Film Review : ' Psycho '

Psycho is a 1960 American film directed by Alfred Hitchock. The screenplay of the movie written by Joseph Stefano was inspired by the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch on the year 1959. This film is categorized into the horror-thriller genre of film. The starring was Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, Vera Miles as Lila Crane and John Gravin as San Loomis.

In the shower scene in Psycho, The first shot he chooses to give us is

One of the ways why cinematography made the film was the lighting. To get the feel, the lighting appeared to be fake shadows that were painted on the set. The fake shadows that were painted on the set gave the lighting appeared to be harsh and sharper to set the mood for the audience. If it weren’t for the painted shadows, the movie wouldn’t have been so successful in the horror genre. Since it was a silent movie, if it weren’t for the shadows, you wouldn’t of seen it as a horror film, but as an original film that was trying to be creative.

How auteur theory can be applied to the study of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Vertigo

Censorship was very strict at this time. Film standards agencies censored films showing sex before marriage, nakedness, violence and gore. Fortunately, Hitchcock overcame these restrictions in many ways. He used a series of shots to film the shower scene instead of continuous shot. He used chocolate sauce for blood and he had a knife stabbing a melon to imitate the sound of the butcher knife

The movie Shadow of a Doubt is an American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1943, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing and Original Story by Thornton Wilder and Sally Benson. The movie notes the outstanding and remarkable film-making style of Hitchcock. It contains a lot of scenes in which people can empathise with the characters and perceive the feelings and messages from the director. One of the scenes that must be mentioned is when Emmy’s guests are toasting to Uncle Charlie, which is considered as one of the most important scenes as it helps to put an end to the long-term drama of the Uncle. This analysis will provide insightful ideas about the movements and the framings of camera and its uses in

It seems very strange; He started to clean up so good that he was trying to hide this messy scene, and even showed us or gave us a clue that it was not his first time cleaning up a messy scene like this. In the film Pyscho, Alfred Hitchcock's nightmarish disturbing themes, Confused Identities, Voyeurism, and corruptibility are realistically revealed through repeated uses of motifs such as birds, eyes, hands, and mirrors. Clarification of Norman playing the role as his moms was very frightening. There was so much confusion, You find out who is who by looking at the end of the movie.

The first half of this course focused on Alfred Hitchcock and how his techniques are now recognized as iconic. From class discussions and film screenings, it is clear that Hitchcock pays every attention to detail when he crafts a scene. Many Hitchcock films we have seen this semester highlight how he builds suspense through cinematic elements such as shadow, dialogue, and composition. While many of his suspenseful scenes stir feelings of intensity and uncertainty, Alfred Hitchcock builds a more romantic suspense in his 1955 film To Catch a Thief in the fireworks scene (1:06:35-1:11:00).

Hitchcock explained the reason for filming a woman wearing only her under garments in the opening sequence of Psycho: "Audiences are changing....The straightforward kissing scene would be looked down at by the younger viewers....Nowadays you have to show them as they themselves behave" (Hitchcock 1). The director was keenly aware of how audiences responded to his films (Rebello 163) and sought to maintain their interest. He was among a handful of Hollywood filmmakers who deliberately sought out innovative composers (Nowell-Smith 258); for Psycho, Hitchcock hired Bernard Hermann who wrote a modern score which challenged the norm. The title itself, fifties and sixties slang for the violently psychotic, suggested the imminence of a new generation (Brill 200).

The Alfred Hitchcock film; Vertigo is a narrative film that is a perfect example of a Hollywood Classical Film. I will be examining the following characteristics of the film Vertigo: 1)individual characters who act as casual agents, the main characters in Vertigo, 2)desire to reach to goals, 3)conflicts, 4)appointments, 5)deadlines, 6)James Stewart’s focus shifts and 7)Kim Novak’s characters drives the action in the film. Most of the film is viewed in the 3rd person, except for the reaction shots (point of view shot) which are seen through the eyes of the main character.(1st person) The film has a strong closure and uses continuity editing(180 degree rule). The stylistic (technical) film form of Vertigo makes the film much more

When it comes to graphic violence, the one scene that sticks out in the film is the shower murder scene. Some people like David Thomson, the author of “The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder” thought that it was one of the most violent scenes to be shot for an American film (Robb). The scene was only 45 seconds long, but the reaction to the scene was like nothing the film industry has seen before.

Alfred Hitchcock’s attention to detail in his films is one of the many things that makes him one of the most recognized film auteurs of all time. He was very particular what about he wanted seen on screen and how he wanted to get those shots. From camera movements to the things found in the mise-en-scène, Hitchcock was very precise about every little thing that is seen in his on screen worlds. He would strategically place objects throughout the mise-en-scène and have characters wear certain clothing. By doing this, Hitchcock is able to let the audience know things about the characters and the plot without it having to be said on camera. Hitchcock once said that “If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on” (Tiffin). That’s why there’s no surprise that when Hitchcock finally made his first color film, he began to use color as another way of communicating with his audience.

The movie was filmed in black and white in order to manage the graphicness of the murder scenes. Hitchcock was very aware that the movie would not have gotten shown if it was in color, showing blood splattering the walls and floors. However, even though it was in black and white, the film seemed more graphically violent than it actually was. It is said that it’s was not the graphic violence in film that created the horror, but that it was something subconscious within the minds of the audiences that identified with the characters in the film. It is the hidden levels of violence in Psycho that places it amongst the most reputable and profound horror films ever made, which influenced the subgenre: the slasher

“Through my intentional and refined use of shadows in cinematography in the opening scene, the protagonists in the film Psycho are introduced. My film commences with the opening credits of minimalistic fractured lines of monochromatic colours as to allude to the idea of fractured minds as the plot develops and deject the audience consecutively with a non-diegetic orchestral soundtrack. I contrast the black and white horizonatal fragments to stereotypically differentiate between purity and evil, where this disorientates the audience and adds unpredictability, which then becomes a recurring technique which is employed. Though subtle, by intentionally employing a panning shot following the opening credits, which then evolves into a zoom, this

Hitchcock makes use of a number of techniques in Vertigo and brings them together to make a film that is considered to be one of his greatest masterpieces. Through the use of colour, lighting, camera movement, dialogue and characterisation, Hitchcock produces a film that fascinates and intrigues us.