Head over to Top Ten Films and read my list of the greatest performances in Alfred Hitchcock movies.

The Pleasure of Watching.

Above all Psycho is a movie about the movies. From its opening shot, in which it establishes that it takes place in a city not so far away, it's telling us "this could happen to you".

Alfred Hitchcock was the ultimate voyeur, but unlike many filmmakers who used this as means to their specifically sexual ends, Hitch turned each of his voyeuristic adventures into explorations of the human subconscious.

Particularly when it comes to the eyes as a camera.

Notice how right after this city setting, he takes us right into the room where Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is spending the afternoon with her lover (John Gavin).

The fact that the blinds are halfway down makes our intrusion even more violent, but Hitchcock calms our nerves because the window and the blinds resemble the eye of a camera, attracting us towards its darkness, always ignoring what we will capture with it.

That we end up capturing one of the most erotic love scenes ever filmed is no coincidence.

After all, one of the reasons why we go to the movies is to fantasize about things we might never have.

The scene is filled with sweeping camera moves that approach the characters without ever feeling intrusive or announcing its presence. The closer the camera gets to them, the less aware they are of it even being there. The more intimate they become.

Hitchcock has established the fact that while this is happening in a world like ours, once we entered the hotel room, we are watching a movie.

When later, we meet Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Hitchcock has no trouble in making him seem like the weirdest guy who lived. His love for taxidermy, only an extension of the themes of preservation Hitchcock had explored in the past.

What's so different between these stuffed, dead animals and the Carlotta painting in Vertigo?

Hitchcock who's often regarded as a misogynist, probably knew that the easiest way for him to look past his personal issues and to represent them on film would be to filter them through lenses, cameras and movies.

Therefore as Norman feels the urge to spy on Marion (and later kill her) it all begins with a simple peek through a peephole.

We are reminded this way of the Lacanian notion that men derive sadistic pleasure out of watching women fragmented by the camera. By spying on shattered women, male audiences (and the director himself) felt a reassurance that their own bodies were complete, whole.

Watching women through cameras, whether on regular films or pornography, realizes males' fantasies because it gives them godlike power.

They are whole, they have control.

This leads to my favorite shot in the movie:

Here, as Norman's curious eye discovers Marion for the first time we too feel his pleasure, we too want to watch what he's watching.

Not all of us want to be murderers, but that was never the point. It's the pleasure of viewing that seduces and eventually releases our innermost desires.

The notions of media and real life violence being related are questionable (at least not provable in scientific terms) but for a moment we understand that the joys of watching are some we share with everyone: from serial killers, to babies, to hypnotized movie audiences.

Have you ever noticed how after that first shot of the city, nothing else in Psycho ever looks "real"?

When the movie ends, it's as if we never left the world we entered through the first hotel window. Norman is inarguably trapped in it, but are we too?

This reminds us of the Lacanian notion that fantasy is not really the object of desire, but its setting. Through fantasy we learn to desire.

Whether you desire to be a killer, a thief, or a taxidermist is strictly up to you. The movies can help us find our heart's desire but their power isn't enough to control it.

This post is part of Nat's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series.

A Roll in the Hay.

Josh Birdwell: the Queer Quaker?

Anthony Perkins, like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, was the kind of actor whose characters you have trouble disassociating from his personal life.
It may be that like them he became iconic for playing a specific type of character which led the media to obsess with every aspect of his life.
Watching "Friendly Persuasion" I had the notion that his character's arc was an exact parallel for Perkins' sexual orientation.

Perkins plays Josh Birdwell the eldest son of a Quaker family (his parents are played by Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire). His religious upbringing demands he gives unconditional love to everyone and refuses to engage in any violent acts.
This bring him trouble because the movie is set during the American Civil War and the men in his community refuse to enroll and murder other soldiers.
Considering that being a soldier was the prototypical characteristic of a man, Josh begins to feel uncomfortable for not acting like society demands him to.

Like a gay man confounded by his sexual awakening he begins to feel shame for not fitting in with the rest. It's important to note that even if he plays a Quaker, other Quaker men in the movie have very strong reactions towards the war. When a soldier irrupts in their service to ask them to enroll, he looks down when he's approached by him.
While his friend Caleb (John Smith) has a more direct response as he states that he would like to go against his religion to fight in the war.

In a latter scene the whole family goes to a fair where Josh is asked to wrestle a man to win a bet (both big no nos among the Quakers) he refuses when Caleb agrees to take his place.
In this scene Josh becomes fascinated by the way in which his friend manages himself.

