Current Forum: Session 6: Ideology and Gender	Read 11 times 	
Date: 19-Feb-2001 19:35:32	
Author: SIMMONS, JOHN A. <jas7625@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: The "line" of psychotic formation 	
 [Remove]	
		
       Hitchcock has been called the “master of suspense.” This title, with which I would concur, suggests that he was able to arouse in the viewer of his films a feeling of “suspense.” How is such a feeling generated within diegetic space in such a way as to be mirrored within the mind of the viewer? The answer as suggested in Psycho is overwhelmingly this: fragmentation through the usage of horizontal line. I will argue that by using line to such a great degree, what Hitchcock accomplishes is much more than suspense but rather is a visual assertion of the underlying problem, or theme, of the film: split personality and its relationship to gender formation. 
       The film starts its trip into the paranoia of horizontal psychosis as early as the opening credits. The horizontal, and vertical lines are not only the wipes between shots but in fact part of the figures (names) themselves. The title screen “Psycho” is not a still picture of the text. Instead, the word trembles and vibrates as it is split in horizontal pieces that slide in and out of each other. For the moment I will avoid the obvious sexual overtones of the motion. The credits give way to a establishing shot of a window, but the entrance of the camera into the room is down past horizontal blinds and in through the open slot between blinds and lower framing of the window. Literally the entrance into this film is through a horizontal opening. The motif of the horizontal line continues to manifest itself throughout the film other examples include, the lap-siding on the Bates Motel, the rear view mirror inside Marion’s car, the horizontal movement of Mrs. Bates killing hand, the money envelope, and even the stairs up to Mrs. Bates’ room which provide a stark contrast to the vertical post at the bottom of the staircase. The way in which I believe that Hitchcock is most successful in integrating the horizontal line into the film is by means of camera distance. Psycho is filmed almost entirely in medium close ups. This may not seem significant at first but notice that all the conversations are filmed from chest up. This predominance of medium close ups stimulates the “natural” feeling of desire to move away. For 
example, Jerry Seinfeld’s theory of the “close talker” who all in their right mind try to avoid. By forcing the viewer closer to the characters than they might want, he creates a sense of uneasiness and tension that heighten and intensify the “feeling” of suspense within the film and the viewer’s mind. 
       Now, his purpose in using the horizontal line, and specific camera distance I believe illuminates the theme of schizophrenic genderization within the film. Not only does the camera enter the horizontal slot under the blinds in the opening sequence, but finds a rest to its motion by focusing on the reclined Marion laying upon the bed in nothing but underwear. She sustains the horizontal flow of the viewer’s eye in much the same way that the Owl’s spread wings do behind the head of Norman in his parlor. The viewer can scan the frame but ends up back at a horizontal plane as the vanishing point becomes stretched into a vanishing line. Now contrast the reclined Marion with the vertical Sam to her side. She becomes the seductress and him the, at first, faceless masculine form. As Mulvey argues, the audience of film is inherently masculine, 
here in the first scene of the film, Sam is presented from neck down and Marion with legs and chest readily visible, the absent face of the man is replaced by the symbolic collective head of the masculine audience looking at the “object of erotic contemplation” lying on the bed before him. 
       The gender split within the film falls along the lines of feminine is horizontal and the masculine is vertical. Examples include, the cop outside her car who will later stand tall in a long shot against the horizontal profile of his car. The private investigator entering the vertical phone booth, Cassidy sitting on the Marion’s desk (he is vertical line violating the horizontal plane of her desk which includes her figure as well. The horizontal Mrs. Bates is being carried down the steps by the vertical Norman. AH!!! The last is the most intriguing!! For, is Norman carrying down a woman? No, he in essence is carrying down himself, or herself! The lines meet a point of convergence within the character of Norman for within his character the parallel lines of gender, which never near each other within normal, or as Sam says “respectable” society, also become perpendicular. 
       This can be seen in the camera framing in the conversation between Norman and Marion. As stated earlier, the wings of the owl counterbalance the vertical profile of Norman. During the conversation, Norman apparently oscillates between the two sides of his psyche; as the male, he reclines in the chair and vertically counters the table behind him, but as the “mad” man or woman as the case may be, he leans into the camera and occupies the entire screen in a close-up that forces his head to almost stretch into a rectangle screen. As he goes back and forth between the male and female, he goes back and forth between horizontal and vertical camera framing. The final shot of Norman, now completely his mother is again the ironic forcing together of line. He now completely female forms a vertical break against the solid white wall. The lines are now confused, as is his gender. 
       As Mulvey argues, the deviant “guilty” woman must be punished and now that the lines do not make any sense in relation to the structure of the film, he, or she, is now in the hands of the law awaiting punishment for his, or her, guilt. The lines are reasserted and the social structure is protected against the challenge of such a deviant in the final shot of the car coming out of the mud. The mud itself covering the female inside is broken into horizontal lines of dark against the white car. However, the chain “rescuing” the female (although dead) represents the masculine legal and psychological authorities and thus the chain is the vertical insertion into the feminine mud. Again the obvious sexual implications will be ignored!!!! As the film closes, Marion is cleaned of the grime and dirt that she literally incurred while trying to “clean herself” in the shower and as Mulvey claims, the “active” position of masculinity is assured as the car is cleaned as it is drug from the mud. The film suggests here that women even in death, still need a man!! (In regards to line, Botticelli would be proud!!! haha)