A mind is a terrible thing to lose

Rating: 10/10 (22 October 1998)

The psychological threads of the film are so complex as to be nearly inexhaustible; this feature alone contributes to its place in film history as one of the great celluloid efforts of all time. Like any genuine work of true genius, it may be enjoyed on more than one level. Alfred Hitchcock forced film-goers to confront head-on just a few of the shadowy corners of the human psyche: the Oedipus/Elektra complexes, jealousy about sexual perceived sexual] rights, guilt, and self-hatred [as in Norman's cross-dresssing], to cite just a few examples of neurotic behavior. Perhaps the most frightening interpretation of the film is that one is responsible for one's actions and cannot, ever, alter the designated course a particular act has set in motion. Here, it is Marion Crane's decision to steal the $40 grand from her employer in order to race to Fairvale to be with her [illicit] lover, Sam Loomis. The opening vista, a bleak mountain and desert landscape over Phoenix [note the metaphor for both the geographical location and the town's name], is replete with the futility of the lovers ever forging a permanent bond with one another. The film is a terrific essay of human desperation and its stray threads: the hunger for sex, for a safe haven, for an ascendant place in one's tiny universe. The barrenness of the emotional landscape is shiveringly mirrored in Bernard Herrmann's shrill, spiky score, which speaks of the desolation of all humankind. Both murders are violent acts of mutilation and hatred, one thinks, not only for the victims, but also for the perpetrator. Fittingly, the killer's "cleansing" ritual takes place in a swamp, the normal repository for all kinds of secrets and unclean, dangerous organisms lurking beneath the stagnant surface. Finally, I found most interesting the title on the record label on the turntable in Norman's room: Beethoven's Eroica Symphony [No. 3]. This majestic, noble work bears no resemblance to the music one would justly associate with the tormented mind of young Bates. One can only guess that the boy's impressionable mind was at one time quite normal and receptive to elevated experiences such as a hearing of this great work of Beethoven's, but that jealousy, perhaps having been spurred by an intimacy with his mother, drove the boy to madness. Guilt, one of the human being's great purgatives, finds no outlet here, as we see in Norman's feral smile at the film's end. Hitchcock's use of mirrors works wonderful psychological tricks upon us, forcing us to wonder if what we see in our real and fancied mirrors, is real.