How does hitchcock create suspense in psycho

Hitchcock built upon this phenomenon and wove it into his visual language. Watch closely the reaction shots from Jimmy Stewart and rear window. In this version, were showing him looking at Thor Wald scolding a dog. Now we can replace the shot of the dog with Miss torso. Same reaction shot of Jimmy Stewart suddenly we perceive his thoughts differently. That's the power of cooler shove. The emotion is portrayed less by acting and more with what Hitchcock called Pure cinema. That's probably all you ever hear about Alfred Hitchcock that he's the master of suspense.

But how did he do it? In order for suspense to work, the character on screen had to be an everyday person. He often described it as an innocent man pulled into a bizarre series of events.

The audience is terribly worried because the same thing can happen to them. He puts this person in motion, running from something hiding from something, and I know what coming next. And I said, Do you and therefore that's the avoidance of the cliche, automatically. They're expecting the cliche, and I have to say, we cannot have a cliche. And despite common misconception, putting suspense into a dark, creepy environment is not necessary.

Hitchcock settings tend to bring crime out into the open, they become a functional part of the suspense. In North by Northwest the flat, empty terrain becomes a trap with no place to hide the crop duster, a normal part of this farmland becomes an imminent threat. What seems to be the trouble captain. Breaking the cliche also applies to characters. Hitchcock's criminals tended to be upper class citizens whom you'd never suspect. And the policemen and politicians are usually the bumbling fools, the innocent are accused and the villains get away with everything because nobody suspects them.

He has to be an attractive man. He is not a murderer, in the sense of a fiction murderer, where the tendency would be to make him look sinister, and you'd be scared of him. Not a bit he had to be charming, attractive. To further stir things up. Hitchcock would often tricked the audience into following the wrong person. He said the easiest way to worry people is to turn the tables on them. Make the most innocent member of the cast the murderer, make the next door neighbor a dangerous spy.

Keep your characters stepping out of character and into the other fellows boots. Creating this feeling of unpredictability makes the situation ripe for suspense. But suspense is a dimension above that linear story. For Hitchcock. It's the way the storyteller involves that the audience manipulates their expectations plays with their senses. That's the root of suspense. A central fact is to get real suspense, you must let the audience have information. Research into his works has revealed a three step suspense structure.

First, the protagonist has a secret hidden from the other characters. Hitchcock gives us special access to these secrets, so that we're seeing private things that we wouldn't see in real life. The Secret tends to evoke basic feelings from childhood, like the fear of getting caught. The Secret could be a dead body, or stolen money, or even brake fluid leaking out of a car. It could be someone needing to be rescued like Paul in four o'clock.

Once the audience is primed with a secret, Hitchcock then creates a series of close calls to tease the secret almost getting out. As the bumbling bystanders get closer to the secrets.

The audience begins feeling a delightful anticipation. We feel it as the doctor steps near the note from Anthony and he didn't say anything that might give you an idea of where he went as the maid starts mopping while Marty sneaks away with stolen money and the police will make an appearance.

They don't really suspect anything. They just happen to be there to make Marion crane nervous. This is how Hitchcock reels in the audience. As the helpless character on the screen is pressured into fear. Audience empathy rises, and suspense rises. The body almost gets discovered the stolen money almost gets found. And when a victim needs to be rescued, someone almost stumbles upon them, but then doesn't notice. It's a playful dance, teasing the audience.

And just like a gambler gets more addicted when he almost wins believing he's on a winning streak. The suspense viewer gets addicted to watching the movie. Now let's take the old fashioned bomb You and I sit in talking, we'll say about baseball, tell the audience at the beginning that under the table, show it to them. There's a ball. And it's gonna go off in five minutes. We talk baseball, what are the audience, if they don't talk about baseball, that a bomb under there, get rid of it.

Or they're helpless, they can't jump out of their seats up onto the screen and grab hold of them bombings right down, putting the audience into this helpless situation where they want to reach in and change the events on the screen.

It's a skill that few directors have. And the audience actually feels Hitchcock's presence manipulating events, and the audience becomes actively involved in a game with the director.

But once suspense is created, it must be relieved. Hitchcock said, we have to fool the audience. They think we're going in one direction, we must have a twist in the end, just like a magician revealing that the coin is in the other hand, a sudden surprise comes out of nowhere and gives you an outcome you didn't expect a twist through the mill lightly.

