Movies: A Thematic Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
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Movies: A Thematic Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Movies: A Thematic Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has been commended for forming the
archetypical basis of all horror films that followed its 1960 release. The mass
appeal that Psycho has maintained for over three decades can undoubtedly be
attributed to its universality. In Psycho, Hitchcock allows the audience to
become a subjective character within the plot to enhance the film's
psychological effects for an audience that is forced to recognise its own
neurosis and psychological inadequacies as it is compelled to identify, for
varying lengths of time, with the contrasting personalities of the film's main
characters. Hitchcock conveys an intensifying theme in Psycho, that bases itself
on the unending subconscious battle between good and evil that exists in
everyone through the audience's subjective participation and implicit character
parallels.
Psycho begins with a view of a city that is arbitrarily identified along
with an exact date and time. The camera, seemingly at random, chooses first one
of the many buildings and then one of the many windows to explore before the
audience is introduced to Marion and Sam. Hitchcock's use of random selection
creates a sense of normalcy for the audience. The fact that the city and room
were arbitrarily identified impresses upon the audience that their own lives
could randomly be applied to the events that are about to follow.
In the opening sequence of Psycho, Hitchcock succeeds in capturing the
audience's initial senses of awareness and suspicion while allowing it to
identify with Marion's helpless situation. The audience's sympathy toward Marion
is heightened with the introduction of Cassidy whose crude boasting encourages
the audience's dislike of his character. Cassidy's blatant statement that all
unhappiness can be bought away with money, provokes the audience to form a
justification for Marion's theft of his forty thousand dollars. As Marion begins
her journey, the audience is...