Blog 4 : Psycho

The thriller psycho is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the film is based around the women who steals 40,000 dollars. However this is in its self is not what drives the film, this only gives the film a starting ground it is referred to as the mcguffin . Half way through the film people will forget about the money or just not find it important any more, as there are much more pressing issues that will turn the audiences attention. But this is what Alfred wanted to achieve, he wanted the audience to become compelled at the mystery of the 'psycho' killer.

This film is under the name of a thriller, so therefore it should have aspects of the thriller genre, and it does. The film contains moments of fast pacing action, where there are quick cuts from scene to scene, with music and that compliments the scene making it parallel. A well recognised scene that this is seen in is the scene where the main character is killed in the shower. However, does this film contain, a hero and a villain? The idea of having a hero and villain is recognised in near enough all thriller films, however not this one. As there is no hero that saves the day. On the other hand there is a villain if you will, this is the psycho, who is the motel owner, but no hero defeats him, there is only the police who arrest the man. We cannot count the main character as a hero as she dies half way through the film, as well as this the police only do there job of arresting the man which isn't heroism. The only people that come close to the idea of a hero is the sister of the main character and the man the main character has an affair with, these two people start engaging with the film when the main character dies, this is so that these two replace the woman. With this it is these two that find the psycho, so maybe, these two can be considered the hero's.

When this thriller is mentioned the first thing that will pop into peoples heads would be the shower scene, this is because it had such a big impact on people in the cinemas in 1960. There are recorded incidents of people collapsing in the cinema because of how shocking this scene was. However it has been said the true brilliance of this thriller is found in the editing, for example. In the shower scene will only see the knife, the woman and blood, this all taking place in the shower. It was then left down to the audiences imagination, as there is no graphic footage of the knife impaling the woman. The camera work of this scene is truly good as the angles used hide the woman's body, this also was a shock to the audience. The angles used were mainly close ups, whether this be on the knife or woman, by doing this it was able to hide the woman's body but also the identity of the killer.