Psycho Shower Scene Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Psycho Shower Scene Analysis - Essay Example It begins by focusing exclusively on the victim, generating a faint underlying suspicion that she may be being watched. Through a series of close up shots, the camera picks up on the character’s pensive frame of mind, offering a hint that she may be engaged in illegal activity when she tears up a paper from her diary on which she had been jotting figures and decides not to throw it into the dustbin. The shots focusing on the victim throwing the pieces of torn paper into the toilet and taking off her robe before stepping into the shower are replicated at the end of the scene, where after she is murdered, the camera focuses on her robe which will never be worn and the side table in the room, where the notebook she was writing on has disappeared, suggesting the reasons why she was killed. The actual murder is depicted in a series of fast cut, close up shots where the shower head that is sending out its streams of water is the single constant element. At the beginning of the sequence, the camera captures the fountain of water from the shower head in an upward angled shot, which is immediately followed by a shot of the victim smiling and enjoying the water spray. The Director follows this up with a series of shots of the victim soaping herself, but her eyes gradually close in each following shot, as if to underline the fact that she is moving from a happy, contended state to one where she is closing off the dangers that exist in her immediate environment. The appearance of the murderer is achieved through a series of shots focusing on a shadow in the shower curtain that grows darker and more clearly defined as the attacker moves closer. The Director chooses to use a silhouette shot on the attacker, in order to conceal his/her identity, while confounding the viewer at the same time because the silhouette appears to be a woman. The Director films the victim with her back turned to the attacker and has her turn at the very last