Narrative devices in Alfred Hitchcock's: Psycho

The film ‘Psycho’ directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is one of the most famous movies in the film and media industry. There are various techniques used in the film that makes it so powerful and have such a great impact on its audience.  To move the story forwards, Hitchcock uses different narrative codes, an example of this is; enigma and action, these are used throughout the film.  The first action code that really gets the story going is when main character Marion Crane steals the $40,000; this sets the story and makes the audience think that the rest of the film is going to be about Marion and the stolen money.  However I think that this could also be an enigma code, maybe the audience have the question of why she has chosen to steal the money and where she is going now. This also leaves us to somewhat question her personality, as we identify with Marion, and she doesn't look like a typical criminal or a bad person.  Another enigma code would be about Norman’s mother. From the moment Norman Bates mentions ‘mother’ we spend the rest of the film wondering who this mysterious woman could be.  Up until the point where Sam and Lila talk to the local Sheriff, we as an audience are lead to believe that Normans mother is simply a bitter and mean old lady who lives in the house alone. After the conversation with the sheriff questions are raised once we discover that she is said to be dead.

The camera is used really effectively during the whole film to manipulate the audience’s point of view, from the beginning of the film; the audience is forced to identify with Marion. We see Marion throughout the film in every scene, up until just after she has been murdered. If we don’t see Marion then it is because we are seeing things through her eyes, reinforcing the sense of identification we have with her. When we see Marion driving away from her home town, a close up shot is used to show an emphasis on her emotions – particularly her eyes, she has very innocent and almost doe like eyes. We can see the worry and guilt she is feeling without her even saying anything or hearing her thoughts.  There is a scene in the film where Norman is being interrogated by Arbogast, here the camera angle changes very discretely and positions us from a medium close up, to being underneath him at a low angle shot. This makes us feel slightly scared of and intimidated by Norman, it feels as if he is standing over us and going to do something bad. The lighting in this scene also emphasizes the contrast between light and dark, this also creates the shadows we see in the scene. This presents us with the ideology that Norman has two sides to him, and him having a split personality – himself and ‘mother’.

We are lead to believe that the plot of the film is going to be based on the money and Marion's quest to be with Sam, however this is not the case. From the moment she steals the money tension is created. when Marion goes home from work, the camera zooms in repeatedly on the money and pans across to a suitcase she has packed, in this scene we see her getting changed, it has now been made clear that she is going to take the money and run away. When we see Marion driving in the car, we are able to hear her thoughts, we can hear Sam's voice so we know that is where/ who she is planning to go to. 
When she sees her boss when she is driving away, tension is created. We can see this by her shocked facial expression and the use of dramatic violins playing. There are other moments of tension we experience with Marion before she get's to the motel, such as; the police want to see her licence and then follows her to the car dealership, he just stands there across the road watching her, making the audience wonder why he is doing so and if she is going to get into any trouble.  

The narrative used in the film is both omniscient and restricted at different points throughout, up until Marion dies, the narration is restricted; this is due to the fact that we are seeing everything from her point of view. Therefore we know as much as she does, it is only after she is killed that we find out the whole story and we know more than the other characters – meaning the narration becomes omniscient.  When Marion dies, it builds tension because we don’t have all of the information at this point. The narrative is omniscient after she dies because we then know that she is dead; we also know where her body and the money is. As an audience, we also discover that Arbogast has been killed too, and at this point, the other characters still don’t know the truth.

Todorov’s stages of narrative can be applied to any film, including Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’. As the film is set from Marion’s point of view, we are lead to believe that it is her story so the stages of narrative will be  based around her, however in this story, this is not the case. Marion’s equilibrium would be that Marion wants to leave her life behind and live with Sam, the money becomes the disruption, the recognition of the disruption would be her stealing he money, then her leaving Phoenix to get to Sam as the attempt to repair – however this theory is interrupted as she is murdered by Norman. In this film, Hitchcock has been clever with the use of the stages of narrative. When we look at the narrative as a whole, we can see that the equilibrium is Norman and his mother essentially living in the same body… more so Norman’s mind. The disruption is Marion’s arrival to the motel; her murder is the recognition of the disruption. This happens because the mother side of Norman’s mind is jealous of Norman’s feelings for Marion.  The attempt to repair the disruption then becomes everything Norman has to do to get back to his normal life. We find that this doesn't work, which results in the story finishes with a New Equilibrium.

