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Alfred Hitchcock Manipulates the Audience to Build Suspense in Psycho

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Psycho is a suspense-horror film written by Joseph Stefano and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film was loosely adapted from Robert Bloch’s 1959 suspense novel, Psycho. A majority of the movie was filmed in 1960 at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Psycho is about Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary from Arizona who steals $40,000 from her employer’s client. She takes that money and drives off to California to meet her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) in order to start a new life. After a long drive, she pulls off the main highway and ends up taking refuge at an isolated motel owned and managed by a deranged Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). In Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, symbols, character and point of view are three literary …show more content…

This scene makes the viewer believe that she may be the possible psycho referred to by the title of the film. Another instance that manifests this idea is when ever the camera is on Norman Bates. Though he seems polite and amiable towards Crane, the shadows on his eyes represent something more dark and sinister about him. These creative uses of birds and eyes help make the film have more sharp twists and suspense by subtlety hinting at fear and death. The characters of the film present another approach that shapes suspense in the film by making the audience think that Norman Bates is a shy and caring, man who loves his mother no matter what. Bates is first introduced to the audience when he checks in Marion Crane. He acts polite towards her even offers her dinner. She exits to her room and this is when the opinion that he viewers have of Norman Bates changes. He voyeurs through a peephole into her room watching what she is doing and his actions become questionable. After the shower scene he finds Crane dead on her bathroom floor. He hides the body because he cares for his mother that much. He continues to conceal the truth even when a detective comes to question him. His mother kills the detective and he has to hide another body but his countenance changes as he hides the second body. His eyes are darkened by the shadows on his face and he doesn’t seem to be who he was in the beginning. He has a more sinister quality and this is fully revealed when he tries to

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