Psycho, By Alfred Hitchcock

The great director clouded his intent and motives by reportedly stating that the entire film was nothing more than one huge joke. No one laughed. Instead they cringed in their seats, waiting for the next assault on their senses. The violence and bloodletting of PSYCHO may look tame to

B. Psychoanalytic critics were particularly interested in the horror genre for its uncanny characteristics. The story deals in the realm of the id, ego and superego, all fighting for control of the body. Past horrors are dealt with through the ego defence mechanism, with a lot dealing with repressed sexual tendencies. They also deal with mental health, a term not used during this era, with people who could have schizophrenia, bipolar, or a number of other name illnesses today.

Psycho is a 1960 American film directed by Alfred Hitchock. The screenplay of the movie written by Joseph Stefano was inspired by the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch on the year 1959. This film is categorized into the horror-thriller genre of film. The starring was Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, Vera Miles as Lila Crane and John Gravin as San Loomis.

     Hitchcock uses misery, tragedy, and death to show the emotions of his characters. At no point is this more obvious than the end of the movie. Hitchcock spends the entire movie building up to this point and in the end he makes it extremely clear how tragedy has changed the relationship of everyone. After the nagging husbands murder of his wife has been confessed you see

Like many of his films, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) is an intense study in the sometimes-jarring idiosyncrasies of its main character, L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart). Jeffries is an observer by nature, a professional photographer confined to his apartment by an injury, with only insurance company nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) for company. This limitation impels him to begin observing his neighbors, and he witnesses events that lead him to believe Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wide. However, Jeffries’ watchful habit raises serious questions about the relationships between neighbors and ethics of observation in densely-populated urban settings. Rear Window uses set design and disparate camera techniques to codify the acceptable and unacceptable ways in which a city dweller might observe their neighbors, based largely on level on intent.

The director of the film made a change of pace by making suspense and fear in Psycho. He used elements of violence together with eery and jump-scare soundtracks that makes such scenes thrilling. The violent scenes were shown upfront with the long knife stabbing into

Hitchcock’s Psycho is a great representative of horror and thriller genres. The director masterfully creates an atmosphere of suspense and creates tension. Hitchcock blends characteristics of a thriller with horror, making the audience terrified. The director creates situations that can happen to anybody of the viewers, and thus, makes such scenes even more scaring and disturbing. For instance, the scene of the murder in a shower impresses the audience to a

During times of disorder, it is natural to feel a sense of fear and loneliness that requires you to search for control in your life. These emotions send you to the point of having to isolate yourself, as you believe if you do so, you have control over your life. In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 psychodrama film “The Birds”, Melanie is a young woman who travels to Bodega Bay to reunite herself with a stranger by the name of Mitch. Melanie uncovers that he had a romantic relationship with Annie, the woman she claims to have come to town for. Annie advises Melanie that her relationship with him did not last due to Lydia, his mother, fearing that he will leave her now that her husband has passed away. As Melanie and Mitch’s relationship begins to develop, birds within the town being to attack them along with everyone else who lives in Bodega Bay. Melanie, Mitch, and the town’s people begin to question why the birds are attacking them. Annie’s body is discovered outside her house as a result from her being killed by birds. By the end of the film, Melanie and Lydia have a close relationship leave the bird infested town with Mitch and his sister Cathy. Alfred Hitchcock uses the these three women to remind us that chaos will always enter our lives no matter what actions we take to keep order, but deep relationships will help overcome the feelings of fear and loneliness.

Stories from all ages follow the Heroic Journey format, but when Psycho was released, Alfred Hitchcock had a different interpretation of this arrangement. Hitchcock introduced Mary in her ordinary world; she has a job in a real estate office, and also a secret lover named Sam. Sam lived far away even though these two wanted to get married; however, money held them back. Subsequently, when Cassidy tossed the forty thousand dollars in cash in front of Mary, she planned to steal it and escape to Sam. Sam acted as an outside influence because of their undying love for each other. As Mary was “entering the new world” there were many vicissitudes building up the story, for example, when the police officer follows and questions Mary. The audience

The movie Psycho was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960. When Psycho was first released they implemented a rule that no one could come into the movie late, and I guess that was a thing that happened a lot back then. People were just like “I got a few minutes, let me go into this movie, I don’t care if it started.” But they were having none of that with Psycho. Once the movie started the doors were closed, no one was allowed in. In the previews they asked the audience to not divulge any of the secrets of the movie to their friends or family after they see it. And audiences obeyed, they didn’t go out and blabber about it like people do these days. You could not get away with that today, but audiences were cool back then. Because they didn’t let the audience in after the movie started, they didn’t allow critics to watch the movie ahead of time either. The critics had to go with the audiences on opening day to see the movie. They were not happy about that because they were being treated like peasants, like any other viewer. I guess they thought they were better than everybody else, as some critics actually gave them bad reviews basically because they didn’t get a special screening. Even before audiences watched the movie, their psychological needs start to be met as hype and suspense is built with the secrets people need to keep. The suspense is kept up throughout the movie from Marion’s get away and death, to the twist at the end.

encroaches on Marian as it is very close to her all of the time. It is

The thin line between duplication and adaptation in Van Sant’s Psycho generates a series of obstacles that led to the film’s failure in the box office. Van Sant’s embellishments fail to smoothly connect beside to the quintessential scenes from the original Hitchcock film. In an interview, Van Sant defends his film as an authentic modernization of the film Hitchcock already created, allowing for audiences hesitant of black and white films to reconnect with the genius of Hitchcock’s film by adding color as well as some minor modernizations (Tobias). However, audiences and film critics alike found that Van Sant’s film goes much further than inserting color and “minor modernizations” into the Hitchcock film. Van Sant’s motivation to add color to the film might seem minuscule in comparison to some of the major issues that Van Sant includes, but it is this particular inclusion of color that

Psychoanalysis is a type of criticism focused on the psychology of the piece of literature. Through the analysis of the psychology behind a work, a conclusion can be made about it’s meaning. Psychoanalysis plays a huge role in the play Hamlet. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare utilizes id, ego, superego, the oedipal complex, and depression to show how Old King Hamlet’s murder and Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius causes Hamlet to eventually go mad.

Before the Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock made its way into theaters across the world, film was produced in a completely different way. Some of the elements that were in Psycho were things that nobody saw in movies before. According to Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, when the movie came out, it took place in “an atmosphere of dark and stifling ‘50s conformity” and that the elements of the film “tore through the repressive ‘50s blandness just a potently as Elvis had.” (Hudson). Alfred Hitchcock changed the way that cinema was made by breaking away from the old, “safe” way of creating a movie and decided to throw all of the unwritten rules of film making out the window. The main ways he accomplished this task was by adding graphic violence, sexuality, and different ways to view the film differently than any other movie before its time.

Alfred Hitchcock is widely considered one of the most essential directors of all time and has undeniably revolutionized the cinematic art form and horror genre movement. A key ingredient to his productions is the psychoanalysis of the movie’s villains and the deceivery at comes with deep psychosis. These elements are what have taken Hitchcock from a good director to a legend. Hitchcock layers his movies in ways in which every time one watches his films they can pick up on a new detail that deepens the meaning and effects of the storyline. This is exactly what he does in his 1960 film, Psycho. By layering Freudian psychoanalysis, creating a twist ending and suspense, and giving the villain of the story, Norman Bates, a deeply rich background story, Hitchcock creates phenomenon in the audience arguably scarier, then Norman’s murders. Through this use the psychoanalysis and backstory, the audience also feels sympathy for Norman. This duality is what makes Hitchcock a wonderful artist and Psycho, a piece of art.