When Caleb actually begins to win the fight Josh seems confused as in whether to cheer him or feel ashamed for not being the one up there.

There is also an expression of desire in Perkins' face as he watches an extremely macho ritual unfold before his eyes.
It's easy to believe that Josh had never seen two men involved in such an intimate kind of contact before. Perkins himself was experimenting with homosexual affairs during this time, but like most actors of his time he wasn't out.

When Josh and Caleb get bullied by men who mock their different way of life it's evident that their religion can be exchanged for almost any other issue related to minorities.

Later in the movie Caleb goes with his father to visit a friend of his. Immediately her three daughter corner him with the idea of snatching him as a husband.
During these years Perkins was making his film debut and becoming a heartthrob all over the world.
Like Josh, Perkins was intimidated by women. They created an anxiety in him which he didn't know how to control.

During the whole scene of the visit Josh seems absolutely terrified of the girls in question. It helps that they look like Cinderella's stepsisters.
Curiously there is a very Freudian presence in this scene in the shape of the father portrait hanging in the back.
Can this be a reminder for Josh and Perkins to act according to patriarchal traditions?
During the filming of "Friendly Persuasion" Gary Cooper tried to get his daughter to date Perkins absolutely ignorant of the fact he was gay.
Allegedly he later was awful to the young actor and barely spoke to him. It can be said that in a way Perkins had to fulfill son roles in and out of the movie with Cooper.

When Josh listens to war stories from his sister's beau, he begins to feel guilty for not adhering to what he thinks he should be doing.

Josh decided to enlist going against his mother's wishes, but making his father feel like he grew a conscience.
This decision is highlighted as being a return to masculinity for Josh. Note the framing of this moment. He makes the decision but we don't see his face as he walks down the stairs. Just the rifle. To point at the obvious phallic-ness of the weapon would be too easy.
But what's important is how the scene hides his facial expression. It was as if Perkins was regaining his social status by hiding his true self (the face in this case).
In the same way Perkins had his first heterosexual affair years later with actress Victoria Principal who was almost twenty years her junior.
He then got married and established a traditional family, but it has always remained a mystery why did he do this.

"Friendly Persuasion" might suggest as a sort of premonition that Perkins would give in to conventions and deny his true self.
The scenes where he's in battle show him fitting in among the others, but looking completely empty and distressed.

When he finally kills a man (his true self perhaps?) he suffers and is close to death but is granted a second chance at life.
Hollywood was suggesting that to justify being "different" you have to go through some sort of moral tunnel, if you survive it you can remain in their world by getting rid of everything you were.

Fear of Commitment in "Psycho".

While watching the opening scene the other day something became quite obvious to me: Sam Loomis (John Gavin) perhaps doesn't want to be with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh).
As they share a post coital conversation (with sex so good that she didn't even have time to eat as Hitch suggests by showing us a wrapped sandwich) he tells her all the reasons why they can't be together.
Most of them concerning money and his ex-wife. Marion rolls on the bed like a kitten as she confesses she can't be without him and is tired of the secretive life they're leading.
As she gets dressed, and he remains shirtless, the idea that she might break up with him becomes tangible (while they're naked she's still his'?) and he says "I want to see you under any circumstances, even respectability".
Anyone who's seen the film knows that he never will see her again, which led me to question if in fact everything that happens to Marion afterwards isn't in fact a manifestation of Sam's fear of commitment with her.
She steals the money because of him and it's this event that gets her killed (that the money becomes irrelevant to the plot perhaps suggests that this wasn't going to solve their life as a couple as he said).
In the opening scene Marion also mentions that ideally she'd like Sam to eat with her in her family house with her mother's portrait on the mantel.
By specifying the mantel she seems to be putting her mom into a sort of immovable pedestal.
And what scares off a heterosexual male more than meeting his girlfriend's mother or his own in any case? Maybe he isn't as scared of her mom as to the idea of what his own mom would think of the way he's leading his life and the thought of disappointing her.
This piece of dialogue is a sort of premonition of what will happen to Marion later on. She is, technically, killed by someone's mother.
It's as if Sam's fantasy of guilt reversal is realized.
This all might be dismissed by the fact that when Marion disappears Sam helps in the investigation. But this might as well be one part guilt, one part need to fulfill his role in the equation and embrace responsibility (is he making sure she won't come back to have his way with her sister or any other woman?).
Or maybe, just maybe, Sam really did love Marion Crane.