The Not So Pointless Pointless Spiraling Of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

In the present day when people hear the name Alfred Hitchcock they think about frightening black and white films, A director with an amazing talent to make the audience uneasy, and an ability to tell a story with very little words. Hitchcock’s Psycho(1960) is one of the most if not the most well-known classic horror movie. This film contains one of the most studied scenes in film history, the shower scene, and I will be taking a good look at this scene as well. I also will be looking at the opening scene then comparing these two most stylistically opposite scenes of the film. The whole film is a journey to the insane, the opening is the most realistic scene that the movie offers and the shower scene is the most absurd and expressionistic the film gets. Comparing the two scenes shows the large repertoire that Hitchcock has and the two very different styles the film contains documentary realism and expressionism.

Alfred Hitchcock opens the scene with a wide establishing shot letting the audience know exactly where they are. Then to reinforce the place of the story is going to begin, title cards are placed on screen stating the setting as “Phoenix, Arizona” (Fig.1). The date and time are also shown on screen giving a very strong understanding to the audience of when and where this film is taking place. This was not a usual tactic made by directors in the 1950s unless it was a documentary film. The use of the title cards makes the film be seen as total fact and that nothing the audience is being shown is going to trick them, for now at least. The camera still continuing it’s establishing shot begins to zoom in on a building getting closer and closer, rather slowly allowing the audience enough time to grasp the movement and change of setting. Then with a slow fade to a closer shot of the window of the hotel, so smoothly that it seems completely natural (Fig.2). This is where the camera slowly flies thru the window, and just like the human eye, the camera has to adjust to the dark space slowly. The room seems black at first then the lens dilates as it becomes accustomed to the dark, intimate space. This human-like reaction the camera lens has makes the audience take on the point of view of the camera. This is the first introduction to the theme of voyeurism and the uncomfortable arousal in the audience from being able to watch something they are not supposed to see. The gaze of the audience is met with a very intimate shot of Marion Crane(Janet Leigh) and Sam Loomis(John Gavin) in the afterglow of their affair, with Marian lying out on the bed in her under clothing, a very vulnerable position for our leading lady(Fig.3). Everything about this scene is soft. The lighting is delicate and dispersed around the room, there are no harsh lines, their voices are light and full of air, all together building a comfortable space and a warm feeling between Marian and, her lover, Sam. The first shot the viewers see is a full body shot of Marian lying in bed, Sam standing next to the bed with a majority of his body out of frame, this immediately tells the audience that all eyes should be on Marian at all times, not the man in the room. The limited amount of cuts lets the audience forget that they are watching a film, it allows them to forget that everything that they are being shown has been placed there by a director. The small amount of cuts in the scene is a tactic used by neo-realism film directors, even the color filter of this scene is reminiscent of realism films.

It is rather hard to speak about the shower scene without mentioning the rest of the film. The whole film has been leading up to this moment, there have been hints throughout the film like; the shower head over Marion’s right shoulder while she is packing to run away(Fig.4). Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins) not being able to hear Marion pull up to the motel because of the rain, or even as obvious as Norman not being able to say the word bathroom while showing Ms.Crane to her room. The whole point of the film was to get the audience to this motel, the audience has just spent almost an hour of their time becoming invested in Marion and her story, and just as the shower washes away the blood of Marion it washes away any importance of all other plot points involving the money and Marion’s “private island.” The scene begins with Marion sat at her desk doing some accounting, a little exposition letting the audience know that she has decided to take the money back and face the consequences of her past decisions. She then rips up the paper and decides to flush the paper down the toilet out of some sort of suspension or paranoia. While Marion begins to throw the paper into the toilet we are given a good shot into the bathroom and it is completely white. This is something Hitchcock has done many times before, the whiteness of the room gives off a feeling of complete cleanliness of the space, it is all very sanitary(Fig.5). The audience is then shown the toilet directly in the center of the screen, a rather taboo thing to do in the 60s, this is already a sign for the audience to get comfortable with the uncomfortable(Fig.6). Then the moviegoers see Marion strip down out of her robe, step into the shower and turn on the water. Then a shot we will be shown two times in the next scene both with very different undertones and meanings. The subjective point of view shot of the shower head, it has a very rejuvenating feeling to it, Marion has just decided to return the money she stole and this shower is going to cleanse her of her mistakes(Fig.7). At that moment it is the first time the audience sees a true smile from Marion, she is finally happy and comfortable in the shower(Fig.8). We have a continuous shot of Marion and then a slight disorienting cut, that some call the wet hair cut, where the camera has slightly moved to the right of Marion and has zoomed in(Fig.9). This cut has made the audience doubt how long this shower has been going on, the audience just went from watching something live action to missing a section of time. We have a cut to the shower head but this time it is a side view, much more objective than before, Hitchcock then breaks the 180-degree rule, by breaking this rule it dizzies the audience. But before they can even get a true grasp of what has happened there is another cut. A shot that by no means settles the audience’s stomach. The shot has Marian small in the right corner will a large white open space just over her right shoulder just asking to be filled by something(Fig.10). This has the audience at the edge of their seat, they know something is going to fill that space. And then the silhouette of the door opening the negative space is filled and the camera begins to slowly zoom in on the figure getting closer to the curtain. This zoom in makes the shadow behind the curtain seem that much larger, that much more oppressive. Then the whirl of the shower curtain being pulled back is heard with a loud screeching of string instruments the shadow of Mother and the rise of a blade(Fig.11). This is when the true murder scene begins. “As she turns in response to the feel and SOUND of the shower curtain being torn aside. A look of pure horror erupts in her face. A low terrible groan begins to raise up out of her throat.”(Stefano, 1960) There are three shots and two cuts allowing the audience to feel the terror that Marion is feeling. First shot, her spinning around to see her attacker(Fig.12), next shot, it is closer on Marion(Fig.13) then another even closer with only Marion’s screaming mouth on the screen(Fig.14). We flashback to Mother slashing into the camera, “An impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very screen, ripping the film.”(Stefano, 1960) The next shot and cut sequence is one of the most recognized in film history, it is savage and has a way of grabbing the audience by the throat and forcing them to watch. Throughout this entire progression of shots we only see Marion get touched once with by the blade, but with the movement and action, the cuts create the audience believes Marion has been just been brutally stabbed to death and murdered. Marion’s flailing hands become the strongest storyteller of this scene. We see Marion’s hand fighting against Mother, we see her hands shoot out in pain, we see them reach out desperately trying to stop the assault on her body, we see them slowly slide down the wall. We see her hand’s reach out and grab the shower curtain, fighting to stand, as Marion is taking her last breaths of air and finally we see her hands fail to catch her as she falls and hits the ground. Cut from Marion’s lifeless body to the subjective view of the shower head once again but this time the mood is more heartless, it feels as if it is some uncaring watchful eye that just saw a woman get murdered and it is just washing away her life, her existence down the drain. The camera then follows the water down from Marion’s bloody legs to the drain as we watch the blood of a woman, the audience has cared about, get washed away into nothing(Fig.15). The shot of the drain then slowly fades into Marion’s wide open eye (Fig.16), the shot almost spinning around her iris slowly moving farther and farther back slowly pans to the right, slowly flying into the hotel bedroom to focus on the money that was stolen for nothing. This scene has been called Hitchcock’s masterpiece for years and Hitchcock knew that it could be, he was obsessive over this scene. Hitchcock knew what he had to do something special with this scene for the rest of the film to work.

