[Prof. Masiello]

If this was the first time you have seen Psycho, please post answers to the following:

1) Were you surprised by the big reveal near the end?

2) If you were becoming suspicious, what scenes made you start wondering about what was what. or should I say who was who?

The main reason I asked you to watch the film before reading the book was to give you the maximum effect. Alfred Hitchcock actually made cinematic history by insisting that people would not be seated once the film began. Back in 1960, people would just wander into a movie at any point often seeing from the middle, and then the next showing would come very soon after so they could catch up with what they missed. If this sounds foreign to you, ask your grandparents if that is how they saw movies. (This was before multiplexes, and even after 1960 people would just go in when it was convenient.)

Furthermore, Mr. Hitchcock did everything he could to have his assistants buy up as many copies of the Robert Bloch novel as possible so few if any would have read the story before seeing it. (Please also view the two videos I posted and told you about.)

• This topic was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Prof. Masiello.

[Christopher Lobato]

1,)I believed that something was not right about Mrs. Bates, and I had begun to think of theories while watching, but it was still surprising to see Norman Bates come running into the cellar in a wig and a dress. Anthony Perkins did a stellar job with his facial expressions, awkward demeanor, and his excitement during the reveal give an eerie and disturbing feeling.

2.)After my first viewing, I was not sure if there was any obvious foreshadowing to Mrs. Bates’ identity because most of the dialogue at first seems to imply that Norman has a severe attachment to his mother and nothing more. I began to question Mrs. Bates’ identity during the shower scene because the figure we see is large and agile, and the scene in which Norman carries his decomposed mother down to the cellar. While the latter keeps the illusion that Mother and Norman are two people, it also gives a sense that something is not right because the shot does not allow us to see either of their faces.

[Anderson Uribe]

I was partially surprised by the reveal at the end.

I started becoming suspicious that Norman was “mother” as soon as Mary was killed in the bathtub. Why hide mother’s face? However, I was not sure yet. The less I saw of her as the film progressed, the more suspicious I became. Later at timestamp 1:25.32, we see Norman walking up the stairs with a distinctly female hip movement. Aha! But he entered his mother’s bedroom, talked to her and carried her out. But wait, why would he need to carry out someone who can commit violent murder? Nevertheless, I was certain that not everything was as it seemed. Not long after, deputy chief Chambers tells Sam and Lila that Norman’s mother was dead and that was the final nail in the coffin. Except she was not in her coffin, as we found out in the end. Thus, I was partially surprised.

[Prof. Masiello]

Yes, Christopher. One of the great things about this classic film is that it holds up to repeated viewings.

There are other clues in the movie once Norman appears. After Marion in her new room overhears a loud argument between Norman and his mother, he comes down from the house with some food for Marion. He knows she overheard.

from the script:

Marion: I’ve caused you some trouble.

NORMAN Mother …my mother …what is the phrase … “she isn’t quite herself today” …
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
much later after Lila and Sam go to see the sheriff and he calls Norman. Norman then goes to get his mother.

Notice how he walks up the stairs. This is very subtle. I had seen this film perhaps two dozen times and not noticed how Norman walks until someone brought it to my attention. Hitchcock did this as a clue.

I am wondering if any students picked up on his unusual walk in only one viewing…

[Prof. Masiello]

Yes, Anderson.

So it seems you noticed Norman’s hip sway.

As for the concealed face of the stabber, clearly (?) it could have been overlooked by some or thought of as Marion’s POV, hot water steam, and so forth, but again clues are strewn throughout. (Imagine the horror of Marion not only being interrupted in her shower by by a knife-weilding guy with whom she had recently conversed dressed oddly but having nowhere to go while in a tub!)

At that point in the movie, we did have a silhouette of a woman walking around in her bedroom, as seen by Marion when she first arrived at the Bates Motel so the “woman” was ambulatory. Yes, as you said, why carry her. The conflict to the viewers of a crazy upright standing murderer and a confined invalid is certainly a curiosity.

The rather lifeless body being carried down the stairs is a bit hidden insofar as her feet may have bumped against the banister.

In one of many many viewings of the film, I sat behind a couple who were heavily “smooching” during the fim and would only look up when the music alerted them that something on-screen was “dramatic.”

Evidentally not every viewer notices everything!

[diana]

1) Were you surprised by the big reveal near the end?
Yes, it was my first-time watching psycho, never in million year though that the owner of the hotel had two personality, or a problem did that. It was big reveal near the end and where she would end up with the money or how she spends it.

2) If you were becoming suspicious, what scenes made you start wondering about what was. or should I say who was who?
I did become suspicious when she arrives at the hotel. He seems award and the way he had black birds was not a good sign and hearing loud voices at the house. I would have left immediately. But I was wondering that the kill her was his mother but never really though it was him playing a side of his mother. Also another scene is that how no one was really staying there at the hotel also wasn’t s good sign, it was creepy but I think since she was in conscious of guilt and fear or paranoid and wasn’t thinking of the police was still after her. Therefore, she would be caught because she stole the money and ran away.
1) Were you surprised by the b

[,]

No I wasn’t surprised because I’ve seen bates motel, which is based on the film Psycho even though some things are different the idea remains the same.
I was suspicious of Marion for stealing the money and Norman for his behavior and killing her.

