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Psycho. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Performances by Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, John Gavin, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam. 1960. Youtube.

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The ending scene is a monologue of the mother, her paranoid personality dominates Norman. Final image of Norman is juxtaposed with a skull, before an image of a chain pulling the car out of the swamp.

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Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock (1960) - Ending Scene

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Psycho (1960) - Lila searches the Bates' house [HD]

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The shot when Lila and Sam come to check in, over-the-shoulder shot make it more formal, different from the two check-ins of Marion and Arbogast. When Lila approached the house: the camera constantly change the shot between her and the house, make the journey feels longer and create suspend. Lila get us to the room, further than Arbogast before her, but the lady is not there. It left her to inspect what’s going on inside this dangerous space. Lila got frightened by a mirror: this symbol appeared once again, representing duality inside the room between Norman’s mother and him. As she saw the mirror of her mirror, it may signal that the truth was about to be discovered. She goes on to get into Norman’s room and began to suspect something. He didn’t seem to grow up at all, as we see stuffed bunnies on his old, small bed. This is in contrast with the mother big, luxurious room, also implies the dominance character of the mother inside Norman. In his own house, he has ceded to be himself for a long time.
The conversation between Sam & Norman is intertwined between scenes of Lila inside the house. It’s tense, as Sam investigating Norman’s life and Norman trying to defend himself, with the camera balances between the two character’s space. Norman discovered out and ran into the house to find Lila. She got to the fruit cellar, and finally the mother is revealed as a dead skull sitting on a chair. The light swings, creating a shocking effect to the audience.

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Psycho (1960) - Norman Bates vs. detective Arbogast 🕵️‍♂️🏨

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Arbogast returns and investigates the office, the first thing he sees is the crow, signaling death. He went to the house, the audience follows him as we never get this far. The music feels unbalanced, eerie, threatened. The house, the staircase is positioned really high from our eyes, and as the character moving upward, they use a wide high-angle shot instead of his POW. We walk up the stair with him, but it seems like he is intruding a strange place (is he allowed to be there?). He seems very tiny, and off-balanced as he can fall down any time. This is the first time Arbogast does not have the dominance on screen. We were given the sign that the mother's room door is open, and it comes very fast from a bird view. The mother comes to kill him, but we only see the knife but not her face. The man falls back as we anticipated, the background is blurred ⇒ uneasiness.
After that when Norman carries his mother to the fruit cellar is juxtaposed to the shot when Arbogast were murdered. We follow the character to the room but then forbidden to peak into it.

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Psycho (1960) - 'The Bathroom', 'The Murder' (Shower scene) [1080]

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Psycho Stereo Clips Pt. 2 - Marion's Escape - Bernard Herrmann - Alfred Hitchcock - 1960

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The introduction of Arbogast is really fast, as he moves into the the shop and his face moves closer into the camera (next to our face) ⇒ the feeling of discomfort, inspection, entering our personal space. This way of introduction suits his personality: always the dominance of the screen, showing calmness and intelligence like a detector,... we don't need his past to evaluate who he is. The "triangle shot" follows next shows 3 characters in a triangle: Sam, Lila and Arbogast; this shot makes it easy for us to perceive many different information. For Lila and Sam, the shot change between close-up and their body language in middle shot, they shows uneasiness & guarded. For Arbogast, it's always with middle shot with a slightly low-angled, him being relaxed as he laid back and his calm, gracious gesture.
As Arbogast goes around investigating through neighborhood, the editing technique of montage is used, connoting long passage of time, space, journey,... have passed. Finally he comes across "Bates Motel". Inside the motel, even Norman is taller and Arbogast smaller, we still feel the weight of the shot slightly goes to Arbogast. He maintains his comfort, powerful body languages while asking questions, and Norman becomes increasingly worried. When Arbogast examined Marion’s handwriting: we see from a distance Norman’s mouth and then he moves forward to look at the book too and the camera shows his neck ⇒ the secret side of him. After that the shots change to close-up: Norman becomes childish - eyes wide open, mouth slightly open,... he stuttered and shook his head like a baby. Arbogast still have the iconic low-angle shot, showing the dominance power in the scene. In their conversation afterward, Arbogast's face is bigger in the screen ⇒ even Norman is taller we can still feel Arbogast as having the advantage.

