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Alfred Hitchcock's Use Of Cinematic Techniques In Psycho

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The 1960’s thriller “Psycho,” written and directed by the famous auteur Alfred Hitchcock, is a cinematic marvel for its time. Using the mise-en-scène and many other stylistic devices such as the motif of birds, music, and the famed MacGuffin, Hitchcock can reposition the audience to transfer their allegiance and sympathy between the protagonists.
Duality is one of the main themes used within this psychological thriller. Hitchcock uses the duality of people to link to the character’s personalities and differences, to shift our belief of what is right and wrong, and whom we are sympathetic towards. The character ‘Norman Bates’, brilliantly portrayed by Anthony Perkins, is one main protagonist with a dual personality. Norman’s original personality …show more content…

Rolling back to Norman’s parlour we can see just how effectively Hitchcock has used mise-en-scène to position the viewer. Within the scene, we see and hear many things, such as the sliding music, produced by many violins, giving the audience an uneasy feel and positioning them to have a guilty notion that something bad is about to happen, and they can’t do anything to stop it. The most effective use of mise-en-scène within the film would be shadows, and in this scene, there are many ways shadows are used, one of the most prominent in the scene would be the way the characters are positioned. The audience sees Marion sitting there eating her food that Norman has prepared for her, Hitchcock has placed the viewer in a third person view between the two protagonists, and they intentionally look in on Norman and Marion having a private conversation returning them to voyeurism. Surrounded by light no shadow can be seen on her face, she is light, whereas Norman on the opposite side of the room is covered in shadows, still able to be seen but with more difficulty. These proceeds to show the diverse types of people, not only the good and the bad, but really those who choose to be good and succeed and those who are struggling to be but

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This paper will discuss the motif of the double in Strangers on a Train. While the double is a recurring motif in Hitchcock’s work that he routinely employs in order to explore questions of moral responsibility, identity, and guilt, it receives its most overt and thorough treatment in Strangers on a Train. Studies of the film have consistently understood Bruno as a stand in for Guy’s unspoken desire, the chaos held at bay by societal order - Guy does indeed want to ‘get rid of’ his wife, but he transfers this responsibility (and associated guilt) to Bruno (Walker; Wood; Dellolio; Truffaut). As Walker notes, in Hitchcock’s films, the double most often serves as an ‘alter ego’ that enacts the repressed/disavowed/unpermitted desires of another character. Indeed, as Walker points out, There is little ambiguity that this is precisely what Hitchcock meant to communicate in the film, as he has formally stated this in correspondence with Francois Truffaut:

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The practice of voyeurism is a debatable subject often criticized negatively for its perverted motives. Yet, through both Woolrich’s “It had to be murder” and its film adaptation Rear Window, the reader can be led to see a celebration of voyeurism rather than a critique. Jeffries is indeed given the most reasonable excuses to stalk his neighbours as his cast takes away his freedom of movement and the murder he tries to solve also gives him more reasons to spy on his neighbours. However, Jeff is greatly saved from being entitled as a Peeping Tom by the coincidence of Thorwald’s wife’s murder. As a matter of a fact, the timing in which Jeff is stuck in a cast and the woman is murder is nothing but a coincidence, neither Hitchcock nor Woolrich

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Also use Hitchcock in this scene graphic effects, depending on viewers’ imagination causing the sense of terror and dread on it. An element of Masculine Gothic is the trouble versions of masculinity of Norman. Mrs. Bates and Norman are the same person, but he has still his mother in his mind, and when he acts like Mrs. Bates, he treats himself like a little boy and corrects his behavior like when Mrs. Bates didn’t want sharing a dinner with Ms. Crain. Hitchcock

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Although the movie Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, does not follow the “Heroic Journey” format perfectly; the events that take place in Psycho imitate it closely. This is achieved through the meticulous creation of Norman Bates, as we observe a culmination of his actions, emotions, and the events that take place in his life. Psycho follows the traditional format by having a similarity to the 12 stages, beginning with the “ordinary world”, and ending with “atonement/resurrection”. In the initial stage, we have the “beginning” of the movie introducing Norman Bates, the owner of the Bates Motel. Of the first two stages in Psycho, this is by far the most prominent due to the fact that the initial ordinary world, including Mary Crane, was used to emphasize

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In Sidney Gottlieb’s article on “Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window: The Pleasure and Dangers of Looking”, they thoroughly explain how Hitchcocks direction of the movie such as filming angles lures the audience in being about the same position as the characters, by looking at the movie of people looking at people looking. They go into detail how looking can be both good and bad, with a bit of focus on the bad towards the end which correlates to the unwrapping of the crime in the movie and the onlocker as well as the audience being caught looking. They relate this danger to the abyss such as when you look into the abyss, the abyss is looking into you as well. Which I believe is as well as when you look into the abyss anything can happen because you cant see who or what can be looking back at you, therefore their can always be something looking at you. Like the curiosity or fear of the unknown, which

