Psyco - shower scene analysis (at last!)

I've finally find a way to get things onto blogger via. school, so here's some long-awaited work.

Psyco - Shower Scene Analysis

Starting with a docile scene of the victim undressing for the shower, the viewer has no idea of what is to come. This is good, as it will heighten the feeling of shock that the viewer feels is the following scene. The actress keeps a straight face (lacking in emotion) to re-enforce the safe, calm mood. Throughout this opening, the camera keeps level with the victim’s head and follows her. You could consider to be a point of view shot. The lighting remains dim to hint at a negative action to come.

Once in the shower, the camera cuts from one angle to another multiple times. There is a lot of circular imagery in the following scenes, starting with a shot of the showerhead, with the object in question in the very centre of the shot. When looking at the showerhead, we look at it through a low-angle shot, and it is also a close-up, making it appear ominous; powerful in some way, but not a way that we understand. You also have more shots at head-level, but they are not centring on her face, rather what is behind it finally, with rising tension, the camera pans slowly to a moving figure behind the shower curtain…

The camera snaps to a close-up of the curtain, or rather what is behind it – the villain, holding a kitchen knife. This is followed by another close-up of the knife itself. This racy use of straight cuts creates confusion, a confusion shared by the victim as the shower scene unfolds onto her vulnerable form. The ‘screeching strings’ music adds to the terror as she is repeatedly stabbed by the perpetrator. In one shot, she is seen cowering in the bath tub. This is seen from a high-angle shot, giving the victim an inferior appearance. The main colours in this scene are black, white and red. One could interpret these colours as anger, cruelty or cold, single-minded cruelty (not necessarily in that order).

In the final scene, the music has died down and is all but non-existent. This links to the now dead victim and her distinct ‘lack of life’. The powerful circular imagery continues to make itself apparent. The question is weather one should take it at the face-value of ‘that woman’s eye is the same shape as a plug-hole’, or weather it should be taken deeper – it could, for example,   have some relevance or meaning tied down to a sense of perpetuallity – for example, could this have happened before and this is just be another victim? The theme of black, white and red continues in this part of said scene. We then leave the victim in the bathroom and follow the murderer out of the bathroom (possibly via hand-held camera to create the feeling of walking) to look at an otherwise unimportant newspaper. However, the viewer does not have time to read the entire front cover before it cuts to a low angle shot of the house (most likely the house in which the murder took place). The low-angle shot appears to be from the bottom of the front garden, as if we are looking at the house from the killer’s eyes and the killer is escaping. This is a very dark shot and appears to b at night. The architecture of the house itself seems old, almost gothic, and is the last thing you see before the end of the scene.