Psycho: Narrative and the Film Extract

The film Psycho was known for it's advanced narrative structure for it's time. Hitchcock was able to really manipulate the thoughts of the audience in this film. The story starts off with a woman, Marion Crane, having an affair with a man in Phoenix, Arizona. The man she is having an affair with is from Los Angeles and carries a lot of money problems. This is a rising action that reveals conflict. The woman goes to work and is put in charge of $40,000 that she planned to steal and to resolve her lover's money issues. While skipping town, she ends up at the Bate's Motel where she meets the real main character, who is a young man named "Norman," that runs the motel. His mother seems to be mentally abusive towards him which makes the audience feel that the man is harmless and the mother as psycho. No pun intended. The woman from Phoenix is murdered in the hotel from who seems to be the mother of Norman. After following Norman for a little while, the story completely 180's and you come to find that his mother never existed and he pretends to be his mother. This film is told from a limited third person storytelling style. Time passes chronologically in this film over about a span of a couple of weeks. The scene where Marion is killed in the shower changes the structure to the film because who the audience thought the main character was, ends up being not as important to the film as they thought. Also when Marion's sister reveals the corpse of Ms. Bates, it alters the structure because it reveals basically the whole mystery behind the storyline. The involvement with the characters Norman and Sam are close because after Marion is murdered, the storyline follows basically only them two. Also they show character developement. For example, Norman's actions because more suspicious and the audience starts to question him. Sam also is revealed to be a more compassionate and caring character. Norman was casted to be a normal looking, slender man to be less obvious about the actual mental sickness of his character. From his appearance, he instantly comes off as a normal character but completely turns into a mentally distressed psychopath. It also was obvious that Norman had affection for Marion when he first met her. A side of jealousy was exemplified by supposively his mother was introduced to show a the abusive side with his mother. This reveals the theme of maternal attachment because his Norman's obedience and loyalty to his mother in a creepy way.

Historical and Institutional Influences

 The film Psycho is studied and lectured on today by college English classes in quite prestigious schools in the United States. The colleges are as listed here: “Theories of Authorship in the Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock” (Bryn Mawr), “Hitchcock: Cinema, Gender, Ideology” (Tufts), “Hitchcock in England and America” (Vanderbilt), “The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock” (University of Maryland), and a research seminar on “The Hitchcock Canon” (Berkeley) (The Canonical Alfred Hitchcock. Lewis. 1.). Because of Psycho, Hitchcock received much feedback and commonly been the subject of seminars and surveys throughout the country from Economic factors had a lot to do with this movie. Studios would not fund or support the film because of it's unmoral and gruesome acts. Studios also thought that the film would cause much drama and controversy among the industry. Eventually, Hitchcock was able to work out a plan with Paramount in order to help with the distribution and exhibition of the film. Paramount received roughly 60% of box office which ended a great deal for the studio. Politics at the time were rough because of post WWII and the Cold War aftermath. Censorship was extremely strict because of the government trying to censor anything that seemed as a Communist act. The violence in this film could have made it seem to be a Communistic act to the public eye and government. Not only Communist acts were a factor in this film, but also the "politics of sexuality." Because of Hitchcock's interest in human emotions, he wanted to learn and master manipulating them. In The Canonical Alfred Hitchcock by Michael J. Lewis, he claims that Hitchcock studied "the human spirit under duress, depicting the wry rebellion of the individual against the crushing and arbitrary forces of modern life, he achieved a monumental art within the narrow conventions of a popular medium." Psycho came down in film history as the first sub-genre of horror called, "slasher" which still exists to this day. The film's infamous shower scene sparked influence among many films such as the Friday the 13th series, the Halloween series, the Scream series and many other films. This film was extremely economically successful. Hitchcock small budget of $806,947 made approximately $50,000,000 in the box office. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times says that, "Hitchcock deliberately wanted 'Psycho' to look like a cheap exploitation film." (Chicago Sun-Times. Roger Ebert.)

