Ufr angellier close-up on alfred hitchcock

1.Marion’s Point of View

An intimate scene

The first two characters who are shown in the film are Marion Crane and her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin); they are in a hotel room. They discuss their illicit relationship (they are not married) and the fact that Marion would like to have a respectable relationship with Sam. This is an in medias res opening and the spectators have to imagine what the situation is regarding what they see on the screen. The setting helps us understand that their relationship is illicit. For instance, several times we see them standing in front of a blind which is closed. It can be interpreted as a metaphor for their relationship; they have to hide from the rest of the world.

Fig. 1: The use of the blinds shows that their relationship is illicit

A crane shot is used, and we are shown the skyscrapers of Phoenix, just before we break into the hotel room. Hitchcock has even specified the time and place in order to convey a sense of realism. Moreover, the scene takes place in the middle of the day and it is the only moment when Marion can meet her lover. In his interviews with Truffaut, Hitchcock explains that: 

Dans l’ouverture de Psycho, j’ai éprouvé le besoin d’inscrire sur l’écran le nom de la ville, Phoenix, puis le jour et l’heure où commençait l’action, et cela, pour arriver à ce fait très important : il était trois heures moins dix-sept minutes de l’après-midi, et c’est le seul moment pendant lequel cette pauvre fille, Marion, peut coucher avec Sam, son amant. ⁵

The audience can easily identify with Marion. Janet Leigh was a star; therefore the spectators knew that she would be a major character. (It will be discussed in the second part that this was a trick used by Hitchcock.) Also, she is the first character who appears on screen, lying on the bed.

In the public sphere

When Marion arrives at her office, she talks with her colleague Caroline (Patricia Hitchcock). There is a striking difference between the two women. Caroline is a married woman concerned with her husband and her family. She keeps talking about them to Marion who is hardly listening to her and puts on her lipstick at the same time. Marion embodies femininity and desire whereas her colleague represents order and married life. Then Marion’s employer, Mr Lowery (Vaughn Taylor) and her wealthy client, Mr Cassidy (Franck Albertson), enter the room. The latter throws forty thousand dollars in cash onto Marion’s desk and Mr Lowery, concerned about the money, asks Marion to put it in the safe deposit box at the bank. Soon after this, Marion pretends she has a headache and has to go home. She tells Mr Lowery that she is going to deposit the money before going home.

In a private place

There is a dissolve between the scene at the office and the next scene showing Marion in her bedroom. As a result, the spectators do not know yet that she has kept the money. However, the envelope containing the money is rapidly shown to the spectators thanks to what we can call a “privileged shot” (i.e. a shot, usually a close-up or an extreme close-up, that is meant to attract the audience’s attention to an element of the plot) [10:49]. (This will be developed in the third part).

Fig. 2: A shot to catch the spectators’ attention Fig. 3: Another shot for the audience

We see her alone in a private place, her emotions are thus real. She looks rather anxious (hence the importance of using both shots in which we can see her and subjective shots) and seems to already feel remorse concerning what she is about to do: stealing the money. Moreover, there is a subjective POV shot when Marion is getting dressed. First we have a medium close-up of her [11:06] and then a reverse shot shows the envelope containing the forty thousand dollars. This technique makes the audience believe that the money is going to trigger the plot but it is only a McGuffin (this will be developed in the second part). A few seconds later, Marion looks at herself in a mirror [11:30]. As Donald Spoto remarks in The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, mirrors are a metaphor for “the need for introspection⁶”. He writes that “for a true glimpse of our divided selves, one consults a mirror⁷”. In this scene, Marion is looking at herself as if to show that she is aware that she has an “evil” side. She knows that stealing the money is a sort of sin, but at the same time she seems to be determined to do it (she is able to face her own gaze). Besides, she is now wearing black underwear whereas she was wearing white underwear in the opening scene. (This point will be discussed in the second part.)

The escape

There is another dissolve and the following shot shows a close-up of Marion in her car. Her anxiety is almost palpable and this is reinforced by the voice-over. Indeed we share what she hears – the voice of her lover Sam. She is on her way to meet him but he does not know it and she imagines his reaction at her arrival. The voice-over is a clever device that enables the audience to share the character’s POV. Bordwell and Thompson write that:

A film’s plot may give us access to what characters see and hear. We might see shots taken from a character’s optical standpoint, the point-of-view shot, or hear sounds as a character would hear them what sound recordists call sound perspective. This would offer a greater degree of subjectivity, one we might call perceptual subjectivity. ⁸

Then she needs to stop at a traffic light and her interior dialogue also stops. The only sounds that we can hear are the faint noise of the engine as well as the footsteps of the pedestrians crossing the street. This highlights the tension because the heroine is trying to run away and she is stopped because of the traffic light. The scene reaches its climax when Mr Lowery, Marion’s boss, crosses the street. At first, they instinctively smile at each other but Marion soon realises her mistake. She has told him she needed to sleep because of a headache and, as a consequence, her presence in the town might look suspicious. Moreover, the man turns back, frowning. At that moment, the musical score starts and we can hear strings playing at a rapid pace. This renders the beginning of the main character’s trouble and the necessity of leaving quickly. Therefore the protagonist keeps on driving. Two dissolves are used to show that time has passed. The close-ups on Marion’s face make the audience share her anxiety and they make us see that she is tired. After a fade to black, a long static shot shows Marion’s car parked in the middle of nowhere. The heroine has spent the night sleeping in her car. A policeman arrives and wakes her up. The use of the subjective camera showing an extreme close-up of the policeman’s face highlights Marion’s fear [14:23]. A series of shots/reverse shots also shows how frightened she is. They start talking and she tries to justify her presence. The question she asks: “Have I broken any laws?” is rather ironic [15:00]. She has not broken the law for sleeping there but the theft of the forty thousand dollars makes her a criminal. Nevertheless, her behaviour makes the policeman suspicious; he wants to see her license. Then, there is a medium close-up showing Marion looking for her papers [15:44]. The camera is in the car (on the passenger’s seat) and the policeman is in the background, gazing at what Marion is doing (Fig. 4). She turns her back on him, which strengthens the fact that she has something to hide. Moreover, since the policeman is just behind her, she seems to be trapped. Indeed she is trapped in her car but also in her life because of the theft.

