For the journal, Alex asked us to note the Hitchcockian elements that we noticed while watching the film. There was a lot to it, so I did not catch nearly all of them, but these are of the ones that I did catch:
Blonde Girl:
One of the most glaring and well-known of the hitchockian elements is the use of the beautiful blonde leading lady. This movie is no exception. Marion Crane, played by Janet Leigh was the lucky girl in this film.
Sexual Innuendoes:
Like many of this movies, Hitchcock throws in some simple one liners, says certain things, or uses objects to demonstrate sexuality.
Lines (as in shapes) to Introduce Movie:
This is one we have not spoken of, and I have always wondered about it, but upon rolling the opening credits, many of his movies starts with lines covering the screen when this is occurring. This happens in Psycho, North by Northwest, and many of his other movies.
Musical Queues:
Watching the progression of hitch's films throughout the semester, one of the improvements that was impressive over time was his use of music. Psycho might be the culmination of this aspect. Everyone knows the tones for the shower scene. Hitchcock was able to use music to his advantage in setting up scene, not leading up to the peak of action in a scene, but might stop the music right before it to mess with audience.
Birds:
Obviously Hitchcock made a movie dedicated entirely to birds, but it is something he uses in many of his movies. In Psycho there is a bird on the wall in the office parlor. Possibly, this represents death.
McGuffin:
While the mcguffin is another one of those known things Hitchcock thrived on in his films, Psycho, of course, had them as well. The most glaring and in-your-face mcguffin is the money that is stolen in the beginning of the films that is eventually thrown into the lake while in the trunk of the car.
Cross:
As representation of the catholic church is another overriding theme across the realm of his films, and in this one, at one point there is a shadow of a cross that is portrayed on one of the doors.
Bumbling Cops:
Although this one is not quite as apparent in Psycho as it is in many of his other films, the cops in his movies are portrayed as bumbling fools that are always tricked or go there wrong way. The cops in this one come across more lazy and give up pretty easily. Still not as competent as one would hope a police squad would be.
I know there are many more, but these are some of the glaring Hitchcockian elements that I saw in the films.
I was looking around at some Psycho facts and found some I thought were extremely entertaining.
- Hitchcock ended up buying as many copies of the Psyco novel as he could before the film came out so that no one would know the ending before they saw it in the theaters.
- Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director for the film, but did no win. In total he was nominated six times, and never won.
- The film cost only $800,000 and made over $40,000,000
- Hitchcock originally wanted the shower scene to be done completely silent, but Bernard Hermann scored it anyway, and Hitchcock ended up agreeing to it.
- Hitchcock waived his standard $250,000 directing fee, and instead went with a 60% share of the films grosses. (good choice, Alfred!)
- Norman was based on a 1950's serial killer named Ed Gein
The funniest one of all - Hitchcock received a letter from an angry father whose daughter would not shower after this movie, and would not take a bath after a film called Les Diaboliques (1954). Hitchcock responded by telling the man to take "send her to the dry cleaners."
No comments:
Post a Comment