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The music when Norman was cleaning the mess is curious and create an "exciting, anticipated" effect of what if Norman discovers the money? But when Norman didn’t notice and just put the dead body into a truck, the music rises up again, higher and higher when he got back to the room to check whether he forgot anything. But then he just dumped the newspaper inside the car and drove it to a swamp. As the car swept into the swamp, the camera shot changes between Norman's nervous body language to the car sinking. Now it’s complete, we never see the money again.

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We see signs that Marion is going back to her moral again - calculating how much money does she have, planning to go back (?). The act of cleaning oneself under the shower symbolizes purification, cleansing the past. But as she was in her most vulnerable state, her death came, presented through a staccato shot of the mother (or Norman?) killing her and her body. She raised her hand to seek for help, but no one helps her. Marion is finally dead, grabbing the curtain. The juxtaposition of the drain hole which takes water inside, and Marion’s eyes may imply that Marion knows the truth, a shocking truth that she still startled after she had died (that the woman killing her is actually Norman?), but she cannot tell us. After that, the camera moves to the bedroom with the money disguised inside the newspaper (what’s going to happen with it?). and to the voiceover from the house. Then we saw Norman running over to clean the dead body.

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I think this scene is one of the best in the movie, because we can see flawless combination between cinematography, mise-en-scene and acting into creating a suspense, psychologically complexed moment when Norman reveals his life.
We feel uneasy, because Anthony Perkins's psychological states fluctuated significantly and suddenly, changing from being harmless to threatening Marion; through various elements such as:
his pose: leaning forward/ moving backward
his eyes: from pitiful, shy eyes to wide open, steadfast in Marion's direction.
his mouth: creepy smiles, relaxed while confessing his situation or stretched when defending his mother.

The camera changes from extreme close-up just to catch just his countenance, to medium shot to show also his demeanor of leaning back/stroking his bird. As the story is not entirely revealed, the metaphorical conversation seems obscured, hiding from Norman what happened with Marion, and the fact that Norman and his mother is one person from Marion and the audience.

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Psycho | "We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes"

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By denying to eat dinner in Marion's room and go to the office instead, Norman impressed us by being polite and respectful towards woman, and also this is an act of introducing Marion into his world. The first thing Marion notices is stuffed, predator birds ⇒ The curious hobby implied his cold-blood, predator nature. Instead of eating with Marion, he watches Marion eating from a distance, as if he was "playing with his prey". It’s creepy when he say: "You...You eat like a bird”, connecting Marion with the bird suggests that Norman likes her but ironically also foretells Marion’s fate of being killed. The body language of Norman, especially his hands clenched together and eyes wide open,... seems harmless, childish and innocent; his voice stuttered. But when they mentions metaphorically the situation they're in just like traps that they couldn't escape , he laid backward and change his body language: eyes become normal, and his hand is stroking the bird.
As he comes back to his childish countenance while talking about the mother, we feel sympathy for him, for the low-angled camera with the stuffed eagle behind signifies his internal oppression, his responsibility and love for the mother vs. his own freedom. But when Marion criticizes his mother, his state activates by moving forward, eyes wide open, his words change and not just attack Marion, he attack ‘the people’ in general who suggest he to abandon her mother. By saying ‘she is just little mad sometimes’, later when his mother kills the women we are not very surprise.
When Marion stands up to get back to the room, there's a crow behind her, symbolizing death. She accidentally reveal her name as Ms. Crane in the last minute and that her 'stepping into a private trap at home' ⇒ Norman found out her name is not Marion Samuels and now she’s in danger.

