Exploring How Alfred Hitchcock Manipulates The Audience In Psycho

Exploring How Alfred Hitchcock Manipulates The Audience In Psycho

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock is thought to be, by most, the greatest film

director of all time. He was born in Leytonstone, London on13 August

1899. He directed many great films such as The Lodger, The Birds,

Sabotage, Notorious, Rear Window, and of course one of his greatest

achievements ever, Psycho in 1960. He directed the first British sound

film - Blackmail. Alfred Hitchcock once said, " Audience reaction is

more important than the content of the film". Throughout and before

the playing of Psycho, Hitchcock manipulates the audience in many

ways.

The words that Alfred Hitchcock said that illustrates manipulation in

Psycho the most is "Terror is often accompanied by suspense in the

unfolding of a thrilling narrative - or, to put it another way, a

story which gives the reader a feeling of terror necessarily contains

a certain measure of suspense". We can really see in Psycho that this

is true, because all of the terror and surprise in the film is due to

the building of suspense, done by Alfred Hitchcock.

Hitchcock first starts too manipulate the audience before the

screening of Psycho has even begun. The short trailer manipulates the

audience's perception of what the film contains, and what the genre of

the film is. Psycho is a thriller, but this is not what the audience

suspect when they watch the trailer.

Hitchcock manipulates the ideas that the audience has about the themes

and issues of Psycho. One of the main manipulations that occur in the

trailer is as Alfred Hitchcock gives an image that Norman Bates'

mother is alive. He does this by describing Norman Bat...

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...by making the plot seem

very complicated at some points. At one point in the film, Arbogast is

trying to find out what happened to Marion. At this point, Arbogast

adds some more themes into the film. These is done, so that the

audience loses interest of the current issues of the film, and start

to get confused with the issues that Arbogast is talking about. This

is done to build some suspense, and so that the audience will get a

greater shock when something happens in the film, because they did not

expect it.

In conclusion, Alfred Hitchcock manipulates the audience in many ways.

From sound to visual, conscious to unconscious and from identification

with the protagonist to identification with the bad. This essay has

shown all of the possible ways that Alfred Hitchcock has manipulated

the audience through the film.