Alfred Hitchock

Whenever someone speaks about the film Psycho, the first image that comes to mind is that of Janet Leigh being hacked to death in the shower. The scene is so famous that even people who haven’t seen the movie are aware of it, or at least of the shrieking music accompaniment by Bernard Hermann. After watching it again, I was quickly reminded of how shocking such a scene would have been to audiences of the early 60’s, let alone audiences of today. Hitchcock’s innovative use of cinematic principles and methods is what I believe made this scene so dramatically successful, and has inspired the thoughts and writings of film critics even

As quickly as the attack began it quickly ends, and the audience is left with only a glimpse of the killer exiting the bathroom. In these last few moments following the brutal murder, Hitchcock again leaves the audience alone with Marion Crane, to suffer and share in her dying moments. Hitchcock captures Marion’s stare as she slides down the bathroom wall, and almost as if she is aware of the viewing audience she reaches out for help, clasps onto the shower curtain, and slumps forward to her death. Hitchcock then uses some special editing techniques to finalize the murder, and address the shock of the audience. He cuts to the shower head, and then to her legs in the tub, where the blood from her body is flowing towards the drain. The camera follows the stream of blood and halts over top of the drain and then begins to slowly track in. As the drain gets bigger and bigger and as the bloody water spirals down, Hitchcock uses a dissolve, and the image of the drain becomes the very still image of Marion’s eye, staring straight back at the audience. What I found interesting was that this final sequence of shots, similar to the first, lasting for forty seconds, and consisting of six editing cuts, one less than the first.

Psycho is one of Hitchcock’s greatest films, a classic horror that was ahead of its time both narratively and cinematically. I believe that this particu

Some topics in this essay:
Janet Leigh, Marion Crane, Hitchcock’s Psycho, Hitchcock Surprisingly, Bernard Hermann, Psycho Hitchcock’s, shower scene, editing cuts, forty minutes film, hitchcock’s psycho, shots knife, marion crane, sequence shots, forty minutes, minutes film, shower curtain, film’s overall,