Psycho Case Study
How the Villain is represented in
psycho
Norman Bates is the killer in the movie Psycho, who has a split
personality between himself and his mother, Norma Bates, who he happened to
kill years before but embodied her personality. Throughout the film her memory
lives on through her son Norman. At first he seems innocent because when he
welcomes Marion to the motel he simply appears to be a shy and boyish guy in
front of women but is still kind. This makes him appear to the audience as
someone that isn’t likely to be a killer, which gives and interesting twist to
the film. Throughout the main conversation that he and Marion have, the camera
first uses eye-level shots of both of the but then it alternates to the camera
using low angle shots of Norman which shows that he is powerful now within the
conversation and these could also show the personality shift. This is also
shown through his tone of voice so this is a very small clue to the audience
about who is controlling Norman. A lot of the mise-en-scene of Norman indicates
that he is dangerous, but they are really subtle at first. For example, the
camera shows low angle shots of Norman which indicates he is powerful in the
frame. The lighting on him is also very dim and his face has shadows whereas
Marion has lighter lighting on her. Norman’s speech also becomes very sinister
in certain parts, especially when he talks about his taxidermy and compares
Marion to a bird. The topic shift between how exactly he stuffs the birds to
how Marion eats like a bird is worrying for the audience as suspicion begins to
arise. Psycho brought about a new type of horror film killer as Norman was a
psychologically disturbed killer which a duel personality of his mother that
lived inside of him. For audiences this was obviously scary because it hadn’t
been done before and it was something that could really happen to someone so it
catered for the audience’s fears.
