I have to say: Psycho is brilliant! I thought it is a very well-executed psychological thriller. Since I am currently binge-watching Criminal Minds, I have a strong feeling that Norman can’t be that simple of a murderer (He’s trying too hard to please his mom!), so when the sheriff said that his mom actually died a long time ago, I gasped out loud!
One thing about this movie that I did noticed that seems very consistent with the French New Wave is the close-ups Hitchcock does on his character’s facial expressions. I think Hitchcock has a penchant for wanting to show us the character’s emotions through the slight changes to their facial features rather than through their actions and dialogues. We can see fear magnifying across Marion's face when she unexpectedly meets her boss’s gaze as she is driving out of town. And there’s an interminable montage that shows Marion driving down the road that will eventually lead to her demise at Bates Motel. The shots consist of nothing but the gradually darkening road and close-ups of Marion’s face. We do hear the conversations Lowery has with Marion’s sister and Caroline about her disappearance overlapping the shots, but Marion herself doesn’t say anything at all. Still, we as an audience can feel and see what she’s feeling as if she’s listening in on the conversations - anxiety, fear, and guilt are all written over her face without her having to say anything. Perhaps this is exactly what Hitchcock’s pure cinema means - he’s relying heavily on the visual power of cinema and not sound, which comes in way later in film history. The last shot of the film where the camera slowly zooms in on Norman’s face strikes me as the most disturbing. Again, the scene is overlaid with Norman’s mom's thoughts, but I reckon that if we are to remove the audio, the audience will still find Anthony Perkin’s performance effectively sinister and ominous. Even as Hitchcock is trying to show the audience that Marion is truly dead in the bathroom, he conveys the message not with someone stumbling in and exclaiming that she’s dead, but with Marion’s lifeless eyes and then zooms out to include in the shot her immobile body and face. I also notice that he utilizes a lot of static shots as well. Namely, the scene in which Norman stands and watches as the swamp swallows up Marion’s car. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the longer the camera stays on the submerging car, the more I want the car to sink down all the way, unsettled by the threat that someone might stumble upon it and Norman has to kill again.
I think there are a few aspects of the film that make it distinctly "Hollywood". Firstly, it’s not as self-conscious as films we would confidently categorize as part of the French New Wave. Hitchcock’s filmmaking techniques are unique and brilliant, but they don’t seem out of place so much so that you would notice it when you’re watching the movie. Hollywood movies are known to “conceal the style.” The camerawork in this film is steady and firm, unlike the handheld cameras the French New Wave directors might use. And they do very little location shooting. Bates Motel was apparently built on the back lot of Universal. (it looks so real though) The actors they used are professional ones as well, as opposed to the non-actor villagers we saw in La Pointe Courte. Another thing that makes this movie look so Hollywood-like is that it’s plot-driven, and the characters have distinct goals and motivations. Marion is driven by love to steal the $40,000 and Norman is attracted to Marion so fatally he must kill her. The storyline is also constructed in a linear and continuous form, the very narrative structure French new wave cinema rebelled against.
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