Filmikaze!

By: Alfred Hitchcock (director)

Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles

A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer’s client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother.

This past term, I took a class focused on the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. We were required to write up our impressions of each film we viewed, and my post on Psycho was a favorite. Now that the term is over, I’m free to share it here!

Psycho remains one of my two favorite Hitchcock films, even after I’ve spent all term catching up on many of the ones I haven’t seen. (For the record, my other favorite is Rear Window, which I highly recommend to everyone.) Even were I to indulge in Hitchcock’s entire catalog and meticulously pick apart every film he’s made, Psycho will always remain a favorite for all of the reasons that it is so iconic. This is a film that legitimately makes me excited about the craft of filmmaking every, single time I view it.

Compared with other Hitchcock films made within the same time period, Psycho is very pared-down — There are no slick car chases or shoot outs to be found here. Hitchcock has said that he was going for the look of a cheap, exploitation film, but I think that beyond wanting the feel of that genre, the lack of polish (and funding) freed up the film to become a thriller in its most basic, potent form. I’ve not seen the remake, but I strongly believe this is not a film which works in color the way it did in black and white; while money may have factored into the use of black and white film, there can be no doubt that the stark quality of shadows and light add to the visual impact in a very tangible way. Even though Hitchcock had “evolved” from black and white into color, I think that we see some of his strongest work in this return to his monochromatic roots.

There is, for instance, something particularly sinister about the few dark smears of blood we see while Norman is fastidiously cleaning up; bright red blood would seem too gory, would remove from the somber, methodical process of killing and sweeping away. Hitchcock used chocolate syrup instead of fake blood because the blood substitute did not read as dark enough for his stark black and white palette; he understood that the blood needed to be very obvious to the viewer, despite there being relatively little of it. On all that bright white it is shocking in a way that gets right to a viewer’s most primal instincts.

There are a lot of incredible shots in this film and I realize that everyone who ever talks about Psycho waxes lyrical about the shower scene, but I cannot write about this film and not mention it. In my experience, there are few scenes in the history of cinema executed as perfectly as the sequence where Marion slides down the wall, reaches blindly for the shower curtain and falls, pulling the curtain with her and popping it free of its rings. We see the steady flow of water down the bathtub drain and then we disolve on a slowly-rotating shot of Marion’s lifeless eye and pull back onto the startling image of her body, once beautiful and now contorted and grotesque where it is slumped against the floor. This scene shakes me right to my boots; it isn’t simply a really good horror shot, it is nothing less than exquisite in the way it quietly and calmly reaches out and pulls a visceral reaction from the viewer.

I have to mention the skillful use of sound in the film, as well. The absence of a score speaks as powerfully as the use of one, and it is those long, tense silences which make the intense, chaotic music all the more effective when it comes in. The steady thrum of the shower water is as unsettling as any musical piece that could have been used there.

It should also be said that Anthony Perkins’ portrayal of Norman Bates crafted him into one of the most memorable characters in film history. Up until the very end, there is no moment he is on screen when you do not feel the subtle current of unease emanating from him, even when he is bright and chipper. The greatest feat, though, is how Norman manages to be such a thoroughly sympathetic character despite it all; you feel genuinely sorry for the guy. Perkins was particularly brilliant at the use of subtle body language to communicate volumes, and Hitchcock amazing at using that to his advantage in shots. While Norman is sinking Marion’s car in the marsh, for instance, there is something unsettlingly casual about the way he watches it, snacking as it sinks. This is the first time it becomes starkly obvious that this guy may not just be protecting his mother. One of the best shots in the whole picture, I think, is that close-up of Norman’s face while he’s watching Arbogast peruse the hotel register: Norman tilts his head and we pan down with him until we’re looking up at the dark shadow under his chin, and then follow him as he leans back up. And, of course, there are few more chilling shots than that final look we see on Norman’s face at the end, all trace of the potentially sweet and subservient personality utterly gone.

I do think it’s somewhat unfortunate that the woman who engages in premarital sex then has to die; I’m not sure if this is where that horror trope originated or not, since as far as I know it wasn’t popularized until the Seventies. Trope or no trope, it’s a very small blip on what is overall a magnificent piece of filmmaking; small enough that it’s almost nit-picking to mention it when placed against the context of the whole work, even for someone like me who generally has issues with that sort of thing. I can at least say that Hitchcock did not strip Marion of all her autonomy when around a love interest as he did with so many of his other heroines, which is an improvement of a sort, I suppose. Overall, though, it’s not really Marion’s experience that stays with the viewer; it’s Norman’s, it all of its deeply discomfiting and complex glory.