Analyse de séquences du film psychose

                                                                   Psycho

The shower scene is certainly one of the most famous in Hitchcock’s cinema. This is one of the most violent scenes in the history of cinema. The scene lasts 45 seconds in all and required 7 days of shooting and 70 camera positions!

The best scene

The shower

The protagonist opens the taps, soaps and begins to take a shower; but we can see the silhouette of an old woman  by transparent curtains sneaking into the bathroom. To achieve a horror effect, the film director uses a lot of close-ups for a dramatic and horror effect through the details : the hand of the assailant wielding the knife, the faucet dripping water heavily. Also the sound background accelerates the rhythm and reflects the compulsive movements of a knife and contributes to the terror of the scene. Hitchcock, with his point of view from inside the shower, shows us the shadow of someone approaching through the curtain... She doesn’t know, she can barely see, but we do. This is definitely total suspense... The shower curtain is pulled out and the old woman appears that we identified as Norman’s mother, stabbing her again and again! she falls, with her hand,she tears out the curtain and falls dead, with the tremendous plane, recreating before our eyes the blood mingling with the water, and finally, the crime scene ends with this first shot of the bloody drain to the circular motion of his inert eye...

[pic 1]

Assassination of Arbogast

In this scene, the music (double bass) and the nighttime setting create an atmosphere of mystery.

As soon as the detective enters Bates' house, the heightened sounds increase the tension. Plan on the staircase and the room where the mystery unravels. We see on the right, an angel not of love but of death that announces his destiny... As Arbogast climbs the stairs, the scene is filmed in a dive which allows to follow the expression of the face, identification with the character to play with the fear of the spectator.

We hear again piercing noises (the same as the scene of the shower) that accelerate the rhythm and accompany the fatal ending with the eruption of the back of the killer figure, knife in hand. Finally, the camera makes a first shot on the face and the terrorized look of the victim who tumbles down with a close-up dive.

[pic 2]

Rythm and the atmosphere

An attractive girl. A robbery. A runaway. A cop stalking. A deserted motel. A lonely house. A shower. A brutal murder. An intrigue that grows more and more as the film progresses.. The film begins as a love story and then transforms into a kind of crime novel disguised as a road movie. When the protagonist is killed within half an hour of screening, the viewer no longer has them all with him. Two-thirds of the film remains and the horror has reached its climax. The robbery, a matter that seemed capital in the first few minutes, suddenly lacks of importance, disappears, while the mysterious presence of Norman’s mother makes us be alert.. With a few characters in principle simple, few dialogues and a simple plot in general, a rhythm is created that captivates and unquestionably moves the viewer. The gloomy images of the house of the Bates, the stuffed birds, the stubborn rain, the unpleasant and disturbing music, the camera angulations and the absence of color are some of the elements that contribute to create this distressing and particular atmosphere of Psycho.

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