Pyscho analysis

Cinematography and mise-en-scene analysis- Jake Roach

In the cut scene from Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock, Norman takes Marion into the back of his office and they start having a conversation. When they first walk into the room there is stuffed birds on the walls everywhere around the room which makes us feel very unsettled about it, the camera starts with a low angled shot of Norman, this is because it makes him look like he has took Marion into his trap and it makes him look more intimidating and in control. The birds wings are directly behind his head, this signifies the danger that Marion is in. Although the lights are on in the room it is still very dark and shadows are everywhere that makes it look more intimidating and emphasises the fact that Marion is surrounded by death and danger.

Norman starts to talk about stuffing birds as his hobby as Marion is eating and Norman says ‘You eat like a bird.’ With a sinister smile on his face, this directs our attention away from the actors and makes us look at all the dead birds on the walls, this is foreshadowing what is about to happen to Marion and makes the audience feel very uneasy and unsettled because they know its coming. When we see a shot with both characters we always see Marion at the front of the camera and Norman furthest away, this makes us as the audience feel like Norman is a threat because he is always too far away from us. One shot shows Marion looking down playing with her hands, this is while Norman is talking to her about setting your own life traps, it tells us that Marion has something to hide and she is reflecting back on it in her head, she seem to be looking a bit more vulnerable than when she first walked into the room and she doesn’t make eye contact at this point. If you look past Marion you can see Norman fidgeting a lot more than before and this is because he sees that she is weak and he wants to attack her.

In the next shot we see Marion but this time she seems to be looking a lot more innocent and vulnerable like an exposed child, this is to emphasis that she still doesn’t realise how strange Norman is yet. She is opening up and being slightly friendlier. The cramped space she has on camera and the fact she is slightly on edge makes signifies how trapped she really is.  If she had more space on screen then it would make us feel like she was safer because she could have a chance to escape but with it being so close it looks very unlikely that she will escape.

Norman in the next shot is slouching over his chair with his arms very close together and it look like he has less space to move in comparison to Marion. There is a big contrast in lighting on both sides of the room, on Marion’s side of the room it is a lot brighter and there is more shadows covering Norman which gives him more a spooky effect and makes him look very suspicious like he is preparing to attack her. There is also a candle next to Norman but it is not lit, this makes him look even more suspicious because if a room was that dark a normal person would light it up so this hints that he is not a normal person. When the camera switches between them both it always looks further away from Marion and closer to Norman which makes him look more nervous because he knows its getting closer and closer to the point where he has to decide whether or not he is going to kill her. He also looks towards the birds and mimics them, this makes him look like something in his head is not right and he looking to the birds for what to do and how to react the way a child would look to their parents.

Every shot Norman has in this scene shows a bird in the background, when Norman is calm and normal the birds with no wings are shown, but when he gets angry the camera shows a different bird with its wings out in an attack position behind his head, this shows that when he is angry he is ready to attack. The camera also moves closer towards his face when he gets angry, this makes us feel more worried because he is reaching in closer to Marion.