Hitchcock - Genre and Audience

The film Psycho (1960) is a thriller/horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film was one of influential horror films in history. It inspired the films such as the Friday the 13th series, the Halloween series, the Scream series and many other films along with a whole horror sub-genre called, "slasher." Psycho is categorized under the thriller/horror category because of it's cinematography, act and sound design. The cinematography really utilized quick cutting and blocking to give the audience suspense and manipulate their emotions. The act helped manipulate the emotions of the audience too because of violence and gore in the film. At the time, violence and gore like Hitchcock used in the film was rare and unmoral, but stretched the boundaries for film. In all horror films, sound design plays a big role. Whether its the score or the sound effects, it could make a film, a horror film. This film had suspenseful soundtrack to go along with it's suspenseful cinematography. Music in horror films are always kind of slow and have a build up that get the audiences' hearts pumping. The sound effects are big part in horror too like knife stabs, footsteps and other eerie things like that. In this movie specifically, during the infamous "shower scene," the knife stabs and screams sound so real and would scare people out of their shoes. Rumor has it that they stabbed some sort of meat to get that almost real sound to stabbing human flesh. From this film, we can tell that Hitchcock was really into manipulating the emotions of the audience. He wanted to be able to make the audience feel like they were really in the film and have the emotions that the characters seemed to have. The film can attract many theme's, but the main one is "you get what you deserve." Because of Marion's thief actions, she was murdered which is like karma in a way. The target audience is adults and he addresses them by his mature genre of the film.

From Silents To Studios: Part 2

The Studio Years

The years between 1930 to 1950 were known as, "The Studio Years." At the time, the film industry was being ran by the companies MGM, 20th Century Fox, RKO, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia and Universal. Studios were updating to all the latest technologies and improving the quality of the films that they were producing. A system of production, distribution and exhibition was established and had the movie industry booming. Actual movie theaters went from 20- 30 seat theaters to larger, modern theaters. Movies were watched by everybody, no matter what social class due to its affordable prices. Actors working for the large studios were put under strict contracts that eventually affected their acting skills. CEOs that were in charge of these actors made them work such long hours that their acting quality started to deplete. Actors literally finished shooting one movie and got right into another one. This was a loss from the film industry because people became upset with the performance of actors that was being displayed.

From Silents To Studios: Part 1

Sound in Film

By the 1920's film had advanced to a turning point in which would change the whole industry. Film was now being produced with sound. At the time, studios opposed films with sound for many reasons such as: they were not sure if the public would accept it, stars had noticeable foreign accents, sound studios were expensive and many other reasons. All upscale studios besides Warner Bros. did not use sound. During this time, Warner Bros. Studios was slowly fading away and needed something new to bet their whole company into, in order to save them. Releasing their first feature length film with sound was a success. Their film called, "The Jazz Singer" had saved their business and caused buzz among the film industry. Studios were shocked at what this film had done. Soon after, almost all films had sound and were labeled as, "talkies." Many actors lost their jobs because they did not have the voices to fit their look or part in a film. Along with actors losing their jobs, the qualities of films started depleting. Film techniques were not being used as they were and storylines became boring. But as long as there was sound in their films, production quality did not matter as much.

Writing About Film

The five kinds of film writing are formal analysis,  film history, ideological papers, cultural studies/national cinemas, and discussion of the auteur. A formal analysis paper is where the viewer critiques a film in sections and how they contribute as a whole to a film. It also is one of the most common film papers. A Film history paper reflect history behind the film to show date or age corresponding to it's time from when it was made. An ideological paper films that promote religious, political or any other kind of beliefs. Discussing the Auteur is a paper about the film as a whole and the person who visioned it.

Annotating a film sequence is when you take notes in certain way, as you watch a film, just as you would take notes for a class or something. By annotating a shot sequence, you label each shot in the sequence. This helps you keep track of each shot in a sequence that has a diverse shot selection. Reviewing these notes can establish a visible pattern that the director, editor or cinematographer was going for.

When an authors says to "Think Beyond the Frame," they are implying to think what further meaning is behind the shot or shot sequence. The following question are ones you should ask yourself when "Thinking Beyond the Frame": Who is the director?, What is the production history of the film?, What do the critics and scholars say?, What can you learn from the film's genre?, Does the film reflect an interesting cultural phenomenon?.