Screening Report - Run Lola Run (1998)

Run Lola Run is an interesting film, at the very least. Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer) is an interesting film, to say the very least. Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998) is, at the least, a very interesting film. It follows one girl going through the same general event three times each with different results turning it into a different, but not confusing narrative that still manages to do what a narrative film is supposed to do: tell a cohesive story complete with characters and development. 

The easiest part of the film’s narrative to discuss is the duration. While it may seem complicated, it’s actually quite simple. The actual duration of the film itself, or run time, is 81 minutes ("Run Lola Run"). The duration of the plot is about 22-27 minutes give or take depending really on which run through of the events you look at. The duration of the story is unknown it seems. It starts with Manny and Lola in bed, talking, and ends with whichever of the “flash-forward” ("Run Lola Run") snapshots ends last chronologically within the third sequence Which of the two flashbacks when the pair talk happened first is unknown and when they happened is unknown, but they did happen before Manny got the drugs the day the plot takes place.

The easy stuff about the narrative stops there. While the film is not a really difficult film to follow it is very odd and it opens that way. People in a fog and philosophy aside, the cartoon, the red hair, the glass-shattering scream, and the editing of the “what”s and the phone dropping hint at this film certainly not being normal. Then there are the “flash-forwards” of the people Lola runs into that sort of take the audience out of the moment before throwing them back in. There’s also the shifts to other, seemingly unimportant characters like the dad and the mistress. But the audience knows that something is really up when Lola dies in the first sequence. It’s maybe thirty minutes into the film and our protagonist is dead. Then, a few seconds later we go back in time twenty minutes or so to when she runs out of the house leaving the audience going, “wait--what?! I thought we already saw this!” And then everything changes. We expect that the film will be unconventional from the get go, but it’s when Lola dies in the first sequence that all the expectations sort of get thrown out the window. They are rebuilt during the second sequence so that by the time we get to the third one the director is able to gloss over a lot of stuff because we know what to expect for the most part. Unlike most films where the expectations are created in the first act or so, this film creates them mid-film.

Admittedly, this odd repetitions of the same narrative still manage to grow and arc the characters as we learn more about them. Lola, the protagonist, is impulsive, her scream breaks glass, she loves her boyfriend, she has an interesting relationship with her father that develops over the course of the film, she’s very lucky, she cares about people, she’s very determined, and doing illegal things don’t seem to bother her much. The antagonists change except for one. The main antagonist would be the drug dealer Manny works for. He creates all of the tension in the film. The only other antagonist would really be the father, but that’s just in the first one. One could argue, in a technical way, the cop and the ambulance driver who kill Lola and Manny in the first and second sequences, but the drug dealer, who is a ruthless businessman, and the father, a cheating banker who at one point totally disowns his daughter, are really the two main antagonists.

As far as the arcs go, Lola’s is the easiest to sort of define. Honestly, not much is known about the drug dealer except that he’s ruthless, but doesn’t seem to care as long as he gets his money (as seen at the end of the film when Manny gives him the cash). The father’s is even more tricky. Based on what happens in the film, we can assume that Lola remembers what happened in the other situations (she doesn’t try the same things twice, she remembers how to use a gun in the second one even though she didn’t know how to until Manny taught her in the first ("Run Lola Run"), she avoids the dog and the guy in the cartoon by the second time, she goes through the security guard faster after the first time, and she hops a ride on the ambulance the third time after seeing it kill Manny the second time; she’s also the character we follow and says “Stop” at the end of the first sequence which starts the second sequence), but we cannot assume that the father does. Sure, what he does changes, but that can be attributed to the “Butterfly Effect” ("Run Lola Run") much like the changes in everyone else’s lives can. So the father sort of arcs, but it’s less traditional character development and more our perception of him based on the changes in the different sequences. In the first one, we see him as a jerk who disowns his not-daughter while having an affair. But in the second one, he’s less of a jerk, not disowning Lola, but just trying to get rid of her so that he can deal with his mistress who he’s angry at this time. In the third one, he’s not angry and his mistress and he doesn’t even run into Lola; actually, he gets into a car accident. He doesn’t change as a character, going from a jerk to a nice guy, but our perception of him changes as we go from seeing him as a massive jerk to almost feeling bad for the guy. It’s not a traditional arc.

