Literary Elements Of Conflict In Alfred Hitchcock's Film Psycho

Watching someone get murdered on screen is startling, but it’s even more startling when the audience does not expect it to happen. Psycho, a film by Alfred Hitchcock is an American classic, because of one specific scene, the scene where Marion Crane is stabbed to death in the shower. Psycho starts with Crane stealing the money of a client at the bank she works at, and leaving town to give the money to her boyfriend. On the way, she stops at Bates Motel to stay the night. At the hotel, she meets the owner Norman Bates and learns some about his mother Norma. While taking a shower, a shadowy figure kills Marion. The rest of the movie shows the aftermath of the killing and eventually reveals who killed Marion. In the shower scene, Hitchcock uses both high and low angle shots, a zoom camera movement, and non-diegetic sound to illustrate the literary element of conflict.
Conflict fits into the film Psycho, because the main plot points of …show more content…
Hitchcock uses eye level shots in the beginning of the scene, this changes once the murderer enters the bathroom, and both high angles and low angles are used. Hitchcock has this change to show the difference from when Marion feels safe, to when she is the victim. The camera looks down on her, while it looks up at the murderer. This represents their power levels in the conflict, with Marion being lower and smaller than the more important and powerful murderer.
The way the camera moves in a scene can help to tell a lot about what is happening. In Psycho, Hitchcock uses a reverse zoom to reveal Marion’s dead body, starting from a close up on her eye. A zoom can be used to either bring the audience in and reveal more about the character personally, or separate the audience from the character. Hitchcock used his zoom to separate the character and the audience. This shows the literary element of conflict, because it shows what the conflict resulted in, which is Marion’s