Hitchcock is his career as bi-national director launched a number of visual representations of psychological concept of repression, dismemberment, memory, haunting, and doubling to name a few. The present paper constitutes the reading of select films by Hitchcock- Rebecca and Vertigo The objective of this paper is to look into the variety of ways how Hitchcock turned the mundane into the aesthetics of strangeness, that is to say how the familiar has become the unheimlich in Hitchcock. In doing so the author will include some screenshots from the select films to spell out the visuality of uncanny.
Hence, the influence of the prevailing narrative in a certain society has its due share in cementing the belief-structure of the population of that particular society. Sigmund Freud is the first to foreground the distinctive nature of the uncanny as something weird or mysterious which is strangely familiar.
Narrative Parameters in 'Psycho'
Freud revolutionized the psychoanalytical approaches to literature. This shift is connected to the contemporary rise of reception theory, which, like Freud, acknowledges the contribution of the reader or audience in creating the meaning of a text. Of course, the meaning also accordingly constructs the psychological impact on the receiver of the text. Cixous pursues her analysis:.
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Free Publication of your term paper, essay, interpretation, bachelor's thesis, master's thesis, dissertation or textbook - upload now! Register or log in. Our newsletter keeps you up to date with all new papers in your subjects. Request a new password via email. Cixous pursues her analysis: A slight shimmer of hope is the relationship between Sam and Lila.
Norman as the psychopathic murderer can be seen as the personification of this evil. The strong degree of identification with Norman psychologizes the issue of evil in the perceptor hinting that there is a spectrum between good and evil in everybody.
Visual Uncanny. Freud's Screen Translation in Hitchcock
The sheriff of Fairvale and his wife have known Norman and his mother for a long time. The final message is simple: As Stephen Prince writes in his book about the genre of the horror film: It is in fact too easy, too tempting and all too justifiable not to steal since the victim of theft boasts with never carrying more money than he can afford to lose and unblushingly admits not to declare it. Marion quickly repents her mistake and is afterwards disproportionately punished for it.
Norman is both victim and perpetrator, child and man, mother and son, tragic hero and ambiguous villain. His mother has completely taken control of his super-ego, the part of the psyche that punishes misbehaviour with guilt. It is safe to deduce that Norman suffers from an enormous guilt complex for having murdered his mother. Another typical Hitchcockian motif is the gaze of madness — wide open eyes, an apathetic facial expression, a state of shock. This staging of a subjective reality is also prominent in the shower scene as the muderer theatrically tears the drape open.
William Rothman writes in his book Hitchcock: Since Hitchcock had a passion for theatre to the degree that he even adapted several plays e.
Die Umsetzung des Unheimlichen in Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho (German Edition) @ NiftyWareHouse
It is important to stress that these are actually two completely different psychological disorders. Since probably neither Hitchcock, nor Stefano or Bloch had this expert knowledge and symptoms of schizophrenia like paranoia and hearing voices are strongly alluded to throughout the film, it is also correct to call Norman a schizophrenic in the pop sense of the word: The film intermingles schizophrenia, which today is considered as a biological disease of the brain metabolism, with psychoanaytic terms which was actually pretty common in the 60s.
The part of him that is her forces him to suppress his sexuality. The Freudian concept of the oedipus complex is allegorized by the fact that Norman killed the man of her mother and turned her into a fetish by stuffing her and slipping into her role. Whenever he is aroused by women his mother takes over and he violently lives out his sexuality. In Freudian terms this can be seen as a regression into a phallic stage of development and the knive as a phallic symbol.
They are depicted as incompetent, autocratic, unsympathetic and with a lack of imagination. Psycho is no exception to this regularity. Eventually he is the one who drives her into the arms of Norman Bates. Sheriff Chambers only reluctantly agrees to interview Norman and does not realize that there is something fishy so Lila and Sam have to take action themselves.
Psycho cannot be matched with just one single Master Plot. These two plot structures are subtly woven into each other and Hitchcock takes care to hint at an early stage to the things to come. Field He expands this model to that effect that he pinpoints two plot points, shortly before the end of Act I and Act II, where the story is fueled by a new impulse and a midpoint that seperates the film into two parts. The audience is in no way prepared for the murder. The ending in no way resonates with the beginning and stays full of ambivalence.
This has been described in varied terminology. Bordwell Narration 58 This is certainly true for Psycho. The film starts with an emotional scene between Sam and Marion, which is followed by the money handover in the bank. Then she agitatedly leaves town. Rather formal and rather informal scenes keep alternating.
- Arrebato de amor (Deseo) (Spanish Edition).
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The cop questions her, she drives, she buys a car, she drives, she takes a room in the motel, she has dinner with Norman and so on. Simon distinguishes between an experiential register of narration vs. Simon ff The first highlights the subjective experience of the protagonist, which in Psycho are rather neurotic or psychotic respectively.
The latter, in contrast, serves to relativize the irrationality of the first and is often transmitted via dialogues. As an example for this rational insufficiency he adduces the end of Psycho: Paranoia runs like a red line through Psycho , the viewer is so drawn into the spiral of psychotic identification that the kitchen sink psychology at the end really is not able to rationalize all away.
The paranoia, the feeling of being watched or just a general uneasyness about uncertainty looming at the horizon is the only narrative constant there is in Psycho whose identity endowing protagonist is unexpectedly and shockingly murdered at about one third of the film. The film starts with the intimate conversation between Marion and Sam exposing the viewer to the pervading uncertainness in their relationship.
There always seems to be something threatening coming from the outside. The narrator freely switches between Norman, Mary, Sam and Lila not allowing a clear identificatory preference. This split identification contributes to the genreral air of uneasyness in Psycho. When the viewer in the end finds out about the truth, that he has been identifying all along with a mad criminal, he is confronted with his own psychological and moral abyss.
The Hitchcockian suspense basically works by providing the audience with an edge of information over the characters. This could be an impending danger that is repeatedly referred to. However Hitchcock takes care that the obvious never happens, or at least not in the expected mode and thus he creates surprise. Besides from informing the audience whenever possible cp. Truffaut 73 , Hitchcock emphasizes the importance of endowing the characters with a sense of credibility and the need to make their motivations and emotions comprehensible in order to create emotions in the audience.
Gottlieb This simplification however disregards the systematic restriction of narrative information and the distortion and corruption of its nature. In fact, as many scholars have pointed out, his films are driven by a complex interplay of surprise and suspense. The audience intuitively knows that Marion will be caught when she meets her boss and when the police watches her, only the degree of her punishment is unforeseen.
The unexpected surprise at the end answers a riddle that the audience did not really know it existed. It is hinted at by Sheriff Chambers but nevertheless meticulously concealed.