Psycho (1960) image analysis - 3

This scene from Psycho demonstrates the murder of the character detective Arbogast in the film. The first part of the sequence incorporates lots of Point of View shots; again, this is in order to make the audience feel as though they’re there with him, experiencing everything he is too. Close ups of Arbogast’s feet are also used as he slowly moves up the stairs; this emphasizes every small detail of the action and keeps the audience immersed as they’re urging Arbogast not to go upstairs. The high angle, medium long shot that tracks Arbogast face as he goes upstairs makes him appear to be lost and weak in a big empty house; this gives the audience the impression that he’s not so strong and perhaps powerless when alone. The extreme high angle shot combined with the Parallel music gives the audience a sense of surprise and can become quite disorientating; the contrast between slow montage to quick montage also adds to this particular feeling.

As we witness Arbogast’s murder, restricted narration is used to prevent the audience from seeing any extreme violence.  All of the violence in the film is filmed off screen which creates a lack of body horror; however at the time the film was released the ‘Hays code’ prevented directors from including any really violent body horror as people believed audiences wouldn’t be prepared or ready to see such explicitness. For example, in this scene we see the knife raised and hear stabbing sounds but we never see the action itself; although shocking, the scene still lacks the gruesome, horrific feeling that impacts on the audience. 

This scene seems to portray an underlying theme of sadism as we can see Norman has no qualms about killing for a second time and finds pleasure in observing and watching people before he kills them. This also has a strong representation of a Psycho Serial Killer as the audience witness the murder of an innocent man. The high expressionist angle keeps the sense of mystery by hiding the true identity of the murderer; from what we see, the audience still believe the killer to be Norman’s mother which makes the all-important revelation that Norman is schizophrenic and playing the role of his mother much more shocking.

At this point in the plot, Hitchcock has left the story open for interpretation; his clues in the film lead the audience to believe that the money was the cause for Marion’s murder, but other audience members are able to see that the money isn’t relevant and Marion was just unfortunate to meet Norman as the detective also finds himself in the same position. This can relate to Janet Staiger’s “Audience studies” theory as she suggested that the concept of Polysemy meant that some members of the audience would be able to follow the director’s clues whereas others created their own meaning as demonstrated by the multi-faceted plot Hitchcock had created in Psycho; all of which contributes to creating a sense of mystery, confusion and disorientation.