PSYCHO image analysis

This scene from PSYCHO (1960) is an extreme close-up of Marion’s eye after she had been stabbed to death in the shower. This illustrates the fact that life leaves you when you die as her eyes are diluted and expressionless. Her pupils have dilated, which also shows how terrified she was before she died. There is a drop of water coming from the corner of her eye which is most likely water from the shower but looks as if it is a tear. This emphasises the emotional affect her death will have on the audience at the time as it looks realistic which shows she suffered before she died. This shows how Hitchcock used cinematography to captivate the audience’s attention and make the scene as a whole unsettling as she was about to turn her life around when this prevented her doing that. Also to make it more shocking with the restrictions of the Hays Code, this scene zooms out to show Marion’s full face smashed into the floor, which again makes the scene unsettling as the audience at the time wouldn’t be used to seeing dead people on camera. This focuses on the psychological genre of horror as no gore could be shown but it was just as effective to the audience at the time.

The power of the film in 1960 can be best understood by the theories of the critic Janet Staiger, who in her book ‘Interpreting Films (1992)’ mentions that people react differently to the meaning behind the film. She also acknowledged that the audience’s context is important as some people watching PSYCHO might find this scene more shocking or sexual if they come from the eras close to the events in the film compared to later audiences. This is also shown as people in the 1960 would understand that this film references Ed Gein, the notorious American serial killer and necrophile who was arrested just three years before the release of PSYCHO (1960).

This scene features the famous PSYCHO parallel music, created using harsh violins by the composer Bernard Hermann. The sound changes from the shower scenes parallel, daunting music to being silent in this scene. This allows the audience to process what has happened and makes it all the more shocking. It emphasises Marion’s death as there isn’t anything to distract you, making the audience watch it carefully, maybe anticipating something else to happen.