Shock, Horror, Spirit: Hitchcock's 'Psycho' (1960): Part Two

Article sample:

What Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Journal d'un curé de campagne (Diary of a Country Priest, Robert Bresson, 1951) share most in common – I want now to suggest – is some form of 'soul-journey', with 'redemption' posited as a possibility. Redemption is visibly signalled at the end of Bresson's film, whose Christ-like curé (Claude Laydu) has just died: an image of the Cross lingers onscreen as a friend who was with him recalls the curé's last words, 'All is grace.' Very different is the closing shot of Hitchcock's film, in which Marion's car, containing both her body and the stolen money, is retrieved from the dark (cloacal) swamp. That image might almost have been inspired, inter alia, by the last shot of Luis Buñuel/Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou (1928) showing its ill-fated couple buried up to their waists in sand; only an ironic caption, 'au printemps', sounds the faintest upbeat note. Nonetheless, Hitchcock knew that a film is completed by its viewers; in giving them a gripping narrative of life/death significance, plus a cautionary ending, Psycho works the viewers over: essentially, its soul-journey isn't on the screen but in our heads.

About Senses of Cinema:

Senses of Cinema is an online journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema. We believe cinema is an art that can take many forms, from the industrially-produced blockbuster to the hand-crafted experimental work; we also aim to encourage awareness of the histories of such diverse forms. As an Australian-based journal, we have a special commitment to the regular, wide-ranging analysis and critique of Australian cinema, past and present. Senses of Cinema is primarily concerned with ideas about particular films or bodies of work, but also with the regimes (ideological, economic and so forth) under which films are produced and viewed, and with the more abstract theoretical and philosophical issues raised by film study.

Find Part One here.