The Lost Highway For 12.15.05: Psycho
Posted by Mary Markham on 12.15.2005
Sins of the Mother
Once again, fellow readers I find myself thrust into a film that was not the intended choice for this week. However seeing that it was on twice when I turned on the television in a matter of three days, meant hitting pay dirt for the column. The movie my friends is none other that Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. I’m taking a deep breath now because I am about to enter the delicate and ferocious world of the movie geek, or cinephile (spelled it wrong last week!) if you must. But I don’t care. I love Hitchcock. I may not have seen ALL of his films but I hold him close to my heart. So settle down little cinema creeps, I’m going to talk about this film and it isn’t going to be some scene anatomy breakdown, or secret editing formulas. It’s just going to be about why I will always love this film.
It is a mythical and historical notion, a mother’s fervent love of her son. Throughout the elements of time legendary bonds have been formed. One notorious example was Jocasta, Greek mother of Oedipus who returned to Thebes to kill his father and then proceed to marry his mother. Four children were born to them and once the knowledge of their parent’s incest was revealed, Jocasta hung herself. Shakespeare’s tragic “Hamlet” who after his father’s death witnesses his mother’s remarriage to his Uncle Claudius which drives him mad. It seems to me that in many of Hitchcock’s films the mother figures, if they exist are represented as cold and distant (i.e. “Marnie” and “The Birds”), absent altogether (“Vertigo”) or completely naïve (“Shadow of a Doubt” – my other Hitch favorite!) I could go on and on but this is not a term paper for some Freudian graduate class. This is about Norman Bates. Mother-hater extraordinaire.
MATRICIDE:n murder of a mother by her son or daughter.
The story of Norman is a familiar one. Domineering mother creates clingy son who doesn’t have relationships outside of her. She then meets a man who Norman feels has replaced him, which then leads him to murder both his mother and her lover. This horrific act steers Norman down the dark hallway of madness. His mind splits off and creates the mother figure who in the end, dominates the little bit of Norman that is left. I love this story. It shows us an aspect of one of the basest of human behaviors: Dominance. The power structure in the animal kingdom is inherent. In rational human beings it is challenged. Why a mother’s love for her son is all consuming, is strange but bittersweet and natural. He will carry on her legacy. In Norman’s case she took advantage of his love for her and used it to control him. He was discouraged from having other female acquaintances. He was under the impression that women were lewd, whorish and sneaky creatures that were only capable of seduction. As a result of his repression, his lust for the female flesh would take over but Mother’s voice was louder. She would force Norman to do her bidding and rid the world of these “women of loose morals”, these tramps, these sluts. And he would.
Marion Crane, potential womanly threat, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Janet Leigh is so brilliant in this role. You will never forget her somewhat cold and unnerving creation of Marion. You just don’t feel completely comfortable with her. At certain points I feel that the choices she makes can only lead to her demise. But the minute she pulls into the Bates Motel and its raining and dark my heart softens towards her and I feel compassion. The same compassion I feel towards Norman. Here are two lonely people whose paths cross for a moment in time and both are trapped in their own private hells. It could’ve been a beautiful moment, however desperate feelings can lead to desperate measures.
An interesting observation: You will notice that when Marion tells him she is from Los Angeles his hand moves from the key rack to the key for room #1 (next to the office). Apparently Los Angeles equals deviant behavior. (wink, wink!)
What happens next is cinematic history. Dinner, conversation, a little peepshow, internal struggle and then penetration of the female flesh. A date of sorts. The penetration isn’t sexual of course but the brutal murder of Marion Crane in the infamous shower scene. And what a breathtaking scene it is both aesthetically and horrifically. It is executed with the eye of a true artist. (As a side note, this scene consumed one week of the month long shoot.) This was also renegade filmmaking in the sense that Hitchcock tricked us into thinking that Marion Crane was the central character. At that moment we realize that this story is about Norman.
The rest of the film is a detective story. The sister Lila (Vera Miles) confronts the boyfriend, Sam Loomis who then are questioned by a private investigator, Arbogast (Martin Balsam). We already know that Marion has run off with $40,000 stolen from her boss. So the next hour of the film is the three of them trying to find her. Arbogast has a run in with Bates and in a fantastic piece of cinematography meets his grisly death in the Bates house. Lila and Sam proceed to pay Norman a visit and find out the truth about the invalid mother. Another scene that is so elegantly crafted is when Lila finds the mother in the fruit cellar only to realize it is her corpse propped up in a chair with a single light bulb above her head. This is the milestone of the film. The ghoulish skull of the mother teemed with Norman entering the room dressed as a woman carrying a butcher knife and screaming in his mother’s voice. Chilling.
This may not be in some opinions Hitchcock’s best film but it is certainly his most terrifying. It holds up to today’s standards as a masterpiece of horror. Norman Bates has become iconic in the film world. And no one but Anthony Perkins could ever become him. It was the pinnacle of his film career. Unfortunate for Perkins for he never talked about Norman Bates until the eighties when he finally made peace with the monster he had created. Lesser directors have tried but will never be able to recreate the simple malevolence that Hitchcock created with “Psycho”.
