Because many “B” movies did well commercially back then, Hitchcock wanted to see if he could turn a solid, inexpensive film into a success. Psycho’s black and white look was not an artistic choice, as colour had long become mainstream. He just wanted to keep the cost down.

Psycho’s black and white look was not an artistic choice.

Hitchcock did everything to make the film a success, including creating hype in any way he possibly could. To keep the movie’s shock twist a secret, he bought the rights to the novel (for only $9,000), and then bought up all available copies he could lay his hands on.

In other words, he created suspense in the market, long before the movie’s release.

Master Of Suspense

Hitchcock was known as the Master of suspense. He famously explained the difference between surprise and suspense using the anecdote of two people sitting at a table, talking. When suddenly a bomb explodes, this is an example of surprise. More effective however, would be suspense: we know about the bomb before it explodes. Hitchcock taught us that not only suspense is cinematically far more powerful, the tension can also be extended for much longer.

Still, the twist in Psycho goes against this golden rule of suspense, because we don’t see Marion Crane’s death coming. It hits us as a terrible shock instead.

The twist in Psycho goes against this golden rule of suspense.

Ironically, when we watch Psycho again today, the whole first third of the film has become pure suspense … as we know she will die in the shower!

Oops. Did I just spoil something?

Breaking His Own Rules

Hitch didn’t really break his suspense rule in Psycho. The long travel sequence from downtown Phoenix to the Bates Motel is one long string of suspenseful moments. As the car scene in the swamp with Norman Bates will illustrate, even after the shock twist, Hitchcock stays true to his suspense mantra.

If he didn’t believe in surprise, why did Hitchcock kill off Marion Crane so suddenly?

Because Hitchcock is also a master of POV.

Removing the main character served a greater purpose. Now he could mess with another golden principle of cinema: the single POV.

This brings us to the scene in question, which is not the shower scene.

Removing the main character served a greater purpose.

Playing With POV

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is schizophrenic, and indirectly Hitchcock creates a cinematic experience that emulates this condition for the audience, by placing us in his POV.

First we identify with Marion Crane, but once she is gone, there is only one character left — her murderer. Is it possible to immediately shift our POV to the antagonist, and even empathise with him?

Let’s see.

You Are A Psycho

Most viewers will admit after seeing Psycho that – at least for a short while – they moved their empathy from the victim to the killer. “Hold on,” I hear you say, “we don’t ever root for Norman Bates!” Really? Well check out this scene…

[vimeo 89452965 w=960 h=540]

Norman has just murdered Marion, and has to get rid of the body. He puts it in the trunk of the car, and drives it into a swamp.

Agonizingly slowly, we witness how the car sinks … suspense … it gets stuck! We are squarely in Norman Bates’ POV.

The shiny white roof remains visible above the mud. Norman panics – and so do we … with him.

We are squarely in Norman Bates’ POV.

We hold our breath — until the car finally disappears into the black bog.

Q.E.D.

-Karel Segers

 Download the Psycho screenplay here: Psycho – Screenplay by Joseph Stefano

See also:

Introduction to POV
Omniscient POV
Shifting POV
When to Shift?
POV in Ratatouille’s Deleted Scene
POV as Controller of Tone

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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iv) the spectator feels that the writer is taking a sadistic pleasure in burdening the character with ever greater obstacles.

He will regard the character as being victimised, pitted against impossible odds, and suspect the writer’s motives for making life so difficult for him.

The rape scenes in A Clockwork Orange, the chainsaw scene in Scarface (the 1983 version) and the torture scenes in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction fall into this category, in my view. Tarantino, the writer-director of these last two movies, has defended himself vigourously against charges of sadism, saying that his only responsibility is of an artistic nature and consists of being consistent in his treatment of the characters.

If a character is an odious criminal, it is normal, he said, that the character should be seen acting odiously. That’s a fine excuse! In Die Hard 2 and 24, a particularly unscrupulous villain blows up an airliner in midflight.

If a character is an odious criminal, it is normal […]
that the character should be seen acting odiously.

In King Lear, Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s eyes. In Psycho, a mysterious killer carries out a sudden, brutal murder.

In Misery, Annie (Kathy Bates) cripples Paul (James Caan) by breaking his ankles. In each of these cases we may feel that these are abusive acts, that there was no need to go so far, but we do not suspect the writers of self-indulgence. They leave the spectator little time to draw any satisfaction from the crime and its representation even if he should be inclined to do so. In fact, the violence in the screen version of Misery is watered down compared with the violence in the novel in which the nurse actually hacks off the protagonist’s feet. As William Goldman [83b] notes of the film’s audience: “They hated her but they loved the movie. If she had cut his feet off the audience would have hated her and hated the movie.”

Take two other famous examples: the dentist’s drill scene in Marathon Man and the rape scene in Deliverance. They leave us feeling queasy, to be sure. But in the first case, the violence is suggested rather than shown, conveyed in a preparatory scene and through the words of Szell (Laurence Olivier). The actual torture is never seen.

It is not simply a matter of artistic coherence,
it also has to do with dramatisation, with duration,
with the way a given act is represented.

In Deliverance there is a kind of trade-off insofar as we know that the victim (Ned Beatty) may pull through: two of his companions, Lewis (Burt Reynolds) and Drew (Ronny Cox), are absent but could return at any moment and put an end to the rape. In short, and notwithstanding Tarantino’s views on the matter, it is not simply a matter of artistic coherence, it also has to do with dramatisation, with duration, with the way a given act is represented. It is not enough to say simply that human barbarism exists, I’m doing no more that showing it. Broadly speaking, we can say that there are two ways of representing human barbarism: the humanist way and the barbaric way. Writers—and, incidentally, spectators—should have the courage of their convictions, even if these are very often (to a large extent) unconscious.

There are two ways of representing human barbarism:
the humanist way and the barbaric way

Note too that there is a significant difference between the examples of Scarface and Reservoir Dogs and those of Misery, Deliverance and Marathon Man. In the latter three cases, the victims are the story’s protagonists. When a writer wishes to indulge his sadistic tendencies, it is better that he should do so on a secondary character rather than the protagonist.

When a writer wishes to indulge his sadistic tendencies,
it is better that he should do so on a secondary character
rather than the protagonist.

The issue of obstacles—getting the right balance between the difficulties the protagonist faces and his ability to overcome them—is one of the most crucial for the writer of drama to resolve. These obstacles should be as forbidding as possible, and yet not too much so. There is one work in which the obstacles are too strong, and where it is precisely the insolubility of the problem—the writer having refused to resort to any miraculous outside intervention—that lends meaning and power to the story. This is No Man‘s Land. I shall refrain from discussing the film here so as not to spoil the pleasure for anyone who has not seen it, but clearly it provides an exception to the above rule.

-Yves Lavandier

If this excerpt has whetted your appetite and you would like to own this book, don’t fork out the $150 or so Amazon is charging.

Instead, send an email to the publisher contact@clown-enfant.com with subject ‘the story department referral’ and you will be eligible for the super-discounted price of 30 Euros (i.e. only $37 at the time of writing). This saves you $113 (or 75%) off the Amazon cost.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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