Favourite Image Analysis

This scene from Psycho is right near the end of the film when Marion’s sister (Lila) has got into the Bates Motel whilst tries to distract Norman. By the time Norman realised what they were up to, Marion had just discovered that Norman’s mother is actually just a skeleton dressed up. As you can see in the picture it is Norman dressed up with a wig and one of his mother’s dresses on. The grin on his face is to actually make the audience feel quite freaked out but to also make the audience laugh. This conveys sadism, and also links to the context of Ed Gein, who also used to be a transvestite. This would have very powerful to audiences at the time of the films release in 1960, just three years after Ed Gein was arrested. The lighting in the room is low key which makes shadows very clear. In this image the shadow makes Norman look a lot more powerful, Hitchcock was a famous auteur director who cleverly used camera angles and montage to create emotional effects.

This image is my favourite image analysis because it’s the moment in the film (Psycho) where we realise that Norman Bates has been pretending to be his mother aswell and this psychological horror messes with the audience’s heads and is impossible to guess what happens which is why this image is my favourite. When I first saw this in the film I found it slightly funny in the sense that Norman is dressed up as his mother but also creped out because it’s scary and Norman’s stood there with a butch knife.