Analysis of Three Hitchcock Films This brief a

All three of these stellar Hitchcock films can be characterized as positioned within the genre of suspense films. Gene Adair (6) characterized Hitchcock as the "master of Suspense" and noted that in these and other films, the "Master" began crafting elegant thrillers as early as the 1920s, reaching his artistic peak in the middle decades of the twentieth century.

Adair (9) further stated that films such as the three discussed herein share many of the key characteristics of the Hitchcock suspense film: "àhis ways of composing images, of moving the camera, of placing one shot next to another û all designed to grip his viewers and stir their emotions." In addition, these three films (like many others produced over the course of Hitchcock's long and prolific career), exhibit the director's concerns for "the conflicts between guilt and innocence, trust and suspicion, reality and illusion, order and chaos (Adair 9)."

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ulses that lie deeper than individual psychology (Wood, 95). Psycho, says Spoto (313), is more of a horror film than the other two films discussed herein. Again, Hitchcock uses images of eyes to convey emotion. The film contains the traditional elements of the Gothic tale û a forbidding Victorian house, a dark and stormy night, a confined and demented relative, and a series of bizarre murders. Briefly, in the film, the character of Marion steals money from her employer so that she can run away with her lover, Sam. Arriving at the Bates Motel, she is stalked and then killed by Norman Bates, himself the victim of a psychotic mother and who has subsequently adopted the mother's personality (Spoto, 319-320). Marion's murder is ultimately revealed and Bates is identified as her schizophrenic killer (Spoto, 325). In discussing the technical aspects of Psycho, Wood (108) states that Hitchcock used music as effectively in this film as in the others discussed herein û to underscore human emotion, to heighten suspense, and to establish mood. With respect to lighting, Wood (109) sees Psycho as employing dark and shadowy interior and exterior scenes juxtaposed against vivid images captured in mirrors that often serve as a s
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