Psycho (1960)Sometimes in our quest for our own private island, we venture off course into troubled waters, the dominion of fierce storms and bloodthirsty predators, where even the most unexpected and sudden turns can flip our world upside-down. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a watershed moment in the psychological horror genre of film, with tension, deception, and murder, characters who are not bad people drawn into their own traps, pulled down into the undercurrent of their own irrational behaviors. As Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) says to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh): "We all go a little mad sometimes."
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Psycho is a decidedly modern film, even for one made over a half a century ago, because it defies conventional structure, instead allowing the lurking danger to exist without stifling it in the shackles of a "hero's journey". Watching Psycho today is never going to be the same kind of shocking experience it must have been upon its debut, since its reveals and twists have become so familiar--and even parodied at length--that it is practically impossible to watch the film without these expectations. (However, for you fortunate few who do not know these beats--whoever you may be--I will attempt to avoid any crucial spoilers on my part.) From the first, ubiquitous staccato strings of Bernard Herrmann's infamous score, the movie taps into a key element in our minds, one which ramps up the anxiety and fear, even before we get our first view of Phoenix, Arizona, Friday, December 11th, 2:43pm. We sneak a peek into the window of a seedy hotel, where the attractive Marion Crane and her lover, Sam Loomis (John Gavin) have presumably just finished what couples do in hotels where they don't care when you check in, so long as you check out on time. Their relationship sets up a central conflict for Marion, that she loves Sam, but feels that his financial difficulties are keeping them apart. When Marion is presented with an opportunity to show Sam how much she loves him by capitalizing on her access to forty-thousand dollars, well, her crime is born of love, and her victim a sleazy blowhard, so the sting of the felonious act is made soft by context. And this is the beginning of the real psychological play which Hitchcock plays at in so many different ways all throughout Psycho. We are made to empathize with those who have some type of psychological affliction, those who commit crimes, who conceal and lie, deceive, even though we should know better. We allow these mental missteps because we can relate, because we all do "go a little mad sometimes". Marion is hardly a raving lunatic, but she breaks the law for money, and her anxiety riddles her along her quest across state lines. The exception with Marion is that we get a taste of the role-play she permits herself, her own stage in her mind, as she fills in the voices of others in her own head, what they would say, what they would do, exorcising her guilt. Maybe we all talk a little to ourselves, even envision those scenarios in our mind, an ever so slight delusion...sometimes, we run a little further with the ball, and sometimes we sprint past the goal completely with it.
It is no coincidence that Psycho is named what it is; the film--for being a notorious horror movie--is surprisingly bloodless...in fact, if you think about it, you might consider that for all its terror and all its shock, there is very little gore. The notorious "shower scene" is really a slashing of editing, the sharpest cuts are those done in editing, although there is plenty of sound to let our own imaginations fill in those gruesome blanks. There is a scene at the end of the film where a psychiatrist proclaims a long diagnosis about the killer; the scene is one which is much maligned for being bloated with exposition, although I consider it an assessment which ironically works because it seems so inappropriate. Up until this point, much of our understanding of the murderer's intentions has been from our own attempts to play detective--like the one in the film searching for Marion, called Arbogast (Martin Balsam)--only our rational, logical conclusions do not aptly prepare us for the barrage of literal insanity which awaits us at the end of our investigation. The insane is truly only rational to an insane mind, and the film presumes that we are all sane viewers, and that the denouement is one which tries to root us back in the realm of good, sane, normalcy...only, there is that last "post-denouement" scene which once again uproots our understanding, and drags us again from the comfort of understanding, like a car exhumed from a swamp. Psycho boasts the occasional visual clues to intimate duplicitousness, or at least a masking of one's true intentions, for most of the characters. Norman's face is reflected in the windows of the Bates Motel when he is speaking to Marion outside, Sam's face is reflected in the mirror in Norman's office as he attempts to distract Norman, while Lila Crane (Vera Miles), Marion's sister, attempts to sneak off into the house to question Norman's mother. Characters often lie--even when their intentions are good--not because they are natural liars (in fact, most of the aren't), but because the lie serves their purposes much better than the truth, and we all do a little lying to ourselves in some way or another here and there, because deep down--as crazy as it sounds--we want the lie to be the truth, so why not let ourselves be a bit convinced of it every so often. In many ways, this is a part of why Arbogast seems so abrasive--not just to the other characters, but to us as viewers. As an investigator, he is trained to handle liars, and can unravel them in an instant. Arbogast breaks up our own illusions not just in his action, but in his character. Psycho is also a tense film not just because of the plot, but because it intentionally defies our expectations from the genre, and even films in general, by toying with our basic instincts to follow and root for one character, and identify with them on some level, wanting and hoping that they will triumph over their obstacles; by constantly subverting this, we are unseated, and the anxiety builds on a subconscious level. Psycho also gives us several long shots staring into the faces of our characters, deeply fixed on them as though seeing could afford us a window into their minds. We spend a good deal of time staring into the face of Marion Crane--at different junctures--as we as viewers observe and spy with our little eyes the inner workings of the mind; Marion's narration helps, and we are impishly deprived this luxury with other characters later. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but if that soul is clouded by even some degree of madness, then it would take a much larger blade to pierce that veil.
