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Textual Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

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Alfred’s Psycho was one to shift classic form of horror and lead to transformation of horror conventions. The horror genre used to involve “monster movies” where man battled with supernatural creatures. Hitchcock however portrayed the ‘monster’ as a soul living in the head of Norman bates. Psycho, taken from its name has psychological horror. The motivation of this production was to simply entertain people, giving them the fear experience they want. Although Psycho was solely crafted to entertain the intended audience of horror genre followers, it still indirectly condemned aspects of social norms from the 1960s of America such as how woman should be married before sexual activity which is explored in the opening scene. Hitchcock also deliberated …show more content…

In this textual analyses, I will be analyzing a 5-minute excerpt of Hitchcock’s Psycho. (Minutes 36:25 to 42:00) Cinematography (such as colour, composition, exposure, framing, focus scale, movement, shot type, and so on): Alfred Hitchcock once said; ‘The point is to draw the audience right inside the situation instead of leaving them to watch it from outside, from a distance.’ This was his style of film, visual storytelling whilst attaching the viewer to the film. Alfred liked visuals; he conveyed lots of emotion through the faces of characters and told the story through their expression, helping build the audiences interpretations of the given situation. His shots and angles help convey the emotion better. At the beginning, there is a point-of-view shot of Marion exploring Norman’s Parlour, and thus, his hobby of taxidermy. The exposure shot almost plays out as an establishing shot of the creepy

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