Film Analysis - Psycho (1998)

Director – Gus Van Sant

Producer – Brian Graze

I am going to begin a detailed analysis of the murder scene from Psycho. I will be talking about all of the aspects that help to create the tension, action and excitement of this scene.

Firstly, a very noticeable aspect of the scene, right from the beginning is the use of camera work. There are a lot of camera shots that involve being in the shower with the character. This helps to give the audience a sense of connection to the character and also the situation that unfolds. One distinct shot is that of the main characters legs. At the start of the scene you see close up shots of her legs. They are moving and extended quite normally. After she is stabbed, you see that her legs are not extended and very limp. This helps to show the contrast between the before and after of the incident that takes place. Another phase of the camera work is the transition times between cameras. They increase a vast amount during the murder segment of the scene. This helps to create the feeling that the audience is still part of the action and to sympathise with the character.

The mise en scene of this scene is very dark and chilling. In my opinion this is largely because of the lighting. Having one, small light source in a small dark room creates a lot of shadowing. This shadowing takes away a lot of features and distinctions and being used alongside only grey and white props, helps to enhance the tense atmosphere that has been created.

A lot of digetic and non – digetic sound was used in this scene. The digetic sound that I noticed was the sound of the knife when the main character (protagonist) was being attacked and stabbed by the mystery character (antagonist). This sound helped to highlight the action and the viciousness of the attack. Another digetic sound that was included in the film was the scream from the main character just as the mystery character confronts her; again this helps to add to the suspense of the sequence and gives the closing stages a chilling finish. A good use of non – digetic sound comes just after the digetic screaming. This is a piece of music performed by an orchestra and the music helps to accentuate the situation. When the main character is being stabbed, there is a screeching of violins and when she has been finally killed, there is a large drone of cellos, which help to emphasise the whole situation from start to finish.

One method that I have noticed, again with the camera work and position of cameras is that there is a lot of close up shots of particular features or props to help emphasise and communicate the nature of the scene. For example, there are close ups of the knife used to kill the main character, the main characters hand holding the shower curtain, the main characters eye (which is a ‘zoom out’ from an extreme close up shot). These shots help to emphasise the principal features behind the scene and to create a sense of excitement and be apprehension. The shot that accentuates this scene the most is that of the murderer (antagonist) because although you can clearly see the large shimmering knife, you cannot see her face (due to the use of shadowing and clever lighting), this brings a huge feeling of mystery upon the situation because a lot of audiences do not like characters of such significance in the plot to be kept hidden, so they will be sub consciously forced to keep watching to unravel the identity of a very momentous character.

An intelligent use of special effects, along with camera work, prop choices and editing has helped to make one part of the film very noticeable and visually appealing. The part I am describing is the mid shot of the main character sliding into the bath as she is dieing. The red blood is enormously prominent as it spreads across the tiles because of contrast between the white and red. It really adds to the severity of the characters death and leaves a very distinct image of her intense, dieing stare and the framed blood trail across the wall.