Recommended for: Fans of a taut, fierce thriller, with bends and turns which--unless time has caught up with you and ruined the twists--should be shocking and unsettling. Even if they have, the film remains fresh and bold, and sharp as the notes played on those strings.
It is no coincidence that Psycho is named what it is; the film--for being a notorious horror movie--is surprisingly bloodless...in fact, if you think about it, you might consider that for all its terror and all its shock, there is very little gore. The notorious "shower scene" is really a slashing of editing, the sharpest cuts are those done in editing, although there is plenty of sound to let our own imaginations fill in those gruesome blanks. There is a scene at the end of the film where a psychiatrist proclaims a long diagnosis about the killer; the scene is one which is much maligned for being bloated with exposition, although I consider it an assessment which ironically works because it seems so inappropriate. Up until this point, much of our understanding of the murderer's intentions has been from our own attempts to play detective--like the one in the film searching for Marion, called Arbogast (Martin Balsam)--only our rational, logical conclusions do not aptly prepare us for the barrage of literal insanity which awaits us at the end of our investigation. The insane is truly only rational to an insane mind, and the film presumes that we are all sane viewers, and that the denouement is one which tries to root us back in the realm of good, sane, normalcy...only, there is that last "post-denouement" scene which once again uproots our understanding, and drags us again from the comfort of understanding, like a car exhumed from a swamp. Psycho boasts the occasional visual clues to intimate duplicitousness, or at least a masking of one's true intentions, for most of the characters. Norman's face is reflected in the windows of the Bates Motel when he is speaking to Marion outside, Sam's face is reflected in the mirror in Norman's office as he attempts to distract Norman, while Lila Crane (Vera Miles), Marion's sister, attempts to sneak off into the house to question Norman's mother. Characters often lie--even when their intentions are good--not because they are natural liars (in fact, most of the aren't), but because the lie serves their purposes much better than the truth, and we all do a little lying to ourselves in some way or another here and there, because deep down--as crazy as it sounds--we want the lie to be the truth, so why not let ourselves be a bit convinced of it every so often. In many ways, this is a part of why Arbogast seems so abrasive--not just to the other characters, but to us as viewers. As an investigator, he is trained to handle liars, and can unravel them in an instant. Arbogast breaks up our own illusions not just in his action, but in his character. Psycho is also a tense film not just because of the plot, but because it intentionally defies our expectations from the genre, and even films in general, by toying with our basic instincts to follow and root for one character, and identify with them on some level, wanting and hoping that they will triumph over their obstacles; by constantly subverting this, we are unseated, and the anxiety builds on a subconscious level. Psycho also gives us several long shots staring into the faces of our characters, deeply fixed on them as though seeing could afford us a window into their minds. We spend a good deal of time staring into the face of Marion Crane--at different junctures--as we as viewers observe and spy with our little eyes the inner workings of the mind; Marion's narration helps, and we are impishly deprived this luxury with other characters later. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but if that soul is clouded by even some degree of madness, then it would take a much larger blade to pierce that veil.
Recommended for: Fans of a taut, fierce thriller, with bends and turns which--unless time has caught up with you and ruined the twists--should be shocking and unsettling. Even if they have, the film remains fresh and bold, and sharp as the notes played on those strings.