Mise -en- scene in Psycho

In this post I'm going to be writing about Mise-en-scene in the film Psycho made in the year 1960.



To begging with, a extreme close up is shown of the stolen money as dramatic fast pace music starts playing the non- diegetic sound makes the audience know that the money is not legit and the extreme close up makes the audience believe that the money is the  main focus point of the story, by using non-diegetic sound instead of diegect makes it more dramatic as, if they didn't use non-diagetic  sound then the money wouldn't have shown as much attention to the audience as Hitchcock would of wanted it to . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LcSwRtLx-Y

When Marion takes of to make a run for it we see her in her car when a voice over is shown of other peoples voices this is really clever as it makes the audience think is this scenarios made up in her head or is that what is actually happening  this also shows Marions fear and panic as we also can see in this medium shot her facial expressions and this builds up tension and makes the audience not want her to be caught although we know that she has done something bad and that she should be caught we also feel sympathy towards her and feel anxious because we don't want her being caught this is because we have seen this crime from her perspective and we know that although she has done something bad she is a good person. There is also lots of back lighting that creates silhouettes which gets the audience curious as to what is going to happen next.

When Marion first comes into the hotel Norman Bates the hotel man seems quite jumpy and then there is a close up of the hotel keys behind the desk seeing how Norman changed he's mind about what key he gave Marion made the audience suspicious although the focus comes of him very quickly as she goes near her bags and the dramatic music begins to play as the stolen money is in there, Hitchcock done this to make the audience not suspect Norman Bates too quickly into the film so he changed the focus back on the money and then the audience just went back to feeling sympathy towards norman bates as he was seen as just lonely.


When Norman Bates was in the hotel room with Marion the audience began to get suspicious due to the props in the back ground the props were stuffed birds the birds stuffed were birds of prey i think Hitchcock done this to get the audience suspicious although he also done this to represent marion as the prey and Norman as the bird. This got the audience attention on Norman rather then the cash which was the mc guffin of the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9mJ2oBONug