Hitchcock's Psycho

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Hitchcock's Psycho

Hitchcock had to make Psycho in a time of very strict censorship in

the USA. To get the film to the maximum audiences without having to

change his ideas he showed in the film, Hitchcock used devious

techniques to get past the strict censors. Janet Leigh (the actress

playing Marion) said in an interview that she thought the strict

censorship rules made Hitchcock a better filmmaker, as he had to be

more creative. This is a good point as if you have a film were there

is a killer running around killing people with blood and guts

everywhere it can get boring after a while since you're seeing the

same thing repeatedly. Whereas if you have to be more creative in the

way you make a film and people are murdered this comes across to the

audience and makes it more entertaining. This can be proved true as

Tarantino is often criticised for relying on killings, violence, sex,

and drug taking instead of using character development so we know more

about them. In "Pulp Fiction" for instance you are distracted by the

vivid killings, violence, sex, and drug taking, which takes place in

almost every scene, and you never get to know the characters that

well. You also don't get the same witty conversation as you do in

Hitchcock films although there is humour in what the characters say in

"Pulp Fiction" at times, for instance when they are robbing the

restaurant or when John Travolta & Samuel L. Jackson are talking about

what burgers are called in France. This lack of character development

does make the characters seem more cartoon like.

To make it seem like he was co-operating with the censors Hitchcock

would add in scenes that w...

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... are now a lot less strict it was

disappointing at times as I'm used to the movies of today were there

is a lot more Sex, Nudity, & Violence. At the first scene for an

audience today you'd expect to seem Marion & Sam having sex or Marion

topless. In the shower scene you'd expect to see Marion nude and the

knife going into her and blood everywhere and her guts clearly visible

like in films such as scream and the film would be in colour. This

would make the film more visual but that wouldn't necessarily be

better as it would leave a lot less to your imagination. I can see how

it has survived all these years as a Film icon and it shows how modern

day films could be if they used more taste and less flesh. Psycho

however is still

considered a good film by audiences today as it is still grossing a

huge amount of money.

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