Psycho 1960 Stills Analysis

This scene from Psycho is moments after the quick paced shower scene and is a great example of collision cutting, as this scene is very slow-in compa
rison - as it helps emphasis sadness and despair, in comparison to the shock and panic of the scene before. This scene is also a disconcerting for the audience as the extreme close up of the eye as the camera zooms out; also the camera rotates around the eye which helps connote to the audience life leaving her by going down the drain. Also during this scene, the parallel music that was playing before, has stopped and just the sound of the shower remains. It helps create the emotion of sadness and despair mixed with an uncomfortable feeling, due to just having the sound of the shower. This helps add to the affect collision cutting has had between the scene before and this scene.

This scene from Psycho, is the shower scene, where Norman attacks and kills Marion while she is in the shower. This scene is filled with close ups and extreme close ups, skewed angles and POV shots which makes the audience feel as they are Norman – also due to the quick sequence of shots it helps create confusion and excitement in the audience, as within the scene there are around 57 shot changes, switching between the aforementioned shot types. Also during this scene

is a lot of restricted narration, along with the quick editing, you never see contact between knife and Marion. Actual contact was disallowed, as during the 60's the Hay's Code was still enforced, which disallowed scenes of a graphic nature - however, Hitchcock used this to his advantage and inserted his own Autuer influence into the film, using Montage, with sound and music in order to envoke the correct emotional response from the audience without having to divert from the Hay's code.

This scene in Psycho is where Norman attacks Arbogast, and is a great representation of the successful use of restricted narration, point-of-view and close up shots. As during the whole attack you never see the knife enter Arbogast and leaves much to the audience’s imagination, especially during the scene at the bottom of the stairs where we just see the stabbing motion of the knife in close-up and hear Arbogast’s screams. The power of restricted narration mixed with the POV from Norman’s perspective (similar to the shower scene) makes the audience feel like they are in Norman’s position. The scene also contains a close up of Arbogast as he is falling down the stairs and with the slow editing allows the audience to take in the shock of what’s happened as well as connoting that his life is slowly ebbing about as he falls. Also in this scene, you do see a little bit of body horror (Arbogast being slashed across the face), though not enough to really be "bad", it shows that even those the Hay's code was still around, it was starting to die out and Directors and movies could push the borders of what was and wasn't allowed.