Psycho

This film held such big expectations for me. I don't know how I managed not to see it for so many years. I suppose it was inevitable that it would be a let-down. For how long have I known the story? I remember my best friend at school saying it was his favourite movie. Then there was the song by 80s electro-pop band Landscape, with the repeated line, “My name is Norman Bates, I'm just a normal guy.” Not great art, though it did contain some lines from the film, “Mother, oh my god!”, “Norman Bates no longer exists,” and “He wouldn't even hurt a fly.” On top of this it is just part of western cultural history, the shower scene and the cross-dressing as mother. It was a shame that although I was watching the film for the first time, I knew the plot, and this reduced the experience for me.

In essence the film appears to be about apportion of guilt, who the viewer sympathises with and how everyone believes the motive for murder is money, but in the end it's just psychological disturbance. I guess the $40000 is the classic Hitchcock McGuffin. Not providing a moral hero must have been quite daring in the 50s, though having said that I can think of other films with big moral ambiguity from that era, such as Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, Casablanca. Actually the more I think about it, the more moral ambiguity seems to be more prevalent in the immediate post-war era than today. Of course I always forget how conservative the times we live in are today.

Ebert's review mentioned “Detour” which I haven't seen for ages and would love to “own.”

The Herrmann score really impressed me in its simplicity. I could detect three basic elements in the small string orchestra score. The title theme, the slow rocking music first used in the slow pan across the Phoenix skyline, and the stabbing slashing music. I read that Herrmann studied with Percy Grainger in New York. I cannot think of two more different musical styles than these two.

Anthony Perkins' performance is very nicely nuanced. The stutter only starts when he is under duress. When the '57 Ford is sinking in the swamp he bites his finger nervously and this created sympathy with this viewer. I almost wanted the car to sink. During the film I got the feeling that this was the work of an accomplished stage actor.

Ultimately the film is about confounding viewer's expectations. The heroine dies at the end of act 1. We are led to feel compassion for the murderer. We are lead to identify with the criminal activity, knowing that we might do the same thing in the same situation.