Psycho Image Analysis

This is an extreme close up shot of Marion after she has been killed by who we are lead to believe is Norman’s mother. The close up shot is there to make the audience fell uncomfortable and to feel emotion. Close ups like this can also make people feel slightly claustrophobic and uneasy. What looks like a tear is actually water from the shower. If someone was to see this picture that hadn’t seen the film they would assume it was a tear. Marion has the shower curtain pulled across before we see her killer which makes her very confined, almost trapped. The fact that Marion is naked in the shower, adds to the idea that her killer is a sadist. In this scene we also see a bit of blood and gore. It appears swirling around the plug hole, just like how the camera spins out from Marion’s eye. This is very much like a Kuleshov effect with the two shots helping us understand Marion’s life is swirling away. This also follows the classic psycho scene with the sharp, parallel music in the background. This scene is a very long shot in terms of time for a horror sequence which contrasts with the quickness of the shower scene. This is Hitchcock using collision cutting, making the shower scene more fast and brutal and this scene slower and sad.