記‧憶

這項作業是要自選一部電影，分析其中3-5分鐘片段的所有拍攝細節，以及這些細節創造氣氛、意義及觀眾情緒的方法，並從電影中擷取圖片為證。

How did Editing and Performance Construct Meaning and Provoke Response in the “Shower Scene” from Psycho?   

                                             Chen Huai-Yu       2012.11.15

Psycho (1960) is an American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. In the sequence, Crane, the main female character was bathing, and an unknown person came to her and murdered her brutally by stabbing her again and again in the body. Norman Bates, the owner of the hotel, who was also the main male character in the film, hurrying to Crane’s room only to see Crane’s body. In fact, the real murderer was himself, but the audience just don’t know.

I’m looking at the editing and performance in this three-minute scene, which took 7 days to film and involved more than 77different angles. The editing in this scene showed a very fast tempo by combining 50 cuts in a very short time.It made the audience feel that Bates stabbed directly at Crane and continually, brutally and was determined to kill her. Everything just happened so suddenly. The audience just saw Bates come closer and unpredictably start to stab Crane.

A shot-reverse-shot was used when Bates was conducting his brutal murder. It was special because shot-reverse-shot is always used when there is a conversation. In this scene, there’s no conversation, there’s only actions between the two characters. The camera changed frequently from Bates to Crane, showing that it was an emergency, and every action from Bates could be decisive to Crane’s death. However, although Crane eventually died, the film didn’t show any hint that Bates “really” had killed, or even hurt Crane until the blood mixed into the streaming water was shown and, not until the camera caught Crane slide down and lean on the bathtub had the audience found that she had died. Although Bates in this scene couldn’t be seen clearly, the eyeline matches between him and Crane showed the direction of him and the knife. Crane looked up at Bates, letting the audience know that he was taller than her and was alsodetermined to kill her, so he needed space to lift his arm to the highest position and stab downpowerfullyto Crane’ s body.
  

After Bates was gone and Crane failed to stand up by grabbing the bath curtain, Crane leaned on the bathtub and was eventually dead. A crane shot was used very shortly about one second from the ceiling of the bathroom. From the angle of depression, the audience knew what Crane was trying to do. It also gave the audience a sense of the relative positions of the things in the bathroom, for example, the shower, the bathtub, Crane, and the most important, the shower curtain. The audience could see and notice that Crane lean towards the bathtub and the rings on the shower curtain were moving, indicating that Crane put all her weight on the shower curtain. She totally relied on it because she was very weak and was about to die. Except looking down from above, that was nothing the audience could do.

Later, the camera followed the blood and the water to the drain of the bathtub, and zoomed in at the drain. The water and the blood simply went into the drain and gone, just like Crane’s life, disappeared forever. There was no rescue. The dark drain of bathtub seemed to symbolize the dark side of human life, uncertainty and transience. Sometimes tragedies could just happen without warning and, even without a reason. Then, the drain turned into one of Crane’s eyes. It was a graphic match (below1). Crane’s eye was still wide open, because she was innocent, and she didn’t know why she got murdered. Her eye was just like the drain, empty and inane, but the eye looked directly through the audience (below2). It seemed to question the audience about her death. But, even the audience had no idea what happened.
  

A zoom-out was used slowly from Crane’s eye to her head and neck, with a little bit of rotation (below1). The slow tempo showed the silence after Crane’s death. The murderer, Bates, came soon, and left soon as well. The rotation again showed the suspense of this case. A handheld was used to film the route Bates went out. During his way out, the camera stopped at the untouched newspaper on the table (below2), suggesting that he was not coming for money, he had other purpose. It shook a little bit when the camera stayed at the table for about two or three seconds, giving the audience a feeling of suspense, and was also implying that the untouched newspaper or, untouched money, could be a hint of the whole mysterious “Norman Bates’ case”: Bates was not just a normal murderer.

The performance in this sequence told the audience a lot. With almost no conversation between the two main characters, the sequence made the audience focus on other factors, especially, performance.According to Argyle’s ten body codes, I’m looking at the general appearance, aspects of speech, eye and head movement, the orientation and proximity, direct body contact, and facial expressions.

The general appearance of Crane in this sequence appeared to be a 31-year-old lady enjoying a hot bath. Actually, although she had $40,000, which she was supposed to put into the bank for a wealthy customer, with her, she was a vulnerable lady. However, Bates, the actual murderer, appeared to be a “mother-like” determined and heartless character covered in a black shadow. After Crane’s death, he turned into an innocent, astonished, and terrified motel owner, believing that his mother had killed Crane. This was a very interesting point because Bates had two completely different sides, but the audience knew nothing about him until the end of the film.    

At the beginning of the sequence, Bates approached the bathing Crane. Crane turned around and screamed. The aspects of the scream involved a very loud and sharp voice, lasting for a few seconds. Crane was totally scared and surprised (below1). Besides, the suddenly appeared sound and the extreme close shot (below2) of crane’s mouth made the scream impressed and shocked the audience as well. Then, Crane looked up at Bates and started to struggle. She closed her eyes and shook her head (below3), trying to avoid Bates’ stab. Both eye and head movement suggested how dangerous the situation Crane was in.
   

Bates came close to Crane and was standing behind her. When he started to stab her, Crane turned around and the orientation changed, they came face-to-face. Crane saw Bates, but had no idea who he exactly was. Bates stood very close to her, the proximity was very little, so the knife came as soon as Bates opened the shower curtain. Although the proximity was very little, there was still a distance between Bates and Crane, because Crane was standing in the bathtub, and Bates was standing outside the bathtub. This also meant that there was no way Crane could escape from Bates.

The direct body contact between the two characters occurred when Bates tried to stab Crane, and Crane tried to stop him by grabbing his wrist. At the beginning, it worked for a little while, but, because the “mother-like” Bates was too jealous about Crane, nothing could stop him from murdering her. From a shot, the audience could see that Bates again lift his arm, showing that he had got rid of Crane. This time, Crane could just try to avoid the attack, but it was impossible. Bates stabbed her again and again until she died. From the body contact, the audience knew that Bates showed no mercy on Crane, because he was completely different character. He didn’t know what he was doing and the “mother” inside had already controlled his behaviours.

“Mother, oh, God, mother. Blood! Blood! ” This was the only line Bates said in the sequence. It burst out in a silence after Crane’s death. His was very nervous and was just surprised when seeing blood on his hands, or maybe cloth. The aspects of this indicated that Bates didn’t know anything about what he had done. He believed that it was his mother that had murdered Crane. At the same time, the audience also believed that the murderer was Bates’ mother, too. Bates’ tone convinced the audience that the unknown murderer was definitely his mother.

Bates hurried down the stairs. He was so worried about Crane that he tumbled several times, and also skipped some stairs in order to reach the motel room as quickly as he could. It was too late that Bates only saw Crane’s body. He was so scared and terrified that he covered his mouth so he wouldn’t cry out. He was trembling and his facial expression was very impressive, stiff and trying to figure out what happened. He winked several times, showing that he was very tense and shocked. He even knocked down the picture of the bird beside him. All these behaviours indicated Bates’ flurry and panic and, again, he convinced the audience that he was not the murderer.  

Overall, the editing and performance in this famous sequence were two very important factors to make it astonishing. There was barely sound and conversation, which made the audience focus on the behaviours of the characters, thus built up the fear in the audience’s heart slowly and unconsciously. The editing involved good technique in an era that didn’t have high technology, and the performance was so good that it planted terror deep into the audience’s heart and, the actor that played Bates, Anthony Perkins, was typecast in the horror genre of films. This was also why it was one of the best-known scenes in cinema history.