A Masterpiece of Sound and Shots - Essay Example

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho – A Masterpiece of Sound and Shots In Citizen Kane: The Sound of the Look of a Visual Masterpiece, PhilipBrophy made much of certain aspects of Citizen Kane, the groundbreaking movie that is still considered the cinematic standard by which all films must be judged. Alfred Hitchcock’s films similarly are considered today to be cinematic masterpieces (Kapsis, 15). Some of the same elements that Brophy singled out in Citizen Kane was present in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, including the use of sound and voice inflection, as well as stylistic elements such as close ups and long shots, and these same elements gave this film the atmosphere and suspense that was inherent and ran all the way through the movie. One of the elements of Citizen Kane that Brophy focused on is vocal performance of all the main cast members of this movie. He says that it was Orson Welles’ special talent to bring the most out of his actors as far as their vocal inflections and other aural aspects. For instance, he talks about the reporter’s bland voice, which was right for the part, because the reporter was supposed to be one of the least colorful characters in the film (Brophy, 2). Another vocal performance that was focused on was that of Susan Alexander, describing her voice as phlegmy, and full of repressed anger. The questioning of the librarian brings a scolding that is whispered, but full of indignation (Brophy, 2). In Psycho, there are similar aspects of the film that brings this film to life. The most obvious, of course, was Norman Bates and his “mother.” Bates has a pitch-perfect imitation of his mother, so much so that the audience could never suspect that the mother actually was not a separate person at that point. The arguments that emanate from the spooky old house on the hill that is directly behind the Bates Motel could never, in the audience’s wild imagination, be just one person arguing essentially with himself. The voice inflections and the pitch of the voice of the mother are so real that it is that much more shocking to find out, in the climax, that Norman’s mother had been dead for many years, and that the “mother” was, at that point, nothing but a skeleton with a robe and wig on, sitting in the apple cellar. This is not the only vocal performance that brings suspense to the film. Janet Leigh’s performance as the lead character, Marion, also brings a sense of suspense to the film. For instance, when she is stopped by the policeman early on in the film, her talking is way too fast. This, combined with her overall shifty-eyed look gave the policeman reason to suspect that she was hiding something, and she was, indeed - $40,000 that she had embezzled from her employer. This same tone of voice is employed when she went to buy a new car – her speech was tight and quick. She was extremely nervous, and this nervousness was evident in her voice and her overall body language. Because the audience knew that Marion was not that good of an actress (although Leigh certainly was), it became obvious when she felt comfortable and when she felt uncomfortable. It was completely in her voice. Therefore, when she was talking to Norman in his room – while she ate her sandwich, while looking at the creepy stuffed owls and such – it was obvious that she felt completely comfortable. For whatever reason, there was nothing in Norman’s weird demeanor that gave her pause. If there was something, Marion would not have been able to hide it. She couldn’t hide nervousness, this was obvious. Therefore, the audience was clued into Marion’s state of mind throughout the film – it showed in her voice and her body language. Similarly, Brophy stated that this is an important part of the vocal characterizations – the changes in the voice of the character would signify the different states of mind that the character might go through during the course of the film (Brophy, 3). While the characters in Citizen Kane had different vocal inflections because the voices of the characters in that film were wizened with age, and the earlier, younger voices signify a very different state of mind from the tired people that they were in the present day, the vocal inflection in Psycho are much more subtle, but very telling nonetheless. Marion’s voice was not the only vocal performance that gave away the state of mind of the characters. Norman’s voice was also a vocal performance that completely gave away his states of mind. When the private detective came to visit him, to investigate the disappearance of Marion, the vocal performance of Norman shifted dramatically during the course of the conversation. At first, when the private detective first came into the motel, Norman was able to be cool and collected. Norman apparently had momentarily forgotten that Marion had signed the motel registry, so, he apparently figured that he could put the detective off pretty well. Therefore, his voice was smooth and unruffled. This gave away his state of mind at this point – he obviously was confident that he could get away with pretending that nobody that resembled Marion had been by the motel, and he figured that he could convince the private detective of this fact, and the private detective would be on his way. His voice changed dramatically, however, once the private detective looked at the motel registry