These two scenes couldn’t be more different, just on a technical level, the opening scene has seven cuts while the shower scene has 58 cuts. Both scenes have very different stylistic inspiration. The opening scene having much more neo-realist roots, is you look at the color pallet of the opening scene you can see the soft warm undertones. That is not where the neo-realism ends, the tactic of using extra long takes to pull in the audience, with very limited cuts but if there are they are smooth and continuous. Alfred Hitchcock started his career in German expressionist silent films that use colors like the shower scene, harsh blue blacks and cold tones that. The expressionist films of Hitchcock’s past have that similar coloring, where the whites are cool and the blacks are harsh with almost blue undertones. Another expressionist habit is to have a lot of strange lines and unusual set characteristic, which are similar to the lines created thru the fast-moving cuts in the shower scene. Both scenes also have a theme of mothers, in the first Marion’s mother is mentioned twice while in the other Mother is killing Marion. In the first scene, Marion’s mother is in picture form when Marion is inviting Sam to come over for a respectable dinner, with her sister there and her mother’s picture on the mantel. Sam then asks if after they could send her sister out and “turn mama’s picture to the wall?” (Stefano, 2016) so their respectable dinner can turn less respectable. In this case, mother is being used as an anti-premarital sex figure, mother would be ashamed of Marion if she knew what her daughter was doing. While in the shower scene, Mother is punishing Marion for sexually arousing Norman. Both have a similar anti-sexual freedom theme but one is in a completely passive position and the other literally killing a woman for her sins. A very obvious connection between the two scenes is their settings, one a cheap hotel and the other a motel. This is used in one case in particular when you compare the two. When we meet Marian we are introduced her in the hotel room and when her conversation unfolds with Sam it sounds like there is hope for this relationship, for a positive change in her life. Then when we get to the shower in the motel Marian’s life is ended with no care of her plans, and at the very end as the camera leaves her face it pans over the now empty bed, which was where we were introduced to Marian laying out on top of the hotel bed, finalizing the end of her life.

Though I am sure there are more hidden meaning that I am missing just like the many who have come before me. The two scenes are without a doubt very connected by their differences. One marks the beginning of a love filled life and other the ending of a woman alone in a faraway motel. These two scenes show some off some of the best aspects of two very different artistic styles, and they use the skill of both to tell the story in amazing detail. Psycho is one of the best films ever, and it will continue to be studied by many other film students offering something new with ever watch. These two scenes are the most stylistically different throughout the entire film making them interesting to compare and show of Alfred Hitchcock’s genius.

Bibliography

78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene. Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe. United States of America: IFC Midnight, 2017.

Hitchcock/Truffaut. Directed by Kent Jones. Performed by Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut. Italia: RAI Cinema, 2016.

Psycho. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Performed by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. United States of America: Universal Pictures, 1960. Film.

Stefano, Joseph. "Psycho (1960)." John Q (2002) Movie Script - Screenplays for You. Accessed December 11, 2018. https://sfy.ru/?script=psycho.

Alfred Hitchcock, “On Style,” in Sidney Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 285-302.

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