Fig. 4: Shot showing that Marion is trapped

When the policeman leaves, the stressful music resumes. Marion keeps gazing at her rear-view mirror because the policeman follows her. She seems relieved when he leaves the main road.

At the shop

The next scene takes place at a garage. Marion is in a hurry and wants to sell her car and buy a new one as soon as possible. The salesman is rather suspicious because she does not even try to negotiate the price. The irony of this sequence rests on the salesman’s question: “You look in a hurry, someone chasing you?” Marion rapidly answers: “Of course not!” Yet, the policeman has come back and he is watching what she is doing, which reinforces the tension of the scene. Marion then goes to the ladies’ room in order to take the exact amount of cash (seven hundred dollars) that the salesman is asking for. The ladies’ room is really narrow and it is shown in a high angle shot which reinforces Marion’s, and therefore the audience’s, feeling of entrapment. Moreover, in the room, there is a mirror, a prop traditionally used, for instance in film noir, to enhance entrapment. Once the transaction is finished, Marion hurries to leave. In the meantime, the policeman has come near the shop and the scene ends with a medium shot showing the policeman and the two salesmen looking suspiciously at Marion. The stressful musical score resumes.

Still running away

A device already used (the voice-over) starts again: Marion hears the voices of the salesman, the policeman, her boss, her colleague Caroline and Mr Cassidy. Marion keeps on driving and she seems more and more anxious. However, an extreme close-up shows her grinning; her eyes are wide open [25:25]. She looks like a conspirator who is determined to succeed, but the pouring rain puts an end to her escape. She cannot see anything and needs to stop in order to avoid an accident. She arrives at the Bates Motel.

At the Bates motel

There is nobody in the motel, but a subjective low-angle shot reveals someone walking near a window in the nearby imposing Gothic mansion inspired by Edward Hopper’s House by the Railroad⁹ (1925). Then, Norman Bates arrives. When he makes Marion sign the register, she writes Marie Samuels. The spectators are aware that she is lying since they already know her real name. The subjective shot used here reinforces the fact that it is Marion’s POV that we share. The same happens when Norman asks for her home address. At first she seems to hesitate but then she looks at her newspaper where “Los Angeles” appears on the front page, so she pretends she lives there. Norman is very obliging and Marion seems a bit less nervous. He offers to prepare dinner for her and she accepts. Yet, when he leaves her room, her face becomes tense again and the worrying music resumes: she needs to hide the money. After she has done so, we can hear the voice of a woman, seemingly Mrs Bates, arguing off-screen with Norman about Marion’s presence. Just like Marion, the audience cannot see what is happening, we only hear the discussion. We do not know more than her and we empathise with Norman who takes Marion’s defence. A subjective shot shows him arriving. Marion then stops looking through the window in order for Norman not to realise that she was peeping at him. When he comes back, she apologises for having caused him trouble; Norman looks rather sad. When they arrive in Norman’s parlour to have dinner, several subjective shots show a lot of worrying stuffed birds; Marion looks a bit intimidated. Yet, she seems more relaxed when they start talking; their conversation is shown in a series of shots/reverse shots. Norman talks a lot about himself, Marion does not want to give details about her life since she is running away. They talk about Mrs Bates’ illness and Marion tries to give advice to Norman. However, when she suggests Mrs Bates could go to an asylum, Norman’s face becomes angry, which seems to scare Marion a little. She pretends that she is very tired and goes back to her room. Then, for the next two minutes and a half, the spectators share Norman’s POV (see the second subpart).

Marion’s last moments

In the motel room, a medium shot shows Marion writing [45:40]. A subjective shot shows the paper with the accounts that she is keeping. She then tears her note, throws it into the toilet and flushes it down. She undresses and goes to the bath to have a shower. At one point [47:04], the audience knows more than her because the camera is placed so that we can see Marion in the foreground and the shadow of someone entering the bathroom in the background. Yet we cannot see the intruder distinctly because of the shower curtain. This creates a strong feeling of suspense. The music starts at this point, which makes us understand that something is going to happen. The shower curtain quickly opens; Marion turns around and starts to scream. An extreme close-up of her mouth strengthens the feeling of fear [47:19]. She is stabbed several times and the blood splashing onto the bathtub makes us understand that she will probably die from her injuries. To show her last instants, the camera tracks down, following the heroine’s fall, and the music starts to fade as a sign of Marion’s imminent death. The water draining from the tub turns into an extreme close-up of her dead eye, an eye that no longer sees; Marion does not blink anymore, she is dead [48:39].

Fig. 5: Close-up on Marion’s frozen gaze

Then the camera tracks out; it can be interpreted as a change of POV. The film is not finished and the protagonist is dead. As a result, the story is going to be seen through the eyes of other characters.