Hithcock in his American phase is fascinated by “substitute marriage” in films like Psycho and The Birds. From a psychoanalytical perspective it is the reversal of circumstance that contributes the success of the oedipal complex. Normally a boy’s attraction to mother is hampered by the father, but in Hithcock films there is a conflict between the two generation which results in a marital bond of his own. Father is an empty figure whose absence presence exists only in memory. Conventionally father slowly withdraws from the mother-son bond when the love deepens and exceeds limits. In oedipal marriage father will be absent and the mother figure solely belongs to son. In both Psycho and The Birds father figure is absent.
