Slicing through the layers of "Psycho"

Fifty-five years may sound old, but hardly any dust has settled on Alfred Hitchcock's supreme horror film "Psycho" since its release in 1960. It's one of only a handful of films that CineVerse has screened and discussed three times in our 10-year history, and, as demonstrated by the strong member turnout every screening of it elicits, it remains thrilling, entertaining, and endlessly fascinating as a work of pure cinema. Here are some of the points we covered in our discussion of the picture last evening:

CAN YOU NAME ANY EXAMPLES OF HOW PSYCHO CHANGED CINEMA FOREVER?

• It inaugurated a new era of increased graphic violence for intense shock value; It’s the first true slasher movie

• It broke down film censorship barriers by depicting casual sex between two unmarried lovers, showing extensive footage of a scantily clad woman, showing a peeping Tom, violation of a naked woman in the shower, and was even the first feature film instance of a flushing toilet

• It is the first to kill off the major character/primary hero so early—within the first third—essentially making Marion a red herring diversion and Psycho a great practical joke

• It manipulated audiences into switching allegiances/sympathies from one innocent protagonist to another who turned out to be evil: think of how you felt when Norman waited for the car to sink in the swamp, or when we hear him shockingly say to his mother, “Oh, mother…the blood!”

• It usurped 1950s conventionality and repressive values—turning the Ozzie and Harriet generation on its ear; according to critic David Thomson, “Most films of the 50s are secret ads for the way of life. Psycho is a warning about its lies and limits”.

• The score was extremely influential: a sparse, abstract arrangement of shrieking, unrelenting strings—later copied in films like Jaws

• Psycho became one of the first big buzz event movies thanks to a great publicity campaign and due to Hitchcock’s rule that no one be seated after the film started. The marketing campaign begged the audience not to reveal any plot twists; movie theaters soon initiated policies that set specific showtimes and didn’t allow audiences into the theater once a film started

THERE ARE MANY PARALLELS SUGGESTED BETWEEN VARIOUS SETS OF 2 DIFFERENT CHARACTERS IN THE FILM; CAN YOU IDENTIFY ANY OF THESE PARALLELS?

• Marion and Norman: You feel sympathy for both early on in the film, despite the fact that both have committed crimes—Marion the crime of theft, Norman the crime of covering up for whom you think is his mother, the murderer. 

o We exonerate Marion because she’s stealing the money for love, and because she’s stealing from a lecherous creep

• Norman and Sam: Sam had what Norman wanted (Marion) but couldn’t have—he’s honorable, handsome and prepared; Norman is gangly, awkward and unprepared; both were living a double life (Sam sneaking around to be Marion’s lover)

• Marion and Arbogast: both are victims of Norman, but the viewer hasn’t formed a subjective bond to Arbogast as they had with Marion

• Arbogast and Lila: Both investigate Marion’s disappearance, but Lila makes it further (upstairs and downstairs) than the private eye did and doesn’t pay the price he did

• Marion (first scene) and Marion (last scene): white undergarments (good girl) vs. black undergarments (bad girl)

• Norman (early on) and Norman (later, when mother’s secret is revealed): split personalities

• In fact, the extensive use of mirrors and mirror images throughout the movie suggests that anyone is capable of having a split personality

AUDIENCES TYPICALLY LEAVE THE THEATER FEELING TERRIFIED ONCE PSYCHO CONCLUDES. DOES THIS FEAR COME FROM THE GRAPHIC VIOLENCE AND BRUTAL MURDERS, OR IS IT SOMETHING ELSE?

• Because you are forced to identify and sympathize with the person who turns out to be an evil psychopath, you are forced to examine your own conscience by the film’s end and ask yourself: am I capable of committing these kinds of crimes? Do I have a bit of Norman Bates in me? Would I ever impulsively kill or steal?

• Think of how the film starts: suggesting that this could happen in any random life, in any random town—thus, it could happen to you

• The fear that you can’t trust anybody: at some point in the movie, we fear the police, a would-be helpless old lady, and a seemingly harmless looking young man

• The horror suggested by Norman’s actions: incest, necrophilia, taxidermy of a dead person, transvestism

• Also, they’ve been fooled by Hitchcock’s misdirection: you think the story is about the money theft, but it veers off into something completely different, by random chance. It’s this sudden turn of direction and arbitrary twist of fate that shocks viewers, even subconsciously

HOW DID PSYCHO DIFFER FROM PREVIOUS HITCHOCK EFFORTS IN THE FIFTIES LIKE “REAR WINDOW,” “VERTIGO” AND “NORTH BY NORTHWEST”?

• Those were bigger budget, glossy, color pictures with big name stars

• This was made to look like a cheap exploitation film in b/w—a longer version perhaps of one of his TV show episodes of the time

• There is no calming moral resolution by the end of this film—yes, the villain is captured, but we’re left feeling unnerved by Norman’s interior monologue

• There is no slick, handsome villain nor is there a hero/heroine who endures by the end

WHAT IS THIS FILM’S MACGUFFIN—THE DEVICE THAT MOVES THE PLOT ALONG BUT WHICH IS RELATIVELY MEANINGLESS?

• The $40,000, which Hitchcock forces us to dwell on up to the point where Norman sinks it in the trunk

• This becomes Hitchcock’s little joke—the money turns out to be insignificant by the end of the film, despite all the attention we’ve invested in it

• In this way, the last shot of the car being dragged out of the swamp is Hitchcock’s final laugh: it’s his way of tacking on a happy ending to the problem about the money—it’s ultimately found

THE SHOWER SEQUENCE IS OFTEN CITED AS ONE OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE AND IMPORTANT IN THE HISTORY OF FILM. WHAT’S INTERESTING ABOUT THIS SCENE?

• It borrows heavily from Soviet montage theory (of Sergei Eisenstein and others) and New Wave filmmaking

• It wouldn’t be nearly as shocking/effective if Hitchcock hadn’t so masterfully developed Marion’s character beforehand and forced us to identify/sympathize with her

• In fact, it becomes it’s all the more shocking the first time you see it because we feel so much better about Marion right before it: she’s decided to go home and give the money back, and she has a happier look upon her face. 

• You never actually see a naked body (that’s a body double in a sheer body suit) nor does your naked eye see a knife enter it; nor is the blood real or red (it’s chocolate syrup); it’s the power of suggestion that is really at work here, and that’s how Hitchcock was able to appease the censors, a very clever solution

• From the moment Marion disrobes and steps into the shower, the pace and cutting of the shots quicken; 90 cuts over 45 seconds

• also, the water shoots in contrasting directions to disorient us, as it did on her car windshield earlier, creating an anxious, out of sorts feeling

• The point of view is through the eyes of a voyeuristic killer

WHAT IS ARGUABLY THE ONLY BLEMISH IN THIS OTHERWISE EVERGREEN MASTERPIECE?

• The tacked-on psychologist’s diagnosis that explains Norman’s actions and psychosis, which probably goes on too long and softens the blow

• Yet, it makes the last scene of Norman’s internal monologue more effective, because everything we see and hear makes a mockery of what the shrink explains—this guy is pure evil (so much so that you can see a human skull slightly superimposed over his own smiling face in the second to the last shot).