Sunday, November 19, 2017

Psycho


We all go a little mad sometimes. And sometimes that means we take an extremely long hiatus.

So.... I once again find myself asking the question of how honestly can a film be judged by its own merits when it has reached saturation levels of cultural osmosis? Psycho did what it did so well that it spawned countless parodies, references, and homages. If Jaws made you afraid to go in the ocean, Psycho had already made you terrified of the shower. It's a powerful image to see a young woman brutally murdered in the shower, even if the "graphic" shots of the murder now look comical. Especially since Janet Leigh's Marion Crane looks as happy as those weirdos in the Zest commercials until suddenly the curtain is ripped back. You genuinely believe this is the most refreshing shower ever, and then BAM! Murder time. It also helps that the shot of her unblinking, dead-eyed stare while slumped on the tile floor is genuinely chilling.

Since everyone knows the steps of the plot, the big question is can this movie still function well as a psychological thriller. In this case, it really can, but that's largely due to the bits left out of the re-treads. Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates as a shy, golly-gosh-gee-whiz awkward guy who you could imagine being the nerdy friend in Leave it to Beaver. His almost aggressive wholesomeness is what makes all of his behavior off-putting. He kindly brings Marion a sandwich, then peeps on her through a spyhole. He makes nice conversation, then starts going down the road into creepy territory. Every woman has known a guy like this, who seems sweet and innocent, then starts speaking violently or getting agitated to the point of frightening when a particular button is hit. It also makes the central question of the film much deeper - which personality is actually the killer? Norman says Mother is violent and controlling, Mother says Norman is a cold-blooded murderer. Hitchcock doesn't think we need that questioned answered, any more than Ford thought we needed it confirmed who actually shot Liberty Valance. As a person who has been soaked in this film since childhood, but never actually seen it, I wasn't ready for that to be a question. It somehow gets skipped over in the parodies, which prefer to focus on "Haha, this man is wearing a dress".

On the front of disability activism, this movie does have problematic elements. Norman isn't a psychopath, and the portrayal of mentally ill people as killers is... well, it's a well-worn trope. But the movie does do a better job with dissociative identity disorder than could generally be expected from a film made in 1960. But while Norman's mental illness is shown as the reason behind the murders, it's also explained as a function of an abusive co-dependent relationship with a parent. While "Controlling Mother" is another well-worn trope, I'm not familiar with many earlier films that pushed the idea of abusive parents causing extreme reactions in their offspring. In the 80's, of course, we suddenly became obsessed with abusive parental figures, and I'll address that trope in some of the later films.

Overall, I'm really glad I finally watched this movie. In my opinion, it works better than some other films that have achieved a similar level of saturation precisely because the blend of cinematography and acting are ignored in the parodies and homages. Both are what make the story work, and without it, it's simply shorthand for a slasher film. The whole movie is needed to be a psychological thriller.