You must relieve with a bomb must be found and quickly thrown out of the wind. And it goes off out there and the audience are relieved. The fact is, suspense is nothing without tension. It's the series of details that add up to an overall impending event. In a way, tension is what keeps this man's feet planted firmly on the slack wire. But suspense is the impending chance that he might fall off.

Hitchcock believe that tension can be dissipated with anything vague or complex. If the plot was hard to follow where the characters look too much alike. This could cloud the audience's focus.

He said blurred thinking is detrimental to achieving suspense. One of the fatal things in all suspense is to have a mind that is confused. Otherwise the audience won't emote. They believed everything in a story must be simplified to offer maximum dramatic impact. As he said, What is drama after all, but life with the dull bits cut out? For Hitchcock, the path to increasing tension included making the details as realistic as possible.

And I've always taken great care to be accurate in all detail. No matter how fantastic the situation might be. And that is the most important moment when the man is buying a hat in the store in bonds street when the gun is thrust into his ribs.

You see, it's the juxtaposition of the norm of the accurate average against the fantasy. The next level of detail is sound, adding a deeper sense of reality to the flat image on the screen. Hitchcock soundscape soundscapes were authentic. But sometimes he would make things silent to keep a secret from the audience, or he could exaggerate specific sounds for dramatic purposes. In his TV episode The horseplayer the sounds of rain dominates the scene so we soon understand exactly why this church needs to raise money.

Alfred Hitchcock was known for introducing many different techniques to film making, one being the creative use of the camera. He used the camera more as a set of eyes rather than a simple tool on stage. He did not let his audiences simply view his movies; he made audiences. Hitchcock was integral in creating the codes the codes and conventions of the thriller genre. Some other conventions of the thriller genre include low key lighting. The Slasher film has become a defining subgenre of the horror film.

While the origins of the slasher come from their predecessor the Italian giallo films they have had a massive American influence in recent times. This essay will. It was a groundbreaking film in the 's. It was called 'mother of the modern horror movie'. The reasons for it to be such a landmark film were that it dealt with serious issues such as adultery and matricide.

For the first time a toilet was shown being flushed in the film. Also it was the first time a woman was shown in bra. The film " Psycho " was highly promoted, Hitchcock wanted to manipulate his audience into fear and loathing; this was achieved by choosing to make the film in black and white rather than using colour to make the audience more terrified.

The title of …show more content… The following policeman suspects something of Marion but the audience do not want Marion to be caught out as she seems like a nice person. This scene has many different camera angles and views giving the audience a real feeling of being inside the car and being in the film itself.

When she is driving three different camera angles are being shown. However, the film as black and white created even more suspense, almost giving it a film noir, murder mystery vibe which it eventually becomes.

If bright, technicolor was to be used, the dark feeling and tone that Hitchcock was trying to set would have been taken away.

Specifically, the use of extreme close up shots, such as the one above. The use of these extreme close up shots gives a clear portrayal of things that incite suspense, such as an extreme close up on Marion depicting her fear on the situation she is about to get herself in when arriving at the motel, or even to portray how unhinged Norman is, when we get this below extreme close up towards the end of the film.

Several noises that we hear throughout the film create uneasiness and suspense, including the sound of falling rain when Marion is driving, the shower water running when she is murdered, etc. Not only does the screeching violins playing create uneasiness, but whenever we were to hear it, we could expect that something bad was about to happen i. There is a point in the film after Norman kills Marion, wherein we here very little sound.

This lack of sound and dialogue forces us to pay even more attention to what is happening on the screen, creating suspense as to what will happen next, if someone will come looking for Marion, how will Norman, cover this up, etc. The way that things like the set were set up also created suspense. In addition, the house is just downright creepy with a supposed human silhouette standing by the window, where one could assume nothing good is happening inside. I also particularly enjoyed the way Hitchcock situated the Mis en Scene so that the audience did not know that Norman was the one committing the murders, dressed as his mother.

For example, the above shower curtain blocking the view of Norman. This post is nicely focused on the various ways in which Hitchcock builds suspense in Psycho. I like that you consider not just the story or plotting—in other words, the content of the films—but also the formal elements at work, including cinematography, sound, and MES. I especially like the points you make about the sound design.