Lola certainly evolves though. Since she consciously moves through the three sequences it’s not as non-traditional as he father’s. As stated previously, she does learn as she goes through the sequences. Like all good character arcs, she makes mistakes and learns from them. She even reaches a low point when her plans fail in the third sequence when she can’t ask her dad for the money and has to improvise. That’s when she goes to the casino, takes a risk, and gets the money. She even changes her mind about Manny when she dies the first, realizing that she really does want to be with him. It’s a very weird arc, but it certainly is an arc.

One other really odd part of the narrative is the use of the “flash-forwards.” They really do play into the “Butterfly Effect” part of the film. Each time Lola encounters someone--the woman with the baby, the woman in the hallway in the bank, the teller--the audience is shown their future  in a series of snapshots. Other people’s--like the security guard, the guy in the car, her dad, the mistress--future changes each time she encounters them and we see theirs normally. But the snapshots are very interesting though. They take the audience out of the narrative proper and show how the littlest things in someone’s  life can change it. The woman with the baby for example: in the first sequence we see snapshots of her losing her baby and then stealing another; in the second one we see her win the lottery; and in the third one we see her have a religious experience. Each one is totally different and all of the other snapshot series are that different. It totally pulls the audience out of Lola’s small world and into a larger one, forcing the audience to keep in mind the rest of the world rather than just the one story we see playing out before us.

In all, Run Lola Run is an effective, unique, and very interesting take on the narrative form.

Works Cited

"Run Lola Run." Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_Lola_Run>.

Screening Report - Citizen Kane (1941)

“Rosebud.” A word that means the world to one man and nothing to the world who so earnestly tries to discover that meaning. Orson Welles 1941 Citizen Kane jumps around through the life of that citizen, Charles Foster Kane (Welles), talking to lovers, “friends,” and enemies trying to get an unbiased report of the man’s life and “Rosebud” (Welles, Citizen Kane)

I’ll start with my reaction: I’ve seen Citizen Kane before and honestly didn’t really appreciate it. I mean, I thought it was nice, but I didn’t appreciate it or really even grasp what “Rosebud” meant. Upon seeing it a second time, however, I loved it. Wells is really a master at his craft. He manages to break cinematic boundaries and create a great piece of art while also telling a great and engaging story. I feel as though the more times I see it, the more I will appreciate it because each time I know I’ll pick out something new. For instance, this time around, I picked out the theme of love. Kane, like all people, needs love, but on his terms and without giving it in return. He makes people love him, he “earns” it, all while making it impossible for them to earn his in return. He searches for the love he had when he was a boy, the love that was taken from him the day he was taken from his parents, the day when he played with the sled named “Rosebud.” “Rosebud” is so important because it symbolizes everything he sought in life--love. He buys people things, makes promises, signs documents, builds opera houses, throws parties--all to makes people love him on his own terms. He also spends insane amounts of money buying the world’s greatest treasures, building the greatest house. He tries to fill a void with people and things that can only be filled by “Rosebud,” and it’s that depth, the pity that the audience feels, the masterful writing that reveals that madness, the execution at the hands of the actors--all of those and more are why I really do enjoy this film now. It’s a very human tale of a very inhuman man of the need for love and I love it. 

Now for the more analytical side of things. The ending is really key in the film. In something like Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan, 2000) where the ending is a twist that the audience should have seen coming if they paid attention, Citizen Kane’s ending demands that the viewer go back and see it a second time. If the audience paid attention to the color scheme’s in Unbreakable they would notice that blue is bad and so Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) must therefore be bad because he’s always in blue. The color scheme has a serious, blatant, continuous presence in the film that cannot be ignored. In Citizen Kane there is no real forewarning as to what “Rosebud” is, no real hint that it’s the sled. The only hint we receive is the snowglobe with the snowy cabin in the very beginning which we quickly forget about as the newsreel plays and bombards us with information. The audience must rewatch the film a second time, at least, to understand what the sled means and represents. Aside from what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the ending, that shot of the sled burning with all the other trash, tells us that for all the collecting Kane did, for all of his extravagance, what meant the most to him was that time when life was simple. He got caught up in a whirlwind of excitement, business, women, fame, and himself after he was ripped from that simplicity and it ending up being his demise. But the ending shows us the vulnerability of the man who would be king; it shows us the child inside of Kane that only wanted to go back to that shoddy cabin in the snow with his old sled and be loved by his parents. The ending makes the audience pity Kane more than we already did. As much as it’s not like something like Unbreakable, it achieves something similar: it makes the audience look at a character and his motivations with different eyes. The real difference is that the ending of Citizen Kane really requires that the audience go back and watch it a second time whereas Unbreakable does not. 

