The infamous scene begins peacefully enough. She turns on the overhead shower water, from a prominent shower head nozzle which is diagonally placed in the upper left that sends arched needles of spray over her like rain water. There, in the vulnerable privacy of her bathroom, visibly enjoying the luxurious feel of the cleansing water on her skin. Marion is relieved as the water washes away her guilt and brings energizing, reborn life back into her. Large close-ups of the showerhead are shot from her point of view. This shows the water bursting from the showerhead and it pours down on her and the audience. With her back to the shower curtain, the bathroom door opens and a shadowy, grey tall figure enters the bathroom. Just as the shower curtain completely fills the screen - with the camera positioned just inside the tub, the silhouetted figure whips aside the shower curtain to reveal Norman bates mother, at the same time we see the glint of the knife, this is where Herrmann starts with his high-pitched violins. The piercing, shrieking, and screaming of the violin strings of Bernard Herrmann's shrill music play a large part in creating sheer terror during the horrific scene. Marion begins to scream where the audience sees a close up of her open mouth as we hear the brutal and sickening sounds of the knife stabbing her. At one point in her murder the camera is positioned looking down on her where Janet Leigh was directed to keep pieces of moleskin attached to her to stop her appearing nude in the film, which added extra difficulty to the already difficult scene. The murderer appears to stab and penetrate into her, shattering her sense of security and salvation. The savage killing is viewed from many angles in my opinion to give a realistic view of the murder and to heighten the gruesome yet frightening images. The next shot focuses on the famous image and extraordinarily dramatic: Marion stabbed to death, slides down the wall with her hand stretch out as though trying to grasp hold of the last shred of her life and keep alive while looking outward with a fixed stare the camera at this point is following her slow descent.
