Psycho!!!
There are examples of enigma all throughout the Hitchcock movie Psycho. The audience is constantly left to question what is going on. In my opinion, a good example of this is when Marion stops at the Bates Hotel. Norman Bates, at first glance looks like a normal, nice guy who seems to be infatuated by Marion. He offers her dinner due to the fact that it is raining heavily outside. All of a sudden, you hear the voice of his “mother” which completely threw me off. When the two finally sit down to eat, Norman seems fidgety and is acting quite weird and anxious. When Marion goes back to her room, Norman gets even creepier by stalking her through a hole that is connected to her room. Peeping Tom! She is taking a shower and then out of nowhere, an “old woman” comes with a knife and slaughters Marion. This in itself was confusing because if you recall, Norman said that his mother was ill, so how could an ill old lady have enough strength the kill Marion. Also brought into question is the fact that the mother’s face is never shown. At the end of the movie, the solution is given, but while watching the movie for the first time, I had no idea what was going on, and why it was happening. Obviously, we the audience knew something bad was going to happen because while Marion was taking her peaceful shower, there was non-diegetic music playing that was racy and caused anxiety in the audience. A scene where a delay was introduced for me was the scene where Marion steals the money. I questioned why she was even stealing the money because it happened so fast. I honestly thought that she was going to put the money in the bank. I guess I am just naive. I knew that the audience would eventually get an answer because Marion was the central focus. The fraud was that Marion, while in the hotel, seemed to be contemplating giving the money back, as she subtracted the amount that she used. This could also work as the equivocation because it is a mixture of fraud and truth. We never really get to see if she returns the money because the disclosure is that she is murdered. I do not believe that a partial answer is given. The effect of this delay in my opinion is to evoke complete confusion, and keep the question of, “what is she running from?” in our heads. She should have been running from that psycho killer. Hitchcock really engaged the audience in his film.
The movie Psycho is in no way a classical paradigm. When the antagonist, Marion dies, the audience is left confused and unsatisfied. After the main character died, I didn’t understand why it happened and I was hoping that she would make it through her harsh stabbing. I was wondering why she was even killed. Was it because the mother was jealous of his son being infatuated by another girl or was it because the mother and Norman knew about the money she had, and wanted it in order to build a new hotel on the main highway to get more business? Because of this, I believe that this movie is a writerly text because the audience could interpret the movie in many ways. For example, when Marion was packing her things to leave town, I honestly had no idea why she was doing so. Could it be because she wanted to be with her lover Sam? Could it be because she just wanted to start new, and this was her only opportunity to do so? Toward the middle of the movie when Marion stops at the Bates hotel, I had no idea what the point of the movie was. I was completely confused until the very end when things were explained.
I read through your post on psycho and thought you did a good job on touching upon many of the delays seen in the film. There were a few specific things you wrote about that I’d like to discuss further. One of the things you mentioned was that the mother’s face was never shown. In the bathroom scene where the mother stabs Marion, I kept wondering why the mother’s face wasn’t shown. All you could really see was her hair, but the face was just a blur. All other instances where the mother character is shown are through the window of the big house where you could only see her shadow. The only other instance was when Norman carries his mother down the steps, but in this scene her face is still concealed. We just get a view of him carrying a small, limp body down the steps. Although we hear her voice many times, we never actually get to see the mom until the very end. I definitely believe this to be a delay but which one exactly I’m not sure. It could be seen as fraud because it definitely hides the truth; it could be seen as equivocation because we do get the truth of the mother figure being there but the fraud of who the mother actually is; and it could be seen as a partial answer because some facets of the truth are revealed but many are still withheld from the audience. In the way that this movie can be interpreted in so many different ways I have to agree with you that it is a writerly text. No answers are revealed until the end and this leaves the story open to the imagination of the viewer. One other thing I wanted to mention was you discussing the fact that Marion, our antagonist, dies in the middle of the movie and we are left feeling confused and unsatisfied. I feel like this is a very important aspect of the movie and its untraditional plot line. When she was stabbed the audience sits there thinking she has to be ok, she can’t die, she’s the main character. Following today’s use of the classical paradigm, many people aren’t used to the main character dying in the middle of the film. Just like how Pyle dies in the middle of Full Metal Jacket, Marion dying in the middle portrays another example of a movie breaking outside that typical plot line.
ReplyDeleteThere are many aspects of your analysis that I would have to agree with you. The director leaves the audience with plenty of opportunities to question what is going to happen and why things have happened. An example where the director continues to leave the audience in question is after Bates and Marion have dinner; Marion states that she must get some rest because she needs to drive back to Phoenix. Does that mean that she was going to return the money? Hitchcock also does make Bates to seem like this wonderful and nice guy only to later find him peeping into Marion’s room. Audience is able to pick up on the fact that Bates gets extremely defensive of his mother when Marion suggest he put her in a home. Bates argues that he would never do such thing. As to your comment about Bates saying his mother is an ill woman so how could an ill woman have such strength to murder someone; Bates never stated that she was ill as in sick, I thought of it as him saying she was mentally ill. I believe that the delay of why she stole the money is not only the question of “what is she running from?” but also “will Marion be able to get away with it?”. I think that throughout the movie you wonder if both Marion and Bates will be able to get away with their individual crimes. I would have to agree that Hitchcock did an excellent job at capturing the attention of the audience throughout the movie. Just when you thought that you could finally understand what was happening in the movie something would surprise you. I think that Hitchcock killing off Marion is another way that he could leave the audience in suspense of what could happen next. Overall, I think you explained very well through your examples why this film is a writerly text and I would have to agree with you on that.
ReplyDeleteThe blog by Jessica D. covered most of the themes covered in Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Psycho”. In her blog, Jessica explains how the way the information is presented to viewers is made in such a way as to confuse us and keep us thinking and solving mysteries throughout the motion picture. She points out Norman’s strange initial behavior, where he comes across as a pleasant and helping individual but eccentric and disturbing at the same time. Norman is the most complex character in the film, making audiences constantly second guess their initial hunches about the film’s narrative direction. Is he “the psycho”? He seems nice, but through pop culture we know this movie is about a killer, could Norman be the man?
ReplyDeleteDifferently from Jessica’s view, my belief is that the true question of the film is not about Marion’s plan to run away and whether or not she would have kept the money. In my opinion, this is just a side story, setting up the perfect scene for Norman Bates’ entrance into the audience’s world. The theft and runaway also throw our second group of “heros” into the action. Marion’s sister, her lover and a private investigator. These characters however, are merely there to give Norman a reason to act in the strange and twisted way he does, so that the audience has the opportunity to see Norman’s inner battle. They are not the main characters. Yes, they are the good guys, but the true main characters of this tale are Norman Bates himself, and a second character, his split personality, his dark side, a completely different character. This film does contain parts of the classical paradigm, such as the eventual capture and incarceration of the antagonist of the film, and the survival of our two “good guys”, however, the ending of the film does not leave us with a sense of peace and rejoicing found in most classical paradigms. Norman Bates is a twisted schizophrenic who has taken the lives of too many, and his demonic smile remains with us as we leave the theater.