Alfred Hitchcock's Use Of Suspense In Psycho

Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, directed by Wes Anderson, are films that carry the art of suspense. In Psycho, Norman suffers greatly in the murdering of Marion and Arbogast. Similarly, Gustave, in the Grand Budapest Hotel is accused of the death of Madame D. In order to build incredible suspense, there must be a shred of doubt. However, when there is no doubt, surprise can become an equally entertaining substitute. Psycho and The Grand Budapest Hotel combines both suspense and surprise masterfully with the use of aesthetics that is, lighting, cinematography, and set design.

In Psycho, the lighting easily takes viewers from a complicated romance to a dark, thrilling conclusion. The lighting is important

Hitchcock uses the camera to manipulate the audience, to hide the truth, to fabricate Norman’s mother, to convey suspense. Rather than discussing his choice of cinematography in his most memorable shower scene, let's examine his applied cinematography in another brief yet a critical moment. Marion listens to Norman Bates argue with his mother, Norma, in their house behind the motel. Marion stands by the window of her room, listening to their conversation from a distance, clueless of Norman’s schizophrenic episode. Marion, along with the audience, is tricked into believing Norman’s mother is arguing with him when in the story’s reality he is arguing with his alternate personality. The audience, like Marion, never gets to see the argument or the mother’s face throughout the film. The shot in which we see Marion’s point-of-view of the house relates to the sequence in that she is far from the truth, in fact, she’s blind. The sequence itself relates to the film’s deceptive, ambiguous representation of Norman’s mother. The camera is displayed in a simplistic form in the Grand Budapest Hotel, one of the scenes that demonstrate that is Zero’s interview. The movement of the camera throughout the scene and the whole movie is motivated by the character movement. As a character changes their physical position or they change their dialogue the camera will change the character. This way we are able to see what is actually in the frame. The cinematography used in this shot illustrates the simplicity of the filming. It also illustrates the relationship between the two characters as we see Zero trying to follow along with Gustav in order to maintain his job working in the hotel. During the next sequence the shot changes back and forth between a side on tracking shot and a straight on, wide shot. The tracking shot shows Gustav interviewing Zero with numerous questions. And the straight on shot shows other characters