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.)