One of the more interesting parts of the film is how it’s told from beginning to end. The plot (the reporter (William Alland)  finding out about Kane’s life) starts at the end of the story (of Kane’s life and the news story surrounding his life and death). The film jumps between two linear timelines: the reporter’s journey and Kane’s life. The jumping about is the plot, but the story really starts long before, back even before the film shows Kane as a child. The way the plot is structured really shows us the high and low points of Kane’s life as we watch him change from an innocent, young boy into a pathetic, old man from the eyes of those who thought they knew him best. The shifting between past and present gives the audience almost 20-20 as we hear and see about what kind of man he became before he became him. 

For that past, there is no omnipotent narrator, only his lovers, enemies, and supposed friends who speak of it; however, the present uses omnipotent narration. It starts with the castle and Kane’s death and then follows the reporter around until the end when it shows us something the reporter, or any of the other significant characters, could never have seen: the burning of the sled. The present is objective, simply and honestly giving the audience a window into this story, but the past is not. Short of his death, the only parts of Kane’s life we see are seen through the eyes of those who knew him, we only see what they want us to see. Kane could have done a lot of good, but we only see the bad, his affair, his egotism, his controlling nature. Now, that’s not the make the case that Kane was actually a good guy, but only to explain that we only see what the narrator’s want us to. They choose to tell specific stories about Kane’s life, stories that impacted them and show how they remembered Kane; his days at the papers, his affair, his speech, his nights at the opera, his days at Xanadu--all are told by people around him at that moment. There isn’t a single moment in Kane’s life, except his death, that isn’t shown through the eyes of someone near him. So the film manages to have both objective and subjective narration present throughout the whole of it.
Finally, the narration does not follow a sort of simply three act structure. It follows more a five-act one (“Dramatic Structure”) if anything. For a five-act structure the film has a very firm exposition period; we see Kane die, the newsreel, have the plot set up for us, and see his early childhood. We then get into the rising action: Kane buys a newspaper to run, he makes it successful, steals other reporters (at which we see the first glimpse of his downfall), makes promises (which he won’t keep) about standing up for the little guys, and gets married. All of this sets up Kane’s fall from grace as it were. The climax comes very pointedly when Kane get caught cheating. He is about to win an election when it his wife and everyone else find out about his mistress. It’s the high point that the plot has been leading up to and from which the main character goes downhill; it’s Hamlet’s moment when he kills Polonius, Othello’s moment when decides to kill Desdemona, and the moment in King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1623) when the evil sisters kill Gloucester. From this climax, comes from falling action. It is Kane’s second marriage up to scene where the reporter says he never found out what “Rosebud” was. It’s the downhill of Kane’s sad life where he really loses everything important--his friend Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten), his second wife (Dorothy Comingore), his political aspirations, and eventually his life. The last part is the resolution wherein the loose ends are tied up; the reporter finishes as best he can his story, Xanadu is sold off bit by bit, and the audience learns, finally, what “Rosebud” is. Sure, someone could fit that into a three-act structure, but it better fits the dramatic five-act (“Dramatic Structure”).

In short, Citizen Kane is five-acts of dual narration that weave plot and story into, what I consider to be, a masterful and beautifully sad tale of one man’s quest to regain what he lost: “Rosebud.”



"Dramatic Structure." Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 19 Sept.
   2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure>.

Welles, Orson, dir. Citizen Kane. Screenplay by Orson Welles and Herman Mankiewicz. RKO Radio
   Pictures, 1941. Film.

Screening Report-Unbreakable (2000)

M.Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable is a superhero movie that doesn’t play like a superhero movie. Instead it plays out as a drama that doesn’t reveal its true nature until the very end. 

I must admit, upon realizing that it was an Shyamalan film I sort of rolled my eyes in an “Oh, great” sort of way, my only experiences with his works being “Signs,” which I saw years and years ago and so don’t remember much other than being scared and not getting it, and “The Last Airbender,” which was dreadful. I remember that most of his films have not done well, excepting the “Sixth Sense,” and so my expectation for this film was that, admittedly, it wasn’t be very good. What I should have remembered is that above all else M. Night Shyamalan loves a good twist at the end. So my expectations, being what they were and were not, were not met, but thwarted. It was a very good, effective film. I actually enjoyed it. And the expectation I should have had was also met. While Shyamalan spoiled the ending in his cameo at the football field in the blue jacket telling the audience that blue is bad, he did leave the ultimate reveal of Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price as a sociopath until the very end.