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To be able to lean back in a chair and peek in another’s life with no consequence is a guilty pleasure everyone shares; the power and intrigue makes it possible to almost feel like a god (admittedly a very limited one). The window into another’ life is the foundation of many art forms, including literature and especially cinema. In cinema, the audience derives the same voyeuristic pleasure of being glued to their seats and being forced to view a series of events unfold with no control over any of the events. This aspect of cinema makes Rear Window (Albert Hitchcock, 1954) a movie about watching movies through the usage of two layers to comment on what it means to be a member of the audience. The two layers are the “movie” L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries

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To the unknown eye, Hitchcock has carefully and skillfully used Mise-en-scene to his advantage, causing the audience to feel fear and a sense of caution towards the character of Norman Bates. It isn’t until we reflect back on the scene and notice how intelligently Hitchcock uses the positioning of props and the characters, lighting, camera angle and staging, that we notice how he has added meaning to his characters but has also to the film, creating suspense and fear from one scene to the end of the film. Ultimately proving the point that Hitchcock “the master of suspense” uses Mise-en-scene to not only help make a brilliant film but also uses it as his disposal to add meaning in his

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What is distinctively ‘Hitchcockian’ about Rear Window? Alfred Hitchcock, an important figure in film history, uses his creativity to make a perfect combination between entertaining and aesthetic. Therefore, his unique method of telling a story and theme choice is studied as the name of ‘Hitchcockian’, such as psychological complex and giving suspense. While Hitchcock built up his personal style, he still went through several periods to grow his recognition towards the film industry. And Rear Window, a highly successful film at the box office and being listed among best one hundred American films of all time in 1998 (Cowie, 2005), is an example of Hitchcock’s ‘mature’ period, shows the audience some distinctive parts of ‘Hitchcockian’ way

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The film Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock employs various clever camera movements and sequences which seem to portray the main character’s state of mind. Right from the opening sequence the cinematography in this film had me intrigued. The viewer is show the red filtered eyes of a mysterious woman which zooms into a black void where animated colored rings spin and zoom to a menacing and mysterious sounding score, all of this provides the foundation for a film about illusions. The film also does a good job at using an unreliable main character who is oblivious to the trickery going on around him. The character of Scottie is flawed through his naivety and his investment in romance.

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In this way, Hitchcock enables viewers to look into their “secret [and] private worlds” while Jeff sleeps. This purposeful approach presents the auteur’s argument that voyeurism is an unavoidable manifestation of human nature. The debate Hitchcock presents to viewers is whether “there’s no harm in looking”. As the panning shot glides through the village apartments in the opening sequence, showcasing each screen-like apartment, such as the one of Miss Torso, frolicking in her underwear to engross audiences in “Peeping tom” behaviour, setting the foundation for audiences to resonate with Jeff’s desire to “to find out what's the matter with the salesman's wife” later in the film. Alongside Jeff, the viewer looks through Jeff’s rear window with an expectation of entertainment.

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The Film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, effectively presented the ideas of murder and schizophrenia through the use of characters, with the double-sided Norman Bates in particular, and visual techniques as well as sound techniques. The ideas of murder and schizophrenia were presented well in the movie "psycho" through the use of characters. The character of Norman Bates was the central character in the film and had a complex and differing personality. One moment he was shy, kind, lonely Norman Bates, a mother's boy, and the next he was a deadly jealous Mrs. Bates, his deceased mother.

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One can see parallels between American Psycho and Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, in which a wealthy bonds trader named Sherman McCoy sees himself as the “master of the universe” and thus above the law when he is put on trial for an accidental murder he committed. Bateman differs from McCoy in that Bateman’s self-image is entirely dependent upon how others perceive him, and he craves validation in order to justify to himself that he is better and more intelligent than those around him. He looks down upon everyone as worthless compared to him and portrays the façade of the perfect man while simultaneously seeking positive feedback from others in order to prop up his ego and keep away the fear that his “mask” could crumble at any moment. This fragile image of the self, according to the author, is a common issue among most people within the upper echelons of the capitalist system, and Bateman’s psychosis is thus intensified by psychological stressors that already exist in modern

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However, film critic, Robin Wood, argues that ‘since Psycho, the Hollywood cinema has implicitly recognised horror as both American and familial’ he then goes on to connect this with Psycho by claiming that it is an “innovative and influential film because it supposedly presents its horror not as the produce of forces outside American society, bit a product of the patriarchal family which is the fundamental institution of American society” he goes on to discuss how our civilisation either represses or oppresses (Skal, 1994). Woods claim then suggests that in Psycho, it is the repressions and tensions within the normal American family which produces the monster, not some alien force which was seen and suggested throughout the 1950 horror films. At the beginning of the 60’s, feminisation was regarded as castration not humanization. In “Psycho” (1960) it is claimed that the film presents conservative “moral lessons about gender roles of that the strong male is healthy and normal and the sensitive male is a disturbed figure who suffers from gener confusion” (Skal, 1994). In this section of this chapter I will look closely at how “Psycho” (1960) has layers of non-hetro-conforming and gender-non conforming themes through the use of Norman Bates whose gender identitiy is portrayed as being somewhere between male and female

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