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We are subconsciously introduced to the mother when Marion peeked into the house and found there’s a woman walking by the window. Norman runs to the office to check her in: his demeanor seems enthusiastic, friendly and a little bit timid. It’s in contrast with Marion’s calm, taciturn personality. However, Norman shows his hesitancy to choose the woman’s cabin, ends up picking the nearest cabin to the office. This action makes us suspect as if the guy is planning something, and later his cause is reviewed when we saw him peeking inside Marion’s room through a hole on his office’s wall.
Inside the room, the dominance symbol is the shadow and the birds (photos hanged on the wall), later we know that Norman likes to stuff birds, a creepy habit that signal he would do the same thing to Marion. But until now, what we suspects is the money, not Norman; as the suspense music rises up when Marion is left alone and hide the money inside a newspaper’s broadsheet. The strange relationship between Norman and his mother is revealed when Marion hears the voices echoed from the distant, obscured house. Norman is childish, undergrown and a meek son while his mother is grumpy and old-fashioned.

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On her way to escape, the sky gets darken and darken, as if Marion is moving into danger. At the same time, another line of the story continues through sound - her boss and her sister had discovered that she escaped. It makes the audience have a feeling of anxiety, as we see Marion riding alone in the dark and her acquaintances already started to find her. The anxiety elevated with the music score of Bernard Herrmann, and with the camera angle predominantly fixed directly on Marion’s face. It also creates a duality, as her boss does not know where she is and we can just hear him through the soundtrack, we are here with Marion...
It started to rain and she could not see the road. The only thing she saw is the sign of Norman’s motel. She had no choice but to go there, as the day went off and it's raining hard. Marion got trapped into her destiny.

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The police, the symbol of protection and justice, ironically is a threat for Marion. Since she is the protagonist, we sometimes forget that she is doing something illegal. It's also similar with the way people relate to Dorian. By making Marion favorable and beautiful, while the policeman being scary, the cinematic language has tricked us into advocating for injustice, made us hope Marion could get out of her threatened situation.
Marion also looks like a prey, having to escape her home and now the prying eye of a police. Gender norms of that society also plays a part in this, as female is not associated with being a villain more than weakness and the need for protection. Furthermore, it seems that later on she was tricked into a trap: riding to Bates Motel.

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The moment when the police saw Marion the next morning, we peeked into the car when she is sleeping, at her most vulnerable state. Hitchcock used a extremely-close shot for the police face, uniformly and eyes covered by sunglasses, as if he is institutionalized and lose his humanity. This is contrast to the shots spend for Norman, who never interferes into Marion's private space, and who seems timid and normal.
Afterwards, when she went to purchase a new car, she is still alerted about the police. As Marion walks forward, she look backward, creating a slight scene of disorientation. Suddenly the camera zooms out from the shot of the police standing in the middle, his stern look gives him the strength, the dominance within the frame; while the camera looks down at Marion as if under surveillance.

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Marion was hesitant until the last minute. She packed her clothes and her suitcases, but the money is still on the bed untouched. The camera cuts between Marion and $40000, creating more suspense. Finally she looks at herself in the mirror, which symbolizes duality, and come to take the money. Marion still regrets of what she did afterwards, as she started hearing what Sam would tell her if he accidentally run across her. But the real psychological click starts when Marion sees her boss while driving out of the city. At first she smiled, but as her boss stop and suspect something, it’s the point that she couldn’t go back anymore. The suspense music starts at that point and she drove through the night really quickly, as if in peril of being chased. But she also moves suddenly into the dark side.

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It is interesting to see the contrast of first, how Marion is portrayed in the beginning - with light focus on her beautiful face, her decent and respectable personality at work. And second, when she gets the idea of stealing the money and escape. We can see the similarity between this and Dorian in ‘Picture of Dorian Grey’: we are deceived by their portrayal of goodness and the nature of protagonist. In fact there’s a dark side hidden from us - the dark side of Dorian is his sinful and aging picture that he kept locked inside his old study room, while for Marion it’s her greed for money to escape stressful situation she is facing.