The film itself sets up other expectations, some more obvious than others. The opening scene sets up the fragile nature of Elijah against the unbreakable nature of Bruce Willis’s David Dunn. The audience sees a broken child from a skewed point of view, a mirror. This is the nature of Elijah--fragile, skewed, and something we don’t expect. It catches the audience off guard when we realize that we’ve been looking at a reflection and not the real thing; that’s Elijah--he’s not the real thing, but David is. The scene is one shot, no cuts. That’s David--unbroken. That unbroken shot versus the broken child sets up the paradigm of the two characters in the film. Another expectation is the nature of the film itself. There are no bright colors, no spandex costumes, no high rises that people can leap off of or over in a single bound--just a suburb, mostly grey or beige with little bits of muted color and a guy with a dead-end job and family problems. It certainly doesn’t set up like a superhero film, but it ends up being one, in a weird way. It’s actually an “origin story” (“Unbreakable (film)”), but even then, it doesn’t feel like one. X-Men: First Class or X-Men Origins: Wolverine feel like superhero origin films from the colors to the swelling music to the way the film is actually plotted. Unbreakable has almost minimalist music, really using only “strings, trumpets and piano” rather than a full orchestra. That expectation of a drama is met, since the film really is a drama about self-discovery and other things, but it also exceeds it by being a superhero film. Another is Elijah’s name. In the Bible, in the Old Testament, Elijah is one of the biggest prophets; in the New Testament, Elijah, or John the Baptist as a representation of him, comes before Jesus does. That sets up the expectation that he comes before the hero or Jesus figure. In fact, Elijah has pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary behind him at his desk at the gallery. This expectation is met because Elijah does indeed come before David (who shares the name with the King of Israel and ancestor of Jesus) and sets the stage for him. One more expectation that is set up is water. We learn that David fears water the first time we see him on the train and once it’s mentioned a few times, we sort of realize that it’s probably something to watch out for and the film more than meets that expectation when David becomes a superhero in the scene at the end where he saves the kids from the man in red in the rain. He surmounts that fear when he survives the swimming pool. The film sets up loads of expectations and plays around with them.

While the film probably has a number of motifs, the most noticeable are the colors. David had two: yellow and green. As a superhero, it is green. He wears a green security jacket and has a green poncho that he wears when he becomes a superhero at the end. When he’s not a superhero, he is in yellow. He wears yellow shirts, yellow jackets, his house is yellow, even the lettering of his green jacket and poncho are yellow. David’s son even has a superhero toy that’s yellow with a green cape. Elijah’s is blue. The lighting in his office is blue, he’s always wearing blue, though usually as an almost hidden accent playing to the hiddle reveal at the end--blue is everywhere with him. There are other colors, most notably red, that are associated with evil and people doing bad things. When David’s son points the gun at him, he is wearing a red and yellow shirt. Yellow, because he’s David’s son and red because he’s about to shoot his father. The bad guy at the end is wearing red too. These colors show up throughout the film against the bland background of the suburbia tipping off the audience to the nature of the film.

Being a Shyamalan film, it has meaning in it. He doesn’t make mindless action films with no real depth to them--no, he makes films that portray a message. There’s the referential meaning: with the help of Elijah Price, David Dunn discovers the extraordinary hero inside of him set in the background of ordinary suburbia. The explicit meaning: David Dunn discovers his destiny as a superhero despite his average life. The implicit meaning: without evil, there cannot be good (“Unbreakable (film)”). The symptomatic meaning: the film looks into the sprawling, grey suburbia to see how life in the suburbs can grind out the extraordinary and how it takes a big event to draw us out of it. 

In all, Shyamalan exceeds expectations through masterful filmmaking and gives us a look into the life of the average superhero.

"Unbreakable (film)." Wikipeadia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2012.
   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbreakable_(film)>.

