In the Parlor scene from Hitchcock’s Psycho, where Marion and Norman are talking during her first and last night at the hotel, the mise-en-scene expresses the true nature and, to a certain extent, the intentions of both characters. The illumination in this scene adds to the movies suspense and significance, the props foreshadow what’s to come, as well as what is said by Norman. This scene is where the viewers are introduced to Norman Bates and his strange life, and allowing them realize that there’s something not right about him.…
American Psycho is one of the fiercest criticisms that an American writer has made of his own country: a complacent and self-indulgent society. For his argument, the author has chosen a risky path: Patrick Bateman, not a rebel or an outcast, Patrick is a young man of success, however, also capable of rape, torture and murder.…
Alfred Hitchcock is known as a master of the cinematic arts for his preeminent style when designing a setting. The movie depicts a small town, known as Bodega Bay, near the beach in the early 1960s. This town is a peaceful town where nothing disastrous ever happens, and when it does, the inhabitants do not know how to react. The city is somewhat isolated from society and is not well known, causing the credibility of its citizens to be called into question. The main character, Melanie Daniels, calls her father, the owner of a famous newspaper, and tells him that there is a massive attack on the people of the town and it was all orchestrated by birds. Her father thinks that the idea of…
In Hitchcock’s “Psycho” we see the shower scene, one of the most cherished scenes in cinema history. As soon as Marion steps into the shower the viewer is given a sense of suspense and disorientation through the editing of the various close ups, extreme close ups and zooms. This editing functions as a way to reveal Norman’s perspective to the audience. The hectic, confounding editing changes the viewers point of view to that of a madman. When Norman begins to stab Marion the knife is actually never shown penetrating her skin, it is all implied, but due to the sound and quick editing we infer that it does. The sharp scratches in the music being in sync with the stabbing, and the sounds of the jabs all show relations between the editing and sound…
“I knew what my mother was doing to me was wrong, but I didn’t know who to talk to, or even what to say,” she says in her memoir “Sickened”. “I was a child, and she was my mom, people would have looked at me like I was being a brat, so I just followed ‘orders’”. Gregory did not know her mother’s actions were due to a mental condition until, at the age of 24, she returned to school and took a summer psychology course; “My body, sliced, diced, and probed away from me for nothing […] They just did the tests, never questioned any of it […] It was her all along.” Even then, she attempted to tell several people what had happened, but those she told either didn’t believe her, or told her it was the past. It wasn’t until Gregory told a mandated reporter, did any investigation into her parents…
“Do You Love Your Mother, Norman?”: Falkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Metalious’s Peyton Place as Sources for Robert Bloch’s Psycho…
What do we think about when we hear the word psychopath? Majority of us jump quickly to someone who is crazy, someone who we would never think to come across. A psychopath can be anyone from a neighbor, someone you love, to a homeless person according to (psychopathic killers hide in plain sight).…
This shot parallels Guy’s hand with Satan’s once again, and Rosemary winces at his touch as he continues to joke about “being a little bit loaded” himself, thus evading any responsibility. Heller-Nicholas contends that “melodrama comes into being in a world where the traditional imperatives of truth and ethics have been violently thrown into question, yet where the promulgation of truth and ethics, their instauration as a way of life, is of immediate, daily, political concern” (4). Rosemary’s Baby employs melodramatic horror to critique the socio-political issues of sexual assault and female autonomy, while depicting the horrific reality of rape through a monstrous, supernatural entity. While the anti-rape movement was still a few years away from development, the film nevertheless paves the way for a discussion of rape as a social problem deserving of attention, pinpointing rape as a tool for social control, and not merely the performativity of…
Alfred Hitchcock touched on many different themes of relationships between sexes that I have observed in both of the movies, Psycho and Rear Window. Some of main themes in both of these movies include the theme of marriage, sex, infidelity and murder. Through class discussions and my observation of these movies, my analysis of these points are as follows:…
As mentioned earlier, the author addresses that we yearn for the rush that comes along with and to add to that he claims that “the horror film has become the modern version of public lynching” (King, “Why We Crave…” 2). He uses an analogy of the game of football being a form of battle for the player to depict this. He also recounts that these stories deliver a “very peculiar sort of fun” a kind in which “comes from seeing others menaced” (King, “Why We Crave…” 2). For instance, this satisfaction is experienced by the reader when he explains the gruesome details of Adelle Parkins’ death as “they found part of her in the back seat and part of her in the trunk” (King, “Strawberry Spring” 4). With such illustrated deaths of the murderer’s victims, King intrigues the reader with a generous amount of gore. A logical explanation to the thrill that is experienced when seeing others going through such terror would be in support of King’s assertion of human’s sharing a degree of mental…
