14/02/2012
6H
The most talked about and perhaps best known Hitchcock’s film Psycho didn’t get off very well at the start of its production. when a Paramount’s report critic labelled it ‘too repulsive for films’, Hitchcock was forced to purchase the film rights for $9.000 and had to produce the film, shooting it with a television crew at Universal’s Studios. Psycho is one of the most complex movies in Hitchcock’s career, dealing with topics very unusual for Hollywood’s 20th century films.
There’s a scene in this film that left a huge trace in the film industry and is one of my favourite scenes where Marion, a girl who stole $40,000 from her company, takes a shower in a room in the Bates motel. That scene was very hard to shoot, took 7 days, one third of Janet Leigh (Marion) time spent shooting the film. She goes into the shower, feeling relieved and proud of herself after deciding to return the stolen money. She’s in the shower, then suddenly someone opens the drapes, we can’t see the face just the long hair and brutally stabs Marion leaving her lifeless body in the tub with finally camera focused on the blood from the shower swirling into the drain, and I think this portrays the emotional cleansing that Marion had, because even though she stole the money she eventually changed her mind and decided to give back the money but didn’t have time to do it. Her tragic death was a punishment for stealing the money in the first place. The sound effects in the shower scene were interesting to make. In order to make the stabbing sounds, Hitchcock hired somebody to stab a melon simultaneously in order to make the sound illusion of Marion actually being stabbed.
Marion was indeed a bad thief. She was clumsy (forgets luggage with the money at the car shop) it’s impossible for her to disguise what she’s feeling. She’s so obvious, because she’s not practised; it’s not her nature, but it’ a desperate grasp at life. The only satisfaction for her after stealing the money, was in her car when she was thinking about what they were saying home, like the client from her firm from who she took the money. She imagined that he was saying: “She sat there while I dumped it out, hardly even looking at it (money). Plannin’ and even flirting with me”. The truth is that he was actually flirting with her, but she imagines that he would say this in order to make her look guilty even more.
The psychiatrist’s speech at the end of the film was something Hitchcock had doubts about. He was afraid that audience wouldn’t be interested in it, that they wouldn’t need to hear the scientific explanation for Norman’s behaviour of split personalities, but he was wrong.
A scientific explanation was needed to justify Norman bates’ behaviour and to explain the audience in what state he was in. The writer of the script didn’t have a lot of trouble writing that scene because he was in Freudian analysis at that time and was well-practised in that field.
The last sequence with Norman is to show us that he has been arrested, somebody brought him a blanket to him in his cell. It’s the way of showing us that he was treated as a sick man and was taken care of even in prison. Norman replies to the prison guard in feminine, voice of his mother- “Thank you.” Norman than thinks, while we hear the voice of the mother:
“It’s sad when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. I couldn't allow them to believe I would commit murder. They'll put him away now as I should have years ago. He was always bad and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man, as if I could do anything but just sit and stare like one of his stuffed birds. Oh, they know I can't even move a finger and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet just in case they do.... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly.”
This ending monologue shows Anthony’s facial expression which were masterfully acted out and they convey the feeling that he, Norman Bate, will never be himself again, that the character of his mother has finally predominated.
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