Analyzing the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho (1960) in terms of relationship between story and structure

3/2/2012 Joey Ku

Contents:
Introduction: Main body: Conclusion: List of Illustrations: Bibliography: 3 4 7 7 7

Introduction
This assignment will analyze critically on Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho (1960) in terms of the relationship between story and structure. The essay will focus on the camera movements and its musical score that helped create the climax of the story. The famous shower scene will be focused the main focus of this essay which the audience sees Marion Crane getting murdered in the shower. The assignment will begin by giving a brief summary of Psycho before going onto discuss the camera techniques and editing used within the specific scene then explaining how this builds the story and structure. The books that would be useful for defining the camera and editing languages would be James Monacos How to read a film: movies, media, and beyond: art, technology, language, history, theory , Amy Villarejos Film Studies: the basics and Ian Charles Jarvies Philosophy of the film: epistemology, ontology, aesthetics.

Main Body
Cameras are an important aspect in creating films, from documenting life to telling a story. This can give different ideas, meanings or even views behind the film. James Monacos How to read a film: movies, media, and beyond, explains how the camera influences the audiences views, he states that The camera itself moves, as well as the film, and it is in this area that cinema has discovered some of its private truths, for the control over the viewers perspective that a filmmaker enjoys is the most salient differences between film and stage. (Monaco, 2009: 108)What Monaco seems to be saying is that as the camera moves around the film, it also controls what the audience sees which is the difference between watching a stage play and a film. The camera may become one with a character, depicting things from a different view from a characters eyes to the audience. This method is completely different to watching on stage as the audience sees everything on stage but wont get the tension or view like watching the film. Camera movements are an important aspect in film, giving different views and ideas whilst controlling what the audience sees. This is demonstrated quite frequently in Alfred Hitchcocks film Psycho. Psycho is known for its experimentation in camera movement to evoke tension and horror. An example of their techniques would be the simple close up. Author of Film Studies: the basics, Amy Villarejo gives a brief definition of what the camera technique Close up does. She states that, The face, especially in close up can accomplish a good deal of the work of conveying emotions (Jarvie,1987: 5) What Jarvie appears to be saying is that as the camera is focused on a subject up close, the subject fills the whole screen. This attracts the audiences attention and makes them more focused on the subjects emotions, emphasizing those emotions by removing what is in the background to focus on what is in front. The emphasis of the emotional horror taken in close up is seen particularly in the shower scene of Psycho.

Figure 1: Marion taken at close up 4

Psycho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock was made in 1960 and is a suspense horror film. The film stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. The famous scene from the film, the shower scene shows how the close up camera technique is used. The scene depicted in figure 1, shows the character Marion Crane who is about to be murdered in her shower. What this image shows is a large zoomed shot of Marions face, which fills the screen, as she has just been disturbed whilst being in the shower. She is screaming at the camera and has a look of horror on her face as she sees the knife that is off-screen. Because of the images powerful expression, it is able to convey the horror and emotional fear to the audience of what the character feels. It is that because of the various closes up shots in Psycho that made it powerful for the audience to understand and feel the emotions of the character that made the film successful. This was all due to the close up shots taken with different subjects as well as placing in a sequence which briefly shows these shots. Another camera technique, which is a form of camera editing, used on Psycho, is rapid montage. Rapid montage, derived from Sergei Eisenstein was intended to manipulate the emotions of the audience as well as creating film metaphors. Villarejo gives a brief definition of what montage is, A form of editing that compresses time radically and shows the passage of time through brief shots joined together. (Villarejo, 2007: 156) Villarejos definition of montage is that for a filmmaker to show time pass quickly, they make short cuts on a shot and join it together with another short take. Using montage is one of the easiest methods for a filmmaker to show the passage of time without wasting too much film. Alfred Hitchcock used this technique with closeup shots particularly in the shower scene of his film Psycho.

Figure 2: The shower scene film stills

Although the shower scene is not a long passage of time, it was made to look a lot more rapid through the use of montage. This is depicted in figure 2 which shows a sequence of stills from this scene. The stills are mostly taken in close up showing parts of Marions face and body, the shadowed figure or the knife. In this montage, we are able to see that the shots switches between Marion to the figure, back to Marion again and switches to the knife. These rapid shots switching from one thing to another doesnt allow the audience time to focus on any one thing. This seems work to make the audience experience the confusion and fear of Marion. This is a way to ensure that the audience gets frightened by the horror and fear without letting them absorb too much information. However because of the duration of the montage, it is hard to notice that continuity is used in this sequence due to the horror and tension created. Continuity editing is used a lot in films, as it appears seamless in sequences. Though sometimes it is hard to notice that continuity editing is used since the audience becomes too involved with the horror to the film. Looking at James Monacos How to read a film, he gives a brief definition of what continuity editing is. The film editing is of the style known as seamless. That is, cuts are at the natural ends of scenes, and usually introduce scenes with a telling detail. (Jarvie, 1987: 20) From what Jarvie says, basically Continuity editing is where shots are joined together to appear seamless, turning into a single film strip. So when shown, the shots are perhaps taken in the same setting or area but in different angles yet appearing to the audiences eyes as invisible. Continuity editing can be mostly found in films today as it is a way of showing the event in one place, such as match on match editing which shows shots following up the action without repeating itself and not distracting the viewer. An example of this is seen in the shower scene of Psycho. Continuity editing, or seamless editing is seen in most films is a way of show time or space changes within a film, an example of this is also seen in Psycho. Again in figure 2 the shower scene is depicted as film stills with each shot different from each other. The stills show Marion in the shower leading up to her death that ends with a large close up of her eye. The continuitys match on match action shows the camera switches from Marion, slightly looking at her attacker before the camera switches to a shot of her attack before either showing a shot of Marion again following up from the action made previously or of the knife slash. But because of the rapid montage and continuity editing used within this sequence, time and space are not shown a lot but its main focus is to convey horror and fear to the viewers. However, continuous editing appearing to be seamless in the rapid montage and with the use of camera movement together helps form a narrative structure toward the film.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Psycho is successful in conveying emotions as well as depicting the story. This was made using camera techniques and angles to control what the audience sees such as the use of close ups in a montage sequence along with the effective use of continuity editing, resulting the audience to become afraid and horrified by the content and the flashing images- which is now one of the important element in creating films. These are mainly seen in the shower scene where these elements worked most effectively and successfully to create a story structure for the film. Continuity editing where editing appears, seamless is shown in a match on match editing which can be seen in the film where Marion looking at her attacker, then to her and the knife. This editing is hardly noticed unlike the others mentioned due to the fast flashing close up images of Marions body parts or the knife as the action unfolds in a rapid montage.

List of Illustrations:
Fig 1: Hodgkinson, Will (2010) Psycho (Marion taken at close up) (online): http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/29/psycho-body-double-marli-renfro (accessed on 24/02/2012) Fig 2: Guyver, Lauren (2010) Psycho: The Shower Scene (The shower scene film stills) (online): http://laurenguyverasmedia.blogspot.com/2010/12/psycho-shower-scene.html (accessed on 20/02/2012)

Bibliography:
Villarejo, Amy. (2007) Film Studies: The Basics. New York: Taylor and Francis (Accessed on 10/02/2012) Monaco, James (2009) How to read Film: movies, media, and beyond: art, technology, language, history, theory. New York: Oxford University Press. (Accessed on 8/02/2012) Jarvie, Ian Charles. (1987) Philosophy of the film: epistemology, ontology, aesthetics. New York: Routledge (Accessed on 27/02/2012)