Psycho:Narrative Devices

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960’s thriller Psycho is the story of Marion Crane and Norman Bates. The movie offers a omniscient narration, this is demonstrated by the many characters viewpoint’s being used. At the start of the movie the audience is only offered a restricted narration from Marion’s point of view. This is because she is believed to be the main character. But as the movie progresses the audience experience Norman’s POV whilst he is staring at Marion, through the hole he has in his office, getting underdressed. Further along when Marion is killed by Norman’s ‘mother’ we change viewpoint to Sam, Lila and also Arbogast.

The movie begins with an establishing shot and then two captions which read ‘Phoenix, Arizona’ and ‘Friday, December the Eleventh’. These are used to set the scene and inform the audience of the setting and time. The camera then pans into a hotel window from the establishing scene with a fade-in cut. The shot shows a window with slightly open blinds. The camera then continues tracking into the room to show Marion and Sam. The opening scene then informs the audience of both the characters current situations and creates the motivation for Marion stealing the money shortly afterwards. That being that she wants to marry Sam and live happily ever after with him but his financial situation is worse than ever  after being left in debt from his father and having to pay money to his ex wife. The motivation from stealing the money is both selfishness and immoral on Marion’s part but she cannot see that because she is blinded by love and passion. 

Referring to Todorov’s theory of narrative the disruption caused by Marion stealing the $40,000 is never repaired and instead left untouched much like a few other questions. The end shot of the movie is that of Marion’s car being hoisted up out the swamp by the police and as we know the money was thrown in with her body. The audience is left on that note and we never find out if the money is retrieved and given back of if it is totally ruined. All we know is that after the whole movie we are again reinstated with the same situation only lacking Marion and having mother take over Norman’s body for good. 

The film evokes generic character types at the start of the movie but then challenges the audiences expectations. Using Propp’s character types Marion is portrayed as being the ‘princess’ because it appears there may be an ongoing story regarding Sam as the ‘hero’. But as the movie evolves so does the characters and we suddenly learn that she is, in turn, the hero who takes matters into her own hands for love and her happily ever after. We also believe Norman could be a ‘helper’ whom helps Marion in her quest to steal $40,000 but we learn at the end that he is the false hero who is mentally unstable and stops Marion from completing her quest. 

The famous shower scene in Psycho utilises many film making techniques to disorientate and confuse the audience. The most prominent of these being the use of camera shots. Hitchcock uses a series of short cuts and extreme close up shots to create suspense and tension. The scene is said to contain more than 70 camera shots within the three minute scene which results in 3 or 4 seconds per shot. Though the scene never shows the knife penetrating the skin it is still terrifying to watch due to the power of suggestion. Also Hitchcock purposely filmed the movie in black and white whilst having the option to film in colour to add tension to not only the movie but the shower scene itself. The fact that we cannot see red blood but only a dark substance running down the drain adds an eerie tenseness to the shot. Lots of extreme close ups of Marion’s face whilst she is being stabbed positions the audience closer to her and makes them sympathise with her. 

Hitchcock cleverly uses both Action and Enigma codes in Psycho to develop the movie further and keep the audience intrigued. The Action code used is when Marion steals the $40,000 from her work and goes on the run. This kicks the story off and creates the series of events which eventually lead to her death. Without the action code the story would not develop and we would never meet Norman. As regards to Enigma codes though the director uses quite a few to keep the audience tense and unsuspecting. The main of which being ‘Where is Norman’s mother?’. Hitchcock cleverly eludes to Norman’s mother several times throughout the course of the movie but she is never seen. This creates suspicions within the audience and has them asking questions. The clever twist at the end though answers the audiences questions and creates a satisfying ending to a roller coaster of a movie.