The Shower Scene In Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho

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Music in film is something that everyone recognizes, be it the music of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones or “Eye of The Tiger” in Rocky 3. We recognize these musical pieces because they are in simple terms, remember able. But what about the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho? Originally this music, which is voted as one of the scariest movie theme tunes ever, wasn’t going to be in the film. The differences that the tune makes in the film are immense, as it draws a new picture into what is going on in the film. Music in film is used for many different reasons. Firstly, the music defiantly adds emotional quality to the film. For example a scene in a funeral would not have the Macarena playing in the background, unless it were a …show more content…
It would have been the editing of this scene that was the make or break point. If the editors did a poor job of splicing the clips together, then the scene could have seemed extremely fake, which would result in the rest of the film as not being successful in keeping the audience’s attention. For instance, if the audience could clearly see the knife not being penetrated into Marion’s flesh, then the audience would think the movies a joke or a parody of other horror/thriller films. But this is something that Hitchcock knew, as he later stated “you could not take the camera and just show a nude woman being stabbed to death. It had to be done impressionistically. It was done with little pieces of the film: the head, the hand, parts of the torso, shadow on the curtain, the shower itself” ( http://www.openculture.com/2013/04/alfred_hitchcocks_seven-minute_editing_master_class.html) It is after this film that editing was revolutionized, as prior to this editing was not about taking 50 clips of a scene and moving the about to make a story, but rather to just get past censorship.
Music in different genres each have their own classical, memorable moments. But none come close to as how influential Bernard Hermann’s shower scene music is. Even though for the particular movie, it wasn’t one-hundred percent necessary, it helped elevate the title of the film as being one of the most recognizable to date, but it also helped revolutionize the horror genre of

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