sociology
ts- 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 audienc
and continues with her journey. The split personality motif reaches the height of its foreshadowing power as Marion battles both sides of her conscience while driving on an ominous and seemingly endless road toward the Bates Motel. Marion wrestles with the voices of those that her crime and disappearance has affected while the audience is compelled to recognise as to why it can so easily identify with Marion despite her wrongful actions. As Marion's journey comes to an end at the Bates Motel, Hitchcock has successfully made the audience a direct participant within the plot. The suspicion and animosity that Marion feels while at the motel is felt by the audience. As Marion shudders while hearing Norman's mother yell at him, the audience's suspicions are heightened as Hitchcock has, at this point, made Marion the vital link between the audience and the plot. The initial confrontation between Marion and Norman Bates is used by Hitchcock to subtly and slowly sway the audience's s! ympathy is primarily directed towards her character. The terror that Hitchcock conveys to the audience manifests itself once the audience learns that it empathised with a psychotic person to a greater extent than with rational one when its sympathy is shifted to Norman. The shift from the normal to the abnormal is not apparent to the audience in the parlour scene but the audience is later forced to disturbingly reexamine its own conscience and character judgment abilities to discover why Norman's predicament seemed more worthy of its sympathy than Marion's. During the infamous shower scene, Hitchcock conveys a sense of cleansing for the audience. Hitchcock has reassured the audience of Marion's credibility and introduced Norman as a wholesome character. The audience's newly discovered security is destroyed when Marion is murdered. Even more disturbing for the audience, however, is that the scene is shot not through Marion's eyes, but those of the killer. The audience, now in a! e. 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 open
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Approximate Word count = 1453
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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