Oscar Horrors: Looking into PSYCHO
Wednesday, October 31, 2012 at 12:00PM 
Here lies… a film no other man could have made – Psycho.
Matt here! Alfred Hitchcock directed Psycho just after he made Vertigo and North by Northwest, two gigantic Technicolor productions for Paramount. Imagine the pitch he made – Shoestring budget, black & white, killing off Janet Leigh after 40 minutes, main character’s a schizophrenic taxidermist motel-owner. He shot it in a few months on the Paramount lot using a television crew, paying for everything himself.
The rest is history. After spending roughly $800,000, it has grossed over $50 million and had enormous cultural impact. Recently, it placed 34th in Sight & Sound’s “Greatest Films of All-Time” critics poll. In 1960, it was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director. One single bathroom sequence revolutionized expectations for audiences, filmmakers, and censors. What business does a true-blue, low-budget horror flick have in the pantheon of cinematic art?
While Psycho may not be Hitchcock’s greatest film, it is the apex of his directorial control, his auteurist posture. More...
By bankrolling the project and keeping the stakes relatively low, Hitchcock had control over every corner of every frame. Decisions were his – from content to casting to lenses to editing. Psycho gives us our most powerful scope into Hitch’s mind, his methods, his fetishes.
Rear Window outwardly touts voyeurism as its subject, even using that exact word in the film. But Hitch delivered a more relentless variation on the theme with Psycho. The film begins with those slow, eerie pans across Phoenix, eventually dipping in the window of a cheap hotel. Sam and Marion have just enjoyed a good lunchtime screw and we become privy to their post-coital anxieties. We’re made to feel like L.B. Jeffries, stumbling into a story. Later, Norman Bates peeps into Marion’s room as she undresses. Is this excitement what moves him to kill her?
Hitchcock’s obsession with sexual voyeurism manifests itself in Bates’ method. Sexual arousal shakes him into “becoming” his mother and satisfying himself through violence. The famous shower sequence concludes with a shot that spins out of Marion’s eye. She stares blankly into the camera, face flat against the floor.
Psycho has a deep fascination with the human eye – what it sees and what it can’t. Norman’s genial, youthful presentation is what separates him from other serial killers. His sickness hates the gaze. The plot’s motion stems from his secrecy. Psycho’s thrill is manufactured from Norman’s duality, not cheap scares. His dutiful cleaning of the bathroom is meant to generate a sort of curious sympathy. From that point, a mostly expository conclusion exploits our relationship with Norman. The climactic scene, when Norman’s secret is uncovered, is a daring display of human obsessions. His gender confusion reaches a summit as he screams “I am Norma Bates!” and is subdued by Sam’s masculine form, a man we already know is potent. This discovery seems to complete Norman’s shifting of identities.
Through all of this, Hitchcock exhibits impeccable craft. He worked with Saul Bass on the two murders. They remain two of the most influential scenes in horror history. I might go as far to suggest that the shower sequence did as much to shape contemporary cinema as any other. Excitement through disorientation may have had precedent, but Psycho popularized the now-ubiquitous technique. The machine-gun editing in the bathroom is set against mostly measured, deliberate pacing. If there is a cheap thrill in Psycho, it’s the shower scene. But Hitch knew that the visceral shock of shifting gears would be the only appropriate way to kill off a heroine 40 minutes into the film. It’s a genius segment – one that uses a handicap (censorship, budget) to craft a gamechanging solution.
In addition, Psycho might display Hitchcock’s best work with acting talent beside The Birds. His attraction to Janet Leigh inspired a series of brilliant performances – from her hands in the car to the silent scene as she packs. Her industry posture as a light-comedy/musical star was exploited by Hitch to magnificent effect. He was right all along – she is probably best remembered for two dramatic performances, Psycho and Touch of Evil. And Anthony Perkins – another actor who gave excellent dramatic turns to both Hitchcock and Welles. Hitch saw the stirring eccentricities beneath Perkins’ handsome persona. The scene where Marion eats dinner in Norman’s office is one of the most impressively acted scenes in all of Hitchcock’s work and deserves to be better remembered.
