Ufr angellier close-up on alfred hitchcock

UNIVERSITE CHARLES-DE-GAULLE – LILLE 3

UFR ANGELLIER

CLOSE-UP ON

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S PSYCHO:

Spectatorship and Point of View

Mémoire présenté en vue de la validation de la première année de

Master Arts, Lettres, Langues et Communication

Mention Langues, Cultures et Interculturalité

Métiers de l’Enseignement du Second Degré en Anglais

Juliette DUFLOT

Sous la direction de Mme Patricia KRUTH

Juin 2013

UNIVERSITE CHARLES-DE-GAULLE – LILLE 3

UFR ANGELLIER

CLOSE-UP ON

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S PSYCHO:

Spectatorship and Point of View

Mémoire présenté en vue de la validation de la première année de

Master Arts, Lettres, Langues et Communication

Mention Langues, Cultures et Interculturalité

Métiers de l’Enseignement du Second Degré en Anglais

Juliette DUFLOT

Sous la direction de Mme Patricia KRUTH

Juin 2013

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Patricia Kruth for her advice, her patience and the time she devoted to me all along the progression of this thesis. I would not have been able to complete my work without her precious help. She made me discover a lot of interesting theories and films, and she also helped me understand some notions of psychoanalysis.

I would also like to thank Mrs Clare Axby for being the proof-reader of my thesis.

Thank you to Mr Jean-Philippe Luchez and Ms Juliette Duthoit for helping me as much as they could. Their knowledge of computing was really useful.

Finally, I want to thank my family as well as Ms Soraya Haddad for being supportive during the writing of the essay.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 4

PART I: THE POINTS OF VIEW IN PSYCHO 6

This is, for instance, discussed by Gilles Deleuze on: Université Paris 8, La voix de Gilles Deleuze en ligne, http://www2.univ-paris8.fr/deleuze/article.php3?id_article=92. 16

PART II: THE SPECTATOR TRICKED BY HITCHCOCK 27

The ‘Grammar’ of Television and Film, Narrative Style, http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/gramtv.html. 41

Conclusion 56

1)Filmography 57

2)Bibliography 58

3)Websites 59

Appendices 62

Introduction

When Psycho was released in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock managed to trigger the curiosity of the spectators. Posters – saying that latecomers could not enter the cinemas – were printed, and the director also made a trailer with glimpses of some key scenes of his film. Psycho has now become a classic in the History of American cinema.

Psycho was a pioneering film because it broke the conventions of classical Hollywood narration: the star of the film is murdered during the first half and the film is left open-ended. Moreover, it is considered as a forerunner of the slasher genre, which is a subgenre of the horror film. Slasher films always involve “a mysterious psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims usually in a graphially violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe¹.” Norman Bates is an archetypal psychotic serial killer.

A lot of critics have dealt with this famous film, mainly focusing on Hitchcock’s daring choices, the shower scene being the best example. At the time, censorship was still very present and directors had to respect the Hays Code. Hitchcock brilliantly managed to get around it without being censured.

The film is not only about a psychotic killer who cold-bloodedly murders women. It tells a lot about human nature and people’s desires. These issues are highlighted thanks to the use of different points of view. Indeed, we are often left alone with one particular character, which allows us to share his or her deepest feelings. The question of the point of view in Psycho has not been discussed in depth by either academics or critics. And yet, it happens to be a crucial element for the understanding of the film. Indeed, the several points of view that we are given enable us (or not) to investigate and to fill in the gaps in the plot. To a certain extent we become active. Yet, on the other hand, Hitchcock also uses these different points of view, as well as particular cinematic devices, to trick us and even to deceive us sometimes.

Therefore, we can wonder about the actual role of the spectators. How does Hitchcock involve us? Why can it be said that we are part of the plot as if we were one of the characters? How is it possible for us to empathise and even sympathise with characters who commit crimes such as theft and murder?

I will first discuss how we become investigators thanks to the different points of view. Then, I will deal with the devices Hitchcock uses to trick us, to finally talk about the real voyeurs of Psycho. In this essay, I propose a new close-up on Psycho.

PART I: THE POINTS OF VIEW IN PSYCHO

The notion of point of view (from now on abbreviated as POV) can be defined in several ways as explained by Patricia Kruth in her article about Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita². In the article, the author quotes Laurent Jullier for whom there are five definitions of a point of view:

[…] le point de vue réel du spectateur […]; - le point de vue optique induit par la caméra, ainsi que le point d’écoute formé par les sons et leur mixage… ; - le point de vue depuis lequel, s’il s’agit d’images narratives, l’histoire est racontée […]; - le point de vue que le film porte sur le monde […]; - le point de vue critique que pose le spectateur une fois le film terminé, c’est-à-dire le jugement de goût.³

In other words, the five different kinds of POV are the one of the spectators, the one given by the camera, the one from which the story is told, the one that the film has on the world and, finally, the judgement of the spectators on the finished film.

This part will focus on the POV of the protagonists of Psycho – Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) – and two less important characters, the detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam) and Marion’s sister, Lila Crane (Vera Miles).

One could think that the best way to show the POV of a character is to use subjective shots only. The spectators are shown what the character sees as if they were the character himself or herself. Yet, this theory was questioned after the release of The Lady in the Lake directed by Robert Montgomery in 1946. In this film, the subjective camera is used almost all the time. The audience sees through the eyes of the protagonist, Phillip Marlowe (played by Robert Montgomery). However, is it not easier to adopt a protagonist’s POV when one can also see this person? As David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson explain, the question of the relevance of the subjective camera remains unanswered: “The history of the technique has teased film theorists into speculating about whether the subjective shot evokes identification from the audience. Do we think we are Phillip Marlowe? The problem of audience identification with a point-of-view shot remains a difficult one in film theory⁴.”