[Jennifer Apuango]

1) Were you surprised by the big reveal near the end?
*I was sort of surprised by the big reveal.

2) If you were becoming suspicious, what scenes made you start wondering about what was what. or should I say who was who?
*I started being suspicious when Marion got to the hotel and Norman select Marions room to be next to his office, at that moment I started asking to myself that Norman wants to spy on her in a creepy way. In this scene, it was like an order of sequence as in the beginning, the drain, Norman looking at Marion in the shower through his office, the hot water steam. Those things started to rhyme and that something bad will happen. When it showed “the mother” with the knife, they blackened the mother face each time. Which in my mind I started to question myself, why don’t they show the mother face? At that part of the scene I started to realize that the mother was Norman. Also, when Norman had conversations with his mother, it never showed their faces when they are talking.

[Prof. Masiello]

But did you find Norman appealing in any way? He certainly was good-looking and some people find shyness attractive: better to underestimate yourself than to think too highly of yourself!

[Prof. Masiello]

Yes, I was concerned that the Bates Motel show had ruined the surprise.

I hope everyone in your class has watched the two videos I sent for a perspective on the

enduring significance of this movie. Certainly, the book is a goodr read, but most people you ask only know Psycho as a movie and do not even know it was a book!

[Prof. Masiello]

Yes. Here is a repeat of what I sent to Christopher yesterday:

One of the great things about this classic film is that it holds up to repeated viewings.

There are other clues in the movie once Norman appears. After Marion in her new room overhears a loud argument between Norman and his mother, he comes down from the house with some food for Marion. He knows she overheard.

from the script:

Marion: I’ve caused you some trouble.

NORMAN Mother …my mother …what is the phrase … “she isn’t quite herself today” …
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
much later after Lila and Sam go to see the sheriff and he calls Norman. Norman then goes to get his mother.

Notice how he walks up the stairs. This is very subtle. I had seen this film perhaps two dozen times and not noticed how Norman walks until someone brought it to my attention. Hitchcock did this as a clue.

I am wondering if any students picked up on his unusual walk in only one viewing…

[Jabir Alam]

Yes, I was surprised by the big reveal near the end, I was suspicious in the middle of the film but not fully convinced.

The movie never allowed us to find out that Norman had two personalities. I started to become suspicious when the camera movements didn’t show a norman mother face, for example, when Norman was talking to his mother in the room, the viewer was very curious and excited, but the camera does not allow us to do this, and by departing from Norman’s mother’s face, moving slowly upward and changing our viewing angle, at the end of the movie we get to see norman mother skeleton in the basement and i realized norman is taken by his mother and commits all these murders

[Prof. Masiello]

Yes, Jabir,

It was a challenge for Hitchcock to be ablle to keep the audience quessing. The novel’s author was able to fool us by merely using his words, but films are visual and aural, so we had to see glimpses of the mother and hear her voice.

As I wrote to other classmates, one of the great things about this classic film is that it holds up to repeated viewings.

There are other clues in the movie once Norman appears. After Marion in her new room overhears a loud argument between Norman and his mother, he comes down from the house with some food for Marion. He knows she overheard.

from the script:

Marion: I’ve caused you some trouble.

NORMAN: Mother …my mother …what is the phrase … “she isn’t quite herself today” …
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
much later after Lila and Sam go to see the sheriff and he calls Norman, Norman then goes to get his mother.

Notice how he walks up the stairs. This is very subtle. I had seen this film perhaps two dozen times and not noticed how Norman walks until someone brought it to my attention. Hitchcock did this as a clue.

[afrina nishat]

1. I was really surprised by the end when I see Norman as his mothers dress because Her mother was a psycho. He is a psycho but less than his mother. I am really scared how one man has two form. When he killed Crane and Avogasto he was turned to his mother. It was really unthinkable if we don’t see full movie.

2. When I see Miss Crane’s attitude to Norman I think maybe she was a psycho or for money maybe she was trying to kill Norman and escaped from the Bates motel. First 1 hour it was not come to my mind that Norman’s mother was died and I don’t think Norman has two characters where he plays like a responsible boy for his mother who removes his mothers all sins. I also think Normans mother was a very old women and the voice was her. But end of the movie all of my thoughts are become false.

[Virginia Sanchez]

1) I was not surprised by the end. I’d never seen the film or read the book but because the film is so old and famous I’d heard things here and there and connected the dots fairly quickly. Interestingly I was more surprised how quickly the woman died both in the film and the book.

2) Throughout the film we never see “Mother” and when we do see her body there is no movement, almost like she is a doll. Even when she is “forcibly” moved to the basement, complaining at that, her body doesn’t reflect this anger. Yet this same “sickly” and “weak” old woman was able to kill intensely.