Ah, another Hitchcock… another
classic. The classics are always the hardest to discuss. Sure, I
can talk all day about Zombie or The Vanishing, or even
Suspiria. But with movies of this stature, not only has
everyone already seen it, but everyone has already read other reviews
expressing every possible opinion I could give. And the most
controversial opinion of Psycho I have to give is that “while
I agree a lot of the psychobabble at the end was unnecessary, I
wasn’t bored, so I find it acceptable.”
That said, Psycho is well
remembered for switching plots roughly one-third of the way through
the film. A woman named Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals $40,000
from her boss and flees to give it to her fiance so that he can clear
his debts and they can be married. (This plan is clearly idiotic as
the theft is blatant.) During the first act of the film, she’s
followed by a police officer who seems to be the film’s antagonist.
One thing I do note about this part of
the film is the use of voice-overs as she’s driving to show us
various scenarios ash she imagines them happening elsewhere. For
example, her boss discovering the theft, and planning her capture and
his retribution. I interpret this as a psychological trick on
Hitchcock’s part. I think we’re supposed to understand that this
is all going on in her head and that the real events playing out
might be different. This digs us in even further, seeing her as the
protagonist and expecting the film to be from her perspective. And
in so doing, Hitchcock was setting us up for another Rear Window,
in which we as an audience were exclusively given information
available to one character.
As you likely know, she’s bumped off
when she stops at an Inn run by a young man named Norman (Anthony
Perkins) and his mother. We’re led to believe that the mother is
the killer (a figure in a dress with an old woman’s hair style
stabs her in the shower), and that Norman covered for her. Thus, the
film undergoes a sudden, dramatic shift, removing our protagonist and
leaving us with Norman as the only character to sympathize with. And
yes, if you know anything about this film, you know that Norman’s
mother is dead, he dressed in her clothes and stabbed Marion to death
while under the control of a “Mother” persona.
The remainder of the movie however
builds up to this revelation. We follow a private investigator
(Martin Balsam), Marion’s Sister Lila (Vera Miles) and her
aforementioned fiance (John Gavin) as they investigate the
disappearance. We’re led to one wrong conclusion (...or rather,
the audience who saw it before it became a classic were...) as the
characters are led to another. We believe Norman’s mother to be
the killer, while they believe that Norman killed Marion for the
money and is isolating his mother because she knows the truth. I
think Hitchcock probably intended a level of irony in the fact that,
by sheer dumb luck, the investigators come to a conclusion closer to
the truth than our own.
Yes, this movie is scary, but not so
much so that I can see anyone being unable to sit through it. It’s
tense, it’s exciting and it is awesome. If you haven’t seen it
and know it only through pop culture references, parodies and
analysis, then watch it.
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