and saw that a woman with Marion’s handwriting had checked into the motel a few days earlier. It was then that the audience knew that Norman was nervous. He started to stutter, and his speech started to speed up. This was the tell-tale sign that he was nervous. He looked at the picture of Marion again (the private detective had shown Norman the picture of Marion earlier, and Norman had casually stated that he had never seen the woman before), and he rather unconvincingly stated that “oh yeah, I have seen that woman before.” That was the difference in the tone – it went from completely cool and casual to tight and nervous, and the audience knew that Norman was feeling threatened at that point. The vocal performances of the other principal characters also belied their state of mind, but in a much less dramatic fashion than that of Norman and Marion. For instance, Lila Crane, who is Marion’s sister, has a tone of voice that is tight, high and hurried. She is desperately worried about her sister, and it shows in every word that she enunciates. On the other hand, the voice of John Gavin, Marion’s boyfriend, is apparently unconcerned. There is nothing in his voice that would give away that he was in the least bit worried that something bad might have happened to Marion. This would mean that the sister had a bad feeling that John did not – chalk it up to woman’s intuition, but the sister obviously knew that Marion had met with foul play. This fact was shown in her voice all the way through her scenes. Sound was also a large part of building up the suspense. The sound that was the most crucial part was the atmospheric score by Bernard Hermann. The score was a cue to the audience that something was afoot. For instance, in the very first part of the movie, there was not a score that underlay the scenes. These first scenes, between Marion and John, in the motel, and then with Marion in the office did not have a score. It wasn’t until she got to her room, the $40,000 in an envelope on her bed and an opened suitcase right next to it, that the audience was clued in that there was something going on. Marion looked so innocent and sweet, so it would be hard to imagine what she was about to do. Yet, the music that was playing during this scene essentially “told” the audience was Marion was planning. The ominous cello music was put into this scene to give it some kind of suspense, and, sure enough, Marion did take that money and a suitcase and tried to get out of town. Indeed, the score on this film was crucial to many scenes. The infamous shower scene would not be the same without the screeching violins that accompanied Marion’s murder. Neither would the revelation of the mother’s corpse in the cellar, nor the murder of Detective Arbogast. All of these scenes, as well as many of the scenes throughout the movie, were enhanced by the musical score that cued the audience into what they were seeing and what they should be feeling during these given moment. Sometimes the music was ominous, with deep cello solos. Other times, the music was frantic, as in the shower scene and the murder of Arbogast. Hitchcock’s philosophy of film was that every shot counts (Kirshner, 1996). And, indeed, it seemed that was in this film. Not a single shot was superfluous. Every shot was necessary in this movie. And every shot added to the suspense of the film. For instance, the cop was a red herring at the beginning of the film. He watched her from across the street, while she was getting a new car, and this definitely added suspense. He was a red herring, though, because his presence didn’t really drive the plot along. Still, the shots with him in it were necessary, because he brought out the state of mind of Marion. Marion was panicked and scared, and she showed this to the cop. And this was the only shot that was questionable as to why it was in the film, because every other shot drove the plot along. The scene in the car, where Marion was imagining people talking about her theft, was necessary because it gave more evidence of her guilt and state of mind. The scene with Marion and Norman where Marion is eating a sandwich and talking to Norman was necessary because it gave the audience a clue that something was not quite right with Norman – he stated that his mother was his only friend, and he had a strange obsession with stuffed birds. Etc. There was not one throwaway scene in the entire film, and if one of the scenes would have been cut, then this would have taken away from the film completely. There are other stylistic elements to the film that bring the mise en scenes to life. Therefore, specific shot sequences should be studied to see how these particular stylistic elements bring each of these scenes meaning. The first scene that should be looked at is the shower scene, of course. This was by far the most famous scene in the entire movie. When people think of the movie Psycho, they think of the shower scene. Why was this scene so famous? It only lasted but a few seconds, really, at least the actual stabbing lasted only a few seconds, and the audience couldn’t really see Marion being stabbed. And, in hindsight, the audiences of 1960, seeing the movie for the first time, would not get a terrible sense of foreboding in seeing Marion in the shower, because they don’t know what is about to happen. Audiences of today, of course, know exactly what is going to happen, so just seeing Marion in the