Its director managed to apply the low budget and brilliant cast and create one of the best works of American cinematography. The most essential thing in this film is not its terrifying effect but the thought which it provokes. It does not resemble thousands of other horror movies because of its ability to render the particular idea to the viewer. Despite the fact that John Carpenter portrays the deeds of the psycho, they still have the hidden truth. With the help of this movie, the director has manifested his viewpoint on life, its laws, and possible aftermath. This movie was his inner response towards the sexual revolution and debauchery, which dominated over human moral dignity and ethics in the 1980s. The director showed that human actions have consequences and that people have to take this fact into account. People’s life is in their hands, and each individual is responsible for the aftermath of his or her…
Sigmund Freud 's Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality Development states that there is a structural model of the psyche, which splits the human identity into three instances of Ego, Superego, and ID. In Psychoanalytic Stage of Development, there are five stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital. Even though Sigmund Freud never was writing about the movie _Psycho_, theories of Freud, have a great connection with the personality of Norman Bates. According to Oedipus complex, by Sigmund Freud, it introduced the term for a child 's libidinal attachment to the opposite sex parent, while experiencing jealousy and dislike of the same sex parent, as an expression of infantile sexuality. The character Norman Bates, in the movie _Psycho_, showed many signs of having an Oedipus complex when he murdered his mother and her lover. In the relationship between Norman Bates and his mother, Bates 's mother ruled Norman 's life and controlled his actions. She can be perceived as a symbolic representation of the super-ego. Eventually, this led Norman to become the killer. Moreover, matricide is the most unbearable guilt, which is the reason of his split personalities. Norman Bates has the want to keep the illusion of his mother being alive and sacrifices his other half to her to erase the crime at least in his mind. The theories of Freud, have been found greatly appeal in connection with the analysis on how Norman Bates struggles to complete successfully the task confronted in the Phallic Stage of Super Ego. Freud 's theory can be demonstrated through Norman Bates in the movie _Psycho_ by the relationship between him and his mother, the jealousy over his mother and the want to keep the illusion of his mother being alive.…
Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining (1980) depicts a family man, Jack Torrance, driven to a murderous rampage by a nefarious haunted hotel. But is the hotel truly responsible for his actions? However haunted or evil the hotel is, Jack’s own predisposition towards hypermasculine traits and his susceptibility to misogynistic ideas engenders his murderous rampage and subsequent demise. The Shining, in addition to being completely terrifying, exemplifies and hyperbolizes the effect patriarchal ways of thinking have on one’s mental health and domestic harmony.…
In the movie Psycho, we see a character that is the one at fault but is so sweet she is obviously the victim here. When the $40,000 is no longer what we see from Marion Crane, it is because she was murdered, she is now the victim. Robert Ebert, from the Chicago Sun Times states “Marion Crane does steal $40,000, but still she fits the Hitchcock mold of an innocent to crime.” She was originally at fault here, and then she is brutally murdered for no reason by Norman Bates, who now becomes the center of attention. We must now figure him out! “Marion has overheard the voice of Norman's mother speaking sharply with him, and she gently suggests that Norman need not stay here in this dead end, a failing motel on a road that has been bypassed by the new interstate. She cares about Norman. She is also moved to rethink her own actions. And he is touched. So touched, he feels threatened by his feelings. And that is why he must kill her.” states Ebert. This point being made, never occurred to me while watching the movie, I saw just a crazy guy that thought she was pretty and his “mother” didn’t want him to be with her, so out of fear he killed her.…
Norman stated “She might have fooled me, but she hasn’t fooled my mother”. He is stating that he’s a fool for sexy nude women, but the ‘mother’ is most certainly not. The ‘mother’ hates women who threaten her little boys’ innocence. When Norman regains his consciousness,then he hides all evidence of the ‘murderer’. After the ‘mother’ killed Marion, Norman goes through hell making sure that there are no signs leading to the ‘mother’. Thus, he puts Marion's body into a car and drives the car into a lake. He then slowly watches the body sink deep into the swamp. Norman believes that the ‘mother’ just went buck wild and got jealous of Norman’s admiration towards women. Nonetheless, his intentions are to protect and hide the wrongdoings of his ‘mother’ under any circumstances.…