Screening Report-Singin' in the Rain

If there is one thing that Hollywood will always love it’s a film about Hollywood. And of all the films about on the subject, there are a few that stand above the rest; films like Singin’ in the Rain, a romantic- comedy musical about the shift from silents to talkies, dancing and singing, and toeses and roses.
Having grown up with the film, it was a delight, like seeing it for the first time, watching it after all these years. The jokes were snappier, the dancing more beautiful, the story more touching--and the film more enchanting than I’d remembered. It is, in my opinion since you asked for my reaction, a wonderful piece of cinema and excellent filmmaking that brings me more joy than I recalled it bringing me when I was a kid. But enough warm-fuzzies, let’s to the report.
Forget that it is an enchanting film is--it is a well executed film. Not only is the dancing a treat to watch, but it is well placed. The main characters don’t just break into the song at random places in the film with the whole cast suddenly knowing the song and dance routine with them, the dialogue and scene lead into the numbers with dialogue. Even something seemingly irrelevant like “Make ‘em Laugh” is well placed with a good lead in. The song and dance numbers lend themselves to the pacing of them film. Plus, it’s a Gene Kelly musical--it wouldn’t be the same if the plot wasn’t punctuated by song and dance routines. At times, the numbers even lend themselves to the plot; among them are “You Were Meant for Me” which helps develop the romance between Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden and “All I Do Is Dream of You” is a logical component of that scene. While not all of them help move the plot along, all of them are well placed and lend themselves to the feel of the film as a romantic-comedy musical.
In fact, everything in this film actively contributes to the feel. The colors are bright, vibrant, cheerful, and they pop. The sets, even the ones at night, are well lit. It’s not a dark film in the least bit. The cinematography is straightforward with simple, uncomplicated shots letting the actors propel the story rather than the camera. The dance scenes have as little cuts as necessary to allow the audience to really enjoy Gene Kelly’s fancy footwork. Unlike Psycho where the camera and lighting are used to really tell the audience what to see, or not see, Singin’ has a more neutral camera and the color scheme is used in a different way. In Singin’, the colors are used in a practical, more “realistic” (in a sense), way or to evoke a certain emotion rather than in Psycho where the “colors” were used to symbolize things and create tension. The lighting is less dramatic without the dark, contrasting shadows that Hitchcock employs in his film. Singin’ uses the technical aspects of filmmaking to keep the film lighthearted and enchanting as well as convey the romanticised golden age of Hollywood.
While Singin’ is at heart a romance, it is also a film about Hollywood and the public’s fascination. The opening half hour, or so, is a prime example. We have a red carpet premiere with larger than life figures dressed in ridiculous costumes being adored by their screaming fans. Following that, Lockwood gives a highly fantasized account of his life knowing that his unromantic life won’t sell well. Then there is Lina Lamont who thoroughly believes all the press about her and Lockwood being a couple showing the level of obsession with Hollywood’s stars at the time. The obsession is taken a step further when Lockwood can’t even have normal car trouble. Instead, the annoyance of a broken-down car is coupled with the insanity of rabid fans clawing at him. His clothes are torn to shreds as she narrowly escapes. The film highlights the obsessive behavior of its devotees in the opening.
But the opening also starts a recurring theme within the film: the idea of reality vs. the tabloids. Throughout the whole film, Lamont cannot seem to understand that what’s written in the fan magazines about her supposed romance with Lockwood is not reality. She seems to think that because it is in print, that it is fact. Even Selden believes it to be true until Lockwood informs her otherwise. Lockwood blurs the line between reality and the tabloids even further when gives an exclusive interview near the end of the film to all the papers in town to preserve her image of herself as “a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament,” something she seems to believe despite the fact that her voice could break glass. Reality wins out in the end, of course, but not without a fight by Lamont.
In summation, the film highlights, fictionalizes, and lampoons to some extent the golden days of Hollywood all while telling a touching love story. It is punctuated by entertaining and well-placed song and dance numbers, and polished by effective technique that brings the audience “a little joy into … [their] humdrum lives.”

Works Cited

Kelly, Gene, perf. Singin' in the Rain. Dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. MGM, 1952. Film.

Screening Report-Psycho

As I am now taking a cinema class, I shall be writing weekly screening reports (not to be confused with reviews) for the films he shows us. I figured that I might as well post them.

Widely regarded by most of  the civilized world as Alfred Hitchcock’s most iconic film, Psycho, from opening titles to final shot, is a thrilling ride full of twists and turns that keep the viewer on the edge of their seat.