I think that throughout the whole film Hitchcock challenges our expectations and surprises the audience in regards to the character types. In regards to Propp’s character types, I think that is clear for the film Psycho, who fits into which category.  Norman Bates is the evil villain; this is obvious because he is a bad person and a murderer… which is a bad person in itself! Marion is the princess of the narrative, we can see this because she is the person whom the hero wants to marry but there is an obstacle preventing this from happening. The hero in psycho is Sam, as he wants to marry her and he tries to find her, it could also be said that either Arbogast or Lila are the helper character.  Hitchcock challenges the expectations of the audience as straight away we are able to identify with Marion as a range of techniques are used to help us do this, such as a voice over to hear her thoughts, which is extremely personal, close up shots to see her emotions, we even in two scenes follow her into the bathroom. We identify with her for 47 minutes of the film, and then without a slight hint, she is taken away from us, then as an audience we are shocked and surprised by this, we want justice for her killing. We feel lost and confused about this event, but we need someone else to identify with. Although we may not necessarily want to, but for the next few scenes, we are forced to identify with Norman Bates who disposes of her body. We then align with Arbogast, until he too is murdered.

One of the main binary oppositions in the film would be Norman vs his other personality (mother). This is a constant reoccurring opposition during the film; it creates a tense clash between the two sides of Norman. We know that he doesn't want to be feeling like this, and he tries to suppress this dark side that is ‘mother’ but no matter how hard he tries, he cannot seem to contain himself which eventually leads to his downfall. This binary opposition is probably the most important because it is always in the audience’s minds, we are constantly wondering who mother is, when we will actually see her, and sometimes is she even real? The opposition of right vs wrong is another clear opposition shown in the film. We know that Norman is clearly in the wrong because he murders Marion, however, it could also be suggested that Marion too is in the wrong, as she steals a great deal of money from Cassidy. Although, it is arguable that she is right for doing that, as what we see of Cassidy isn't a very nice side, and she needs the money so she can be with Sam – something we as an audience really want her to achieve, even if it is morally wrong the way she is going about it.

The overall visual impact of the film is quite remarkable, as camera and editing are used very well to fit in with the genre of a thriller. I think that the film psycho is unlike many thrillers of today, but in many ways I think it is better, as the events that happened, for me were unpredictable. The shower scene was incredible! This scene is one of the most famous scenes in film history, this is for many reasons. This scene was filmed using a shocking 52 shots; there is a juxtaposition of slow pace, to becoming very fast and then slow again, when we don’t know what will happen. The editing used in this scene is full of jump cuts, these are two or more shots which don’t have a smooth transition, this can be extremely disorientating for the audience, as it breaks the narrative flow.  The camera shots used move from being medium shots to extreme close ups, this presents us with shots of Marion’s face whilst she is being attacked. The music used in this scene, but also any time in the film that anything dramatic happens, is the unsettling and very high pitched violin shrieks, this sound is discordant and very repetitive. Marion’s screams of terror in this scene are prolonged and loud, they almost blend in with the high pitch screams of the violin. The killer is only shown as a silhouette, therefore we don’t get to see their identity, this is also our first moment away from Marion – this is where the omniscient narration begins. As Marion is taking a shower, she is at the most vulnerable position she can be in. she is naked and defenseless, the only thing she has to protect herself with is her bare hands, this makes us as an audience feel more sympathy towards her.

At the very end of the narrative, graphic match is used, this is where two shots are edited together which resemble one another visually. This happens very quickly where Norman is sitting in the prison cell, and we see his face merged with the skull of his dead mother.As this happens so quickly, the audience are left wondering if we really did see the skull and his ace merge into one. The scene before this happens is very creepy, there is a very unusual use of voice over as opposed to the use of VO in previous scenes where we hear Marion's paranoid thoughts. We hear Norman's mother's thoughts inside his head, they are her thoughts but not his voice. Norman breaks the fourth wall which is not a common technique used in films as it is hard to do and in this case quite unsettling, the text here is addressing the audience, Norman stares at the camera with a very eerie looking expression on his face, reinforcing the idea that he is mentally ill.