The Pleasure of Watching.

Above all Psycho is a movie about the movies. From its opening shot, in which it establishes that it takes place in a city not so far away, it's telling us "this could happen to you".

Alfred Hitchcock was the ultimate voyeur, but unlike many filmmakers who used this as means to their specifically sexual ends, Hitch turned each of his voyeuristic adventures into explorations of the human subconscious.

Particularly when it comes to the eyes as a camera.

Notice how right after this city setting, he takes us right into the room where Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is spending the afternoon with her lover (John Gavin).

The fact that the blinds are halfway down makes our intrusion even more violent, but Hitchcock calms our nerves because the window and the blinds resemble the eye of a camera, attracting us towards its darkness, always ignoring what we will capture with it.

That we end up capturing one of the most erotic love scenes ever filmed is no coincidence.

After all, one of the reasons why we go to the movies is to fantasize about things we might never have.

The scene is filled with sweeping camera moves that approach the characters without ever feeling intrusive or announcing its presence. The closer the camera gets to them, the less aware they are of it even being there. The more intimate they become.

Hitchcock has established the fact that while this is happening in a world like ours, once we entered the hotel room, we are watching a movie.

When later, we meet Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Hitchcock has no trouble in making him seem like the weirdest guy who lived. His love for taxidermy, only an extension of the themes of preservation Hitchcock had explored in the past.

What's so different between these stuffed, dead animals and the Carlotta painting in Vertigo?

Hitchcock who's often regarded as a misogynist, probably knew that the easiest way for him to look past his personal issues and to represent them on film would be to filter them through lenses, cameras and movies.

Therefore as Norman feels the urge to spy on Marion (and later kill her) it all begins with a simple peek through a peephole.

We are reminded this way of the Lacanian notion that men derive sadistic pleasure out of watching women fragmented by the camera. By spying on shattered women, male audiences (and the director himself) felt a reassurance that their own bodies were complete, whole.

Watching women through cameras, whether on regular films or pornography, realizes males' fantasies because it gives them godlike power.

They are whole, they have control.

This leads to my favorite shot in the movie:

Here, as Norman's curious eye discovers Marion for the first time we too feel his pleasure, we too want to watch what he's watching.

Not all of us want to be murderers, but that was never the point. It's the pleasure of viewing that seduces and eventually releases our innermost desires.

The notions of media and real life violence being related are questionable (at least not provable in scientific terms) but for a moment we understand that the joys of watching are some we share with everyone: from serial killers, to babies, to hypnotized movie audiences.

Have you ever noticed how after that first shot of the city, nothing else in Psycho ever looks "real"?

When the movie ends, it's as if we never left the world we entered through the first hotel window. Norman is inarguably trapped in it, but are we too?

This reminds us of the Lacanian notion that fantasy is not really the object of desire, but its setting. Through fantasy we learn to desire.

Whether you desire to be a killer, a thief, or a taxidermist is strictly up to you. The movies can help us find our heart's desire but their power isn't enough to control it.

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

Fear of Commitment in "Psycho".

While watching the opening scene the other day something became quite obvious to me: Sam Loomis (John Gavin) perhaps doesn't want to be with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh).
As they share a post coital conversation (with sex so good that she didn't even have time to eat as Hitch suggests by showing us a wrapped sandwich) he tells her all the reasons why they can't be together.
Most of them concerning money and his ex-wife. Marion rolls on the bed like a kitten as she confesses she can't be without him and is tired of the secretive life they're leading.
As she gets dressed, and he remains shirtless, the idea that she might break up with him becomes tangible (while they're naked she's still his'?) and he says "I want to see you under any circumstances, even respectability".
Anyone who's seen the film knows that he never will see her again, which led me to question if in fact everything that happens to Marion afterwards isn't in fact a manifestation of Sam's fear of commitment with her.
She steals the money because of him and it's this event that gets her killed (that the money becomes irrelevant to the plot perhaps suggests that this wasn't going to solve their life as a couple as he said).
In the opening scene Marion also mentions that ideally she'd like Sam to eat with her in her family house with her mother's portrait on the mantel.
By specifying the mantel she seems to be putting her mom into a sort of immovable pedestal.
And what scares off a heterosexual male more than meeting his girlfriend's mother or his own in any case? Maybe he isn't as scared of her mom as to the idea of what his own mom would think of the way he's leading his life and the thought of disappointing her.
This piece of dialogue is a sort of premonition of what will happen to Marion later on. She is, technically, killed by someone's mother.
It's as if Sam's fantasy of guilt reversal is realized.
This all might be dismissed by the fact that when Marion disappears Sam helps in the investigation. But this might as well be one part guilt, one part need to fulfill his role in the equation and embrace responsibility (is he making sure she won't come back to have his way with her sister or any other woman?).
Or maybe, just maybe, Sam really did love Marion Crane.