was enforced by uniformed Pinkerton guards. Audiences assumed that
something horrible would happen in the first few minutes. Violence is present for about two minutes total in only two shocking, grisly
murder scenes, the first about a third of the way through, and the second when a Phoenix detective named Arbogast is stabbed at the
top of a flight of stairs and topples backwards down the staircase. The remainder of the horror and suspense is created in the mind of
the audience, although the tale does include such taboo topics as transvestism, implied incest, and hints of necrophilia.
Detailed summary available at http://www.filmsite.org/psyc.html
The Shower Scene
[In the next scene, the classic, brutal shower murder scene, an unexplainable, unpremeditated, and irrational
murder, the major star of the film - Marion - is shockingly stabbed to death after the first 47 minutes of the
film's start. It is the most famous murder scene ever filmed and one of the most jarring. It took a full week to
complete, using fast-cut editing of 78 pieces of film, 70 camera setups, and a naked stand-in model (Marli
Renfro) in a 45-second impressionistic montage sequence, and inter-cutting slow-motion and regular speed
footage. The audience's imagination fills in the illusion of complete nudity and fourteen violent stabbings.
Actually, she never really appears nude (although the audience is teased) and there is only implied violence - at
no time does the knife ever penetrate deeply into her body. In only one split instant, the knife tip touches her
waist just below her belly button. Chocolate syrup was used as 'movie blood', and a casaba melon was chosen
for the sound of the flesh-slashing knife.]
The infamous scene begins peacefully enough. She opens up a bar of soap, and turns on the overhead shower
water - from a prominent shower head nozzle (diagonally placed in the upper left) that sends arched needles of
spray over her like rain water. There in the vulnerable privacy of her bathroom, she begins to bathe, visibly
enjoying the luxurious and therapeutic feel of the cleansing warm water on her skin. Marion is relieved as the
water washes away her guilt and brings energizing, reborn life back into her. Large closeups of the shower
head, that resembles a large eye, are shot from her point-of-view - they reveal that the water bursts from its head
and pours down on her - and the audience. She soaps her neck and arms while smiling in her own private world
(or "private island") - oblivious for the moment to the problems surrounding her life.
With her back to the shower curtain, the bathroom door opens and a shadowy, grey tall figure enters the
bathroom. Just as the shower curtain completely fills the screen - with the camera positioned just inside the tub,
the silhouetted, opaque-outlined figure whips aside (or tears open) the curtain barrier. The outline of the figure's
dark face, the whites of its eyes, and tight hair bun are all that is visible - 'she' wields a menacing, phallic-like
butcher knife high in the air - at first, it appears to be stab, stab, stabbing us - the victimized viewer! The
piercing, shrieking, and screaming of the violin strings of Bernard Herrmann's shrill music play a large part in
creating sheer terror during the horrific scene - they start 'screaming' before Marion's own shrieks. [The sound
track resembles the discordant sounds of a carnivorous bird-like creature 'scratching and clawing' at its prey.]
Marion turns, screams (her wide-open, contorted mouth in gigantic close-up), and vainly resists as she shields
her breasts, while the large knife repeatedly rises and falls in a machine-like fashion.
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The murderer appears to stab and penetrate into her naked stomach, shattering her sense of security and
salvation. The savage killing is kinetically viewed from many angles and views. She is standing in water mixed
with ejaculatory spurts of blood dripping down her legs from various gashes - symbolic of a deadly and violent
rape. She turns and falls against the bathtub tiles, her hand 'clawing and grasping' the back shower wall for the
last shred of her own life as the murderer (resembling a grey-haired woman wearing an old-fashioned dress)
quickly turns and leaves. With an unbloodied face and neck/shoulder area, she leans into the wall and slides,
slides, and slides down the wet wall while looking outward with a fixed stare - the camera follows her slow
descent.
In a closeup, Marion outstretches her hand (toward the viewer), clutches onto the shower curtain and pulls it
down from its hooks (one by one) upon herself as she collapses over the edge of the bathtub - her face pitches
forward and is awkwardly pressed to the white bathroom floor in front of the toilet. She lies bleeding on the
cold, naked floor, with the shower nozzle still spraying her body with water [the soundtrack resembles soft
rainfall].
The camera slowly tracks the blood and water that flows and swirls together counter-clockwise down into the
deep blackness of the bathtub drain - Marion's life has literally gone down the drain. The drain dissolves into a
memorable closeup - a perfect match-cut camera technique - of Marion's dead-still, iris-contracted [a dead
person's iris is not contracted but dilated], fish-like right eye with one tear drop (or drop of water). The camera
pulls back up from the lifeless, staring eye (freeze-framed and frozen at the start of the pull back), spiraling in
an opposite clockwise direction - signifying release from the drain. [The association of the eye within the
bottomless darkness of the drain is deliberate, as is the contrast between Norman's 'peeping tom' eye and
Marion's dead eye. Her eye is slightly angled upward toward where Norman was positioned.]
Visit http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/stills/shower-1.html to see the shower scene shot by shot.
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