My Personal Favourite among Hitchcock's Work

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2006)

The structure of "Psycho" can be likened to that of a three-act play. In Act I, Marion Crane, an employee of a real-estate company in Phoenix, Arizona, embezzles $40,000 belonging to a client of her employer in order to start a new life with her married boyfriend and goes on the run, ending up at a lonely motel. Act II deals with her stay at the motel and her conversations with its owner, Norman Bates, and ends with her murder in the famous shower scene. Act III deals with the investigations into Marion's disappearance, not only by the police but also by her boyfriend Sam, her sister Lila and a private eye named Milton Arbogast.
Many people have felt that Act I, and indeed much of Act II, is a gigantic red herring. Certainly, Hitchcock seems to be leading us to believe that Marion is to be the central figure in this drama and the stolen money the "McGuffin" around which it will revolve. Her murder midway through the film must have come as a great shock to the audiences who watched the film in 1960, not only because the shower scene was, by the standards of the day, graphic in its depiction of violence, but also because the violent death of the central character so early in the film was almost unprecedented. Marion is young, attractive, blonde (like most Hitchcock heroines) and played by a major star; just the sort of film character one would expect to survive a murderous attack. Moreover, in Janet Leigh's portrayal she emerges as not altogether unsympathetic, despite her crime. One gets the impression that she is not, fundamentally, a wicked person and that she stole the money in a moment of madness. The man from whom she stole is a seedy sexual predator, seen flirting with her and making veiled sexual suggestions. When she is threatened by that sinister-looking traffic cop in his dark glasses, we are just praying for her to get away with it.
This is probably the darkest of Hitchcock's films. Many of his films have a straightforward pattern of good triumphing over evil, ending with the villain dead or in police custody and the hero safe and free to marry the beautiful blonde heroine. "North by North West", the film which Hitchcock made immediately before "Psycho", and "Spellbound" are good examples of this pattern. In some films, such as "Rebecca", "Notorious" or "Strangers on a Train", there are elements of moral ambiguity, but in "Psycho" ambiguity seems to be replaced by a straightforward triumph of evil over good. Bates might end up under arrest, but not before he has murdered Marion and several other people.
There is a clear contrast between this film and "Spellbound", another film which shows Hitchcock's fascination with psychology. In that film the character played by Ingrid Bergman is a "healer of souls", (the literal meaning of the Greek words from which "psychiatrist" is derived) a force for good who is able not only to cure Gregory Peck of his psychological traumas but also to clear him of unjustified suspicion of murder. In "Psycho" the psychiatrist is a more neutral figure, able to explain why Bates committed his crimes, but unable to cure him or to suggest how such crimes might be prevented.
Yet on a deeper level there is more ambiguity about "Psycho" than appears at first sight. The character of Bates, with his split personality, symbolises the duality of good and evil in the human soul. Bates originally committed an evil crime- the murder of his mother and her lover- but has been driven mad by remorse. In his madness, the two aspects of his character have crystallised into two distinct personalities. His "Norman" personality (shown in a brilliantly subtle performance by Anthony Perkins) is that of a polite and inoffensive young man. His timidity, his apparent domination by his mother and his odd hobby of taxidermy might make him seem creepy, but never threatening. (His speciality is stuffing birds, and several examples of his handiwork decorate the motel, adding to the eeriness of the film and foreshadowing Hitchcock's next film, "The Birds"). Bates has, however, unconsciously projected the evil side of his character onto his dead mother, and it is when the "Mother" personality takes over that he commits further evil deeds. One of the things that make the film so frightening is that the crimes are committed by a seemingly inoffensive character.
These two aspects of Bates come out in his dealings with Marion. The "Norman" side befriends her, the "Mother" side kills her. Before she is killed, however, she is persuaded her she must return the stolen money. One of the last things she says is that she must return to Phoenix "to get out of a trap I've gotten into". Unwittingly, Norman has persuaded her to cleanse her soul. He destroys her physically, but might have saved her spiritually. If that seems an over-portentous interpretation of this film, we must remember that Hitchcock was brought up as a Catholic and that themes of sin and redemption play an important part in his work. (Think, for example, of "I Confess"). There are also, of course, two sides to Marion, symbolised by the change in colour of her underwear from white to black after she has committed the crime.
Two things remain to be mentioned. One is that harsh, driving Bernard Herrmann score which fits the mood of the film so well. The other is Hitchcock's direction and his use of black-and-white photography to convey a threatening mood. He said that he used black-and-white to make the film less gory; in fact, it seems far more eerie and frightening than a colour version ever could. (A pity that Gus van Sant did not understand that before embarking on his ill-advised remake). Overall, this is a superb chiller, undoubtedly the best "slasher" movie ever made and my personal favourite among Hitchcock's work. 10/10.