Psycho

564 Words2 Pages

1. Watching the shower scene with and without music helped me to understand Hitchcock’s use of music throughout the film. Hitchcock used the high-pitched music during the scenes that were intended to have a high-tension effect. For example, when Marion was stealing the money, talking to the cop, and driving especially. The movie would probably get boring if we were just watching her driving and driving and driving. By adding the high-pitched music, Hitchcock created tension and suspense.
2. In my opinion Marion Crane is innately a good person. Although she stole the money, I think she did it mostly out of desire to help her boyfriend and to get out and away from her home and live with her boyfriend. It is obvious throughout the movie that Marion knows that stealing the money was a bad idea, she was extremely paranoid, she was obviously not used to doing anything considered “bad” or illegal considering the way she acted towards the cop, and in the end I think that if she were really a bad person the killer would have not been identified. Before she was murdered she was planning on returning to Phoenix, which she knew was the right thing to do. If Marion’s sister hadn’t gone looking for her, no one would have known she was even murdered. I think that since she was innately a good person, that that is the reason the murder was pieced together and solved in the end.
4. I think this was a good film to show in this class. It showed us a lot about techniques to create suspense, and it helped show us how different horror movies were when they first started out. I thought it was funny that they could use chocolate syrup as blood since it was in black and white. Black and white movies must be a lot cheaper to make even when not considering color price. The censorship was so different when this movie was made. Most of us I think were stunned that they didn’t actually show the murders (being stabbed), and couldn’t even show Marion’s butt in the shower. I’m personally a wuss when it comes to horror movies, and I thought I’d be scared of Psycho just because I normally would be. But I realized that after watching this movie that I’m more afraid of the blood and the music than anything else. A friend and I used to watch scary movies sometimes during sleepovers and we’d always hit the Mute button every time we got really scared, because we realized a lot of what causes us to be scared is the suspense that the music in a movie builds.

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