In the movie “Psycho” the lead actress Marion Crane is killed in the shower. A new enigma is formed when this happens and the audience is unaware of what is going on. The movie took a complete turn around and formed a new question to be answered. When Marion is killed by the antagonist of this film we are unable to see who we think is his mother’s face but only an outline of her body behind the shower curtain. Now we will never know what was supposed to become of Janet and we ask a new question, “Who is the mother and why has she killed Janet?” As the narrative moves forward one of many delays is formed and the audience is convinced that Norman Bates mother is real and that she is the killer. Viewers are convinced by this fraud visually when we see the outline of a woman’s body sitting in the window of the house behind the motel. The fraud continues to pull us in when Norman goes into his mother’s room and has a conversation with her about putting her in the cellar. He comes out the room with a woman in his hands and carries her down the stairs to put her in the cellar. We continue to believe that his mother is the killer until we see the scene where Norman is dressed up as an old woman to kill Marion’s sister and the fraud revealed.
I would have to say that the movie “Psycho” was a writerly text. There was a lot of room in the film where the audience could interpret scenes, formulate answers and ask questions. I know my personal thoughts guided how I read the movie. For example, when I saw the killer with knife in the shower scene and I did not think she had really killed Marion. I thought the scene was an illusion of Marion’s or maybe partially true because it was random.