The opening itself sets the perfect tone for the film. In the opening titles, lines moving across the screen, breaking, jumping about, matching the tone and rapid pace of the bouncing strings of the music all work together in harmony to make the viewer feel on edge. It immediately takes the viewer out of their present reality and drops them into the one Hitchcock has created. The date and time that follow serve to further set the scene, but in a less emotional way. They provide the audience practical information for where the characters start without having them say it. Moreover, it gives a sense for how little time it takes for Marion Crane’s life to spiral out of control. Later, when Marion checks into the Bates Motel, the audience is shown that the last visitor was in April, which should be a huge red flag. But before Hitchcock shows any characters, gives any sense of where the film is going, the audience already knows what sort of film they are in for.

Not only does Hitchcock keep the promise he’s made, but in doing so he employs many techniques to achieve it. For starters, he uses a completely plot-pointless Macguffin. The police officer in the beginning that follows Marion has nothing to do with the main plot of the story, but Hitchcock lets the audience believe it does to get the main character moving and to put the audience on edge. The eyeless, creeping officer terrifies the main character and so terrifies everyone watching. Another technique is an almost too obvious one: the use of black and white (by which the author really means light and dark, but in a black and white film, it’s easier to use those terms). In the opening, Marion is shown in white; her underwear is white, her dress is white, even her purse is white. She is  pure. But once she steals the money, her underwear, dress, and car are all black--she has been tainted. She tries to erase what she’s done by trading in her black car for a white one and even trying to shower it away once she’s at the Bates Motel. Note that the bathroom is totally white until she is murdered and then Norman Bates tries to get rid of the black stains on the blood similar to what Marion tried to do by getting rid of her black car in favor of a white one. Given that neither one of them ever stopped wearing black, it is obvious that it doesn’t work. Norman originally appears in a white Oxford with a dark jacket, but after the two murders he is seen in a black turtleneck as if the darkness is consuming him. This motif shows up throughout the whole film. The PI he kills arrives in a white car. The swamp that Norman disposes the bodies in is black. It’s an obvious thing, especially that last one, but it’s a simple and power thing to play to the audience’s preconception linking black to evil and white to good.

Another technique he uses is also an obvious to use: camera angles. Hitchcock doesn’t use them by themselves. They are usually used in conjuncture with music, sound, lighting, or a combination of the three. Take the shower scene for instance: Marion is in a white, well-lit shower,  the last place, visually and thematically, to murder someone. Cue the dark shadow approaching her, the dissonant, harsh strings, and the “70 shots” (Hodgkinson, “Secrets of the Psycho shower”) and you have one of the most iconic moments in all of cinema. While the lighting is important and while the scene arguably wouldn’t have worked without the music, it’s the seventy shots that are key. He uses mostly close shots to bring the audience into the moment with Marion and to experience each blow as she does. It makes for a violent and almost violating scene. Before that, however, when Marion and Norman meet, the camera work is key in the Parlor scene. The camera inches closer and closer to the characters as they talk and once Hitchcock really starts to establish how “off” Norman is the angle on him shifts. The camera is below him as the light casts really noticeable shadows on his face. It’s very creepy and gives the viewer a sense of the madness lurking just beneath Norman’s calm exterior. Hitchcock noticeably uses the camera whenever the murders are taking place. Not until the very end is the murderer’s face shown and since we only see a figure in a dress with a bun, we assume it’s the crazy mother. Hitchcock shows so much with the murders that the audience doesn’t think about what he doesn’t show--the face. He manipulates the audience with the camera angles so that when he shows that the murderer is in fact Norman Bates it comes as a chilling surprise.

Even the final shot of the film is effective and ties everything together. The white car being raised out of the black swamp, covered in who knows what is a necessary closure for the audience. It’s the reversal that the viewer needs, to see white dirtied up by black, but still leaving the blackness behind much like the characters are. They will never fully recover, fully get all of the black of the murders off of them, but at least they are out of the swamp and there is closure.

Literally, from opening titles to final shot, the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, use a number of technical and artistic techniques to pluck the audience out of their normal everyday lives and drop them into an experience of pure terror.

Hodgkinson, WIll. "Secrets of the Psycho shower." The Guardian: n. pag. Web. 29 Aug. 2012.

   <http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/29/psycho-body-double-marli-renfro>.