Hitch lost the Best Director Oscar that year. But so did Bernard Herrmann’s score, if you need any further reason to shake your head.
Alfred Hitchcock, Directors, Janet Leigh, Oscar Horrors, Oscars (60s), Psycho
Reader Comments (12)
But the unanswered question remains: How much was Hitch consciously or unconsciously inspired by Welles? Touch of Evil predates Psycho by two years, and features Janet Leigh in distress at a motel whose desk clerk (Dennis Weaver) is nothing if not Norman Bates adjacent.
Janet Leigh & Dennis Weaver in Touch of Evil
Thank you for a unique analysis of possibly the most analyzed film ever made. But your piece sees different aspects I've never thought of. Terrific essay.
It's interesting that the argument is made that no other man could have shot 'Psycho'... There is plenty of documentation out there that confirms that Saul Bass stood in as the primary unit director on many of the scenes, including the shower sequence. I understand that Hitch's nack for overall pacing for the story is felt through the film, and therefore GET the argument, but the fact that someone else DID direct a lot of the film negates the argument (at least in a literal sense)
If you want further proof that the AMPAS more often than not has their head up their collective tuchus, consider: Hermann's score wasn't even nominated that year, and neither was Anthony Perkins for Best Actor. (And, of course, the picture was snubbed as well.) One of the Academy's all-time stupidest blunders; even the right-wing nut job gossip columnist Hedda Hopper thought that Hitchcock deserved the Oscar.
Leigh is tremulous perfection in this role. I've seen this film countless times and have never failed to note how much the first third of this picture depends on her performance.
@brookesboy: Thanks!
@Johnny: Saul Bass didn't direct any of the film at all. Hitchcock is widely understood as one of the most stentorian, anal-retentive directors in the history of cinema. Of course Bass assisted the shot planning of the two murder sequences -- Hitch wanted another opinion on how to be as ruthless without upsetting the censors and Bass was respected as a great master of visual motion. But ultimately, the film is completely his. His method is everywhere. I'd argue that it's the most Hitchcock thing that Hitchcock ever made. (Perhaps challenged by THE BIRDS.)
I have a feeling that the Academy was like a deer in the headlights when this movie was released, much like its reaction to The Exorcist when it came out. It's almost as if both movies were begrudgingly recognized because both became cultural phenomenons. Neither was awarded the recognition they deserved. The Academy is full of chickenshits. I mean, no Editing or Score Oscars for Psycho? And Ellen Burstyn losing to Glenda Jackson? Holy feces.
I do want to amend what I just posted. As much as I love Hermann's score, the Oscar rightfully belonged that year to Ernest Gold for his work on Exodus. One of my all-time fave scores. Sorry, got carried away with my Psycho love, and the winner that year flew out of my head.
Loved this entry...
brookesboy: Um, The Exorcist over The Sting (phenomenal heist film), Badlands (lyrical piece about murderers), Secret of the Beehive (psych horror), Don't Look Now (ambiguous, more subtle horror) or the 2005 released cut of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (more tension than the original released cut but also less fat than the preview cut likely had and Knocking On Heaven's Door reintegrated). I could see a supernatural horror nut choosing that first one, but to a more balanced film buff, it comes across as a very weird choice with those five things on the table.
Psycho is probably my favorite Hitchcock flick. If it isn't perfect (and I'm inclined to think it is), it's damn close. So many indelible images (the policeman who wakes up Marion! Norman's taxidermied birds! The car and the swamp! THE HOUSE!), but my favorite sequence is the one right after the shower scene, where Norman cleans up. So brilliant in how it so easily and effectively shifts our sympathies to Norman, and (if memory serves) all in one take! Anthony Perkins is freakishly good.
Volvagia, I'm not alone in considering Friedkin's film a revelatory masterwork. Under the guise of a horror film, The Exorcist is a haunting spiritual allegory with hidden meanings that continue to reveal themselves decades later. While I am not a "supernatural horror nut," I do consider this film the best of 1973. The Sting, on the other hand, is an overrated, empty caper film distinguished only by its high production values and charismatic leads.