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Mundane office. Arizona(location of the film) is a hot place, and the juxtaposition of two pictures of a desert and a lake juxtaposes the idea of heat and escaping the heat again. We feel as if Marion is also stressed and struck at her working place, desire to break out/escape. When the customer walked inside the office and talked to Marion, their asymmetrical composition makes the man higher, wearing cowboy clothes shows toxic masculinity, old-line rich man. His awful look justified Marion's stealing his money to the audience. There’s no eye contact until the man show $40000 in cash ⇒ the eureka moment of the idea flashing through her head. This shot also shows Marion's colleague surprising of the big money and her boss worrying face of losing it, therefore after the customer enter the boss office, he advised Marion to secure the cash in the bank. After she went to her boss's office and excuse to go home early, we notice her own shadow following her, sometime going in front of her and sometime behind. But the shadow is really harsh, as if showing a “gothic double” of Marion.

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The camera did a panning through the city to look through the window of the hotel where the girl and Sam lay. Panoramic shot full of building, lacking of nature creates the feeling of being stuck in the system, overwhelming
Through the window we are like a prey sneaking into Marion and Sam lives. A low scene follows immediately, like we are crawling, sneaking into their space.
We saw Marion first because the light focuses only her face. Sam was standing and we only see the lower-half body. As they talk and lay down on the bed, the camera moves around as if we are the watcher, as if we stand there observing their private moment (creepy).
The couple were talking about their secret meetings. It has to do with Sam's having an ex-wife, and paying off debts for his long-dead father. The lines on the window is like the prison bar, block the sunlight coming inside. When Sam pull the blind up, he searched for the light and freedom.

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I watched the movie 2 years ago, but the first time seeing it I wasn't very amazed. I don't like horror/thriller movies in general (except 'Memento'), because I think they do not portrait 'reality' or address real world problems that are relevant to me. Moreover, the stories is generally typical, ordinary and don't make me surprise that much. I feel like Psycho do not talk of contemporary issues at all (even Norman's psychological disorder is portrayed inaccurately). It's just an experiment for Hitchcock, and it benefited following filmmakers of how a story could be told, rather than for present-day audiences who are not familiar with the dramatic cinematic language of the movie.

But the second time seeing it in Lang&Lit class, I start to think differently. 'Psycho' is a really good film as even though now it's a Hitchcock classic, in 1960 it broke many standards. It was the first film that shows a flushing toilet. It tricked the audience that $40.000 certainly played a part in the story, or the protagonist (Marion) will survive to the end or near end. But in the movie, she died in the middle. Furthermore by analyzing the shots closer, we become aware of how perfect the cinematography and the acting is (especially that of Anthony Perkins), even though overall 'Psycho' evokes an unrealistic feeling.

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⇒ Marion and her boyfriend, Sam, meet secretly in a cheap hotel. They talk about the debts they have and financial difficulty which prevents them from getting married.

⇒ Marion steals $40000 from a guest she met during work. She escaped alone, while her boss and sister back town discovered

⇒ The hard rain made her drive into a motel along the old highway, after signing in and got cabin 1 she got some talks with the owner of motel - Norman Bates

⇒ After the talk, she went back to her room and get a shower, and got murdered by Norman's mother.

⇒ Her sister, Lila, came to meet her boyfriend to see whether there's a conspiracy between them about the money. A private detector, Mr. Arbogast follows them and promises to find Marion without reporting to the police.

⇒ While searching, Arbogast comes across the Bates Motel. He interrogates Norman and finds out Marion checked in under an alias. After a while, Arbogast insisted to see Norman's mother, but Norman denied and requested him to leave.

⇒ Arbogast reports what he had to Lila and Sam, and then went back to enter the house. He was killed by the mother.

⇒ After 3 hour, Lila started to worry, so Sam went to the house and saw the mother but she didn't answer the door. They went back to talk to the local sheriff, discovering that Mrs.Bates has died 10 years ago.

⇒ Suspecting some conspiracy around a big money, the sheriff advised them to report to the police. Lila and Sam do not satisfied, so they go back to the house again, pretending to be a couple.

⇒ While Sam were talking with Norman, Lila broke into the house and find his mother's bedroom empty. When Norman discovered out, he hit Sam to get to the house. Lila went to the fruit cellar and discovered Mrs. Bates corpse. At the same time, Norman broke in and intended to slash at her with a knife but Sam stopped it.

⇒ In the police, a psychiatrist explained that Norman has Dissociative Identity Disorder and his mom has taken over his body.