shower, enjoying the warm water on her body, is enough to bring a sense of suspense to the shot. But the audiences of the original film wouldn’t have this same foreknowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to look at the elements to see what would make it suspenseful to the audiences of 1960 who do not yet know that Marion is about to be brutally stabbed. First of all, the scene starts with Marion undressing while Norman watches her. She is in her bra and underwear, and stepping into her robe. Norman watches her for a few minutes, then goes to the house. This gives the audience a sense that there is something about to happen, although they don’t know exactly what. The audience now knows that Norman is a pervert as well as just being generally a weirdo, which gives some indication that perhaps Norman might try to do violence to Marion somehow. Perhaps go in the room and rape her. Then, the camera cuts back and forth between the house on the hill and Marion getting undressed and getting into the shower. As she steps into the shower, there is a close-up of the shower head, intercut with scenes of her delighting in the warm water on her body. This is a sexy scene, really, even though there is very little skin that is shown. The music, however, is foreboding during this period of time, so the audience knows that something is about to happen. Then there is a figure right outside the shower curtain, and the fact that Marion doesn’t see this figure makes the terror all the more. Then the screeching of the violins, and the knife coming through the curtain. There are close ups of Marion’s body as she is being pummeled, again and again, by the knife, along with close ups of her terrified face. Through it all, however, there is very little blood, and there is not a single shot of a wound on her body. There is some blood, however, and it is shown swirling down the drain, as there is a close up of the drain. Then the drain’s closeup bleeds into a closeup of Marion’s eye, that is still opened in death. The camera slowly pans away so that the close up of the eye becomes a full-length shot of her entire body. The audience can see Marion’s lifeless body still draped over the bathtub, as Marion had tried, desperately, to get out of the bathtub, tearing down the shower curtain in the process. Another scene that was enhanced by Hermann’s score, which lent a sense of foreboding was the discovery of the corpse of Norman’s mother in the fruit cellar. As Marion’s sister slowly creeps down in the cellar, which is where she ended up when Norman came home unexpectedly and almost caught her in the house, she approaches a figure that is sitting in the chair. She believes that this figure is Norman’s mother, and it is, in a way. As she approaches the figure slowly, the audience has the sense of foreboding because of the music and the way that the figure is sitting lifeless in the chair. Then, when the figure is revealed to be a corpse dressed in a wig, the screeching violins, which were heard in the shower scene, begin again, and the audience is treated to the very height of terror. Conclusion Alfred Hitchcock was a master auteur in that he knew how to build suspense. He, himself, noted that there had to be an economy of shots – every shot must have a purpose, and, if it’s not driving the plot, the shot has to be either showing the mental state of one or more of the characters, or must be some kind of red herring. Psycho embodied this perfectly, as every shot in this film had a purpose. Moreover, Hitchcock was able to use sound to perfectly convey suspense and state of mind. He conveyed suspense by using atmospheric music that perfectly set the tone for the scenes that feature this music, whether the music consists of screeching violins or foreboding cello music. The sound of the film was also enhanced by the actor’s inflections and speech patterns – the audience was always clued into the state of mind of the principal characters, because of the way that the characters spoke. And there was also visual elements that added to the suspense as well. The shower scene featured extreme closeups that showed the horror of Marion’s death, from the opened eye extreme closeup to the closeup of the blood running down the drain of the shower. The scene with the mother’s corpse showed an extreme closeup of the skeleton of the mother, along with a close up of the terrified Lila. Through it all, the music set the scene, so that the audience knew exactly what emotion should be evoked. Hitchcock was the master of suspense, and, more than that, he was a great director and his movies are considered to be classics today. He evokes this sense of suspense through the visual and aural elements that are so present in Psycho, which is perhaps the film for which he will always be remembered. This is in part due to the shower scene, as virtually everybody knows that scene, but it more has to do with the overall look and sound of the film. Sources Used Psycho. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins. Paramount Pictures. 1960. DVD. Brophy, Philip. “Citizen Kane: The Sound of the Look of a Visual Masterpiece,” Music and the Moving Image, 1.3 (2008): 1-12. Kapsis, Robert. “Reputation Building and The Film Art World,” The Sociological Quarterly, 30.1 (1989): 15-35. Kirshner, Jonathan. “Alfred Hitchcock and the Art of Research,” PS: Political Science and Politics, 29.3 (1996): 511-513. Read More