Room for one at the Bates Motel

“We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?” The famous words stuttered by Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful masterpiece Psycho. The eerie motel keeper and faithful momma’s boy shakes viewer from the moment he opens his mouth. For those of you who haven’t seen this classic thriller (please do so asap) it opens up with a young woman Marian who goes on the run after stealing forty thousand dollars. She pulls over for the night at the Bates Motel run by Norman and his mother, but during her stay she gets brutally murdered. At first viewers believe its Norman’s mother slashing off characters until it is discovered that his mother has been dead for years. Norman actually has a split personality living as both his mother and himself, while his mother’s stuffed body remains sitting by the window in her rocking chair.

Norman’s creepy persona is clearly conveyed through his twitchy mannerisms and stutter. He instantly represents a sheltered fragile man with no social skills hidden away from society with no connection to reality. To me the scene that solidifies his madness is when him and Marian eat dinner in the parlor. He speaks about his taxidermy hobby, while Hitchcock brilliantly cuts to shots of his stuffed birds hanging along the wall. The stuffed birds represent puppet like passive figures watching his madness progress. Most Hitchcock films focus on voyeurism and the idea of being watched and Norman is Marian’s peeping tom. Hitchcock builds this myth with point of view shots between the stuffed birds and Norman and Marian nervously looking in her rear view mirror. Eyes are everywhere and no place is safe.

The view we are given of the house is always at an angle and shows its isolation from the rest of the world. The bizarre house gives off an essence that tells people to stay away from this strange place because it doesn’t conform to what’s considered normal, and Norman’s far. The visual images in this film channel more meaning than the words, which is a crucial aspect to horror films. Viewers know how to classify certain scenes even without volume. We know there is something suspicious about the house because we are only given one image of it from a distance. Our limited view breeds a sense of mystery because we fear what we do not know. In film the camera has the power over the viewer to create meaning and show the audience specific shots while leaving others out to build suspense. Hitchcock does a beautiful editing job to move the plot and at the end we are left with all the answers in Norman’s psychotic twisted grin. Norman embodies the myth of the outcast and the psychotic behavior that takes over hermits.