Psyco Stills.

In this post I am annotating a few stills from the film 'Psycho' made in 1960 to show an understanding of the signifiers within it.  

The first two stills show the shower is clean and white. this shows innocence and a sense of purity, this make us think of a normal everyday scene, it gives us a feeling safety and security, so it makes us feel like nothing could ever go wrong. The second still shows us that the women is enjoying her time in the shower, she seems to be happy and content, this makes us feel convinced that nothing bad could happen as it is such an innocent scene.

The next couple of stills show a dark image approaching in the background, this gives a feeling of insecurity and intrusion and as it contrast's with the white shower room, just as the white symbolizes innocence and purity, the darkness symbolizes evil, it also symbolizes something wrong or not right, it makes us feel scared and worried for the girl in the shower. Darkness also has an association with death, this makes us really worried for the girl as we feel she be hurt in this next scene. the fact that we can see the dark figure and we can tell that something bad is going to happen, this causes suspense and that makes the audience really intrested to the point where they are on the edges of their seats, because the murderer knows what will happen, the audience knows what will happen but the victum doesn't and it drives the audience crazy but they love it because it is so intresting. 

The next still show the women in the shower seeing the dark figure and screaming, this is not a good sign, it releases any doubts we had that the dark figure could possibly been something harmless now we know she is in danger. 

 

The next still is of the dark figure holding a knife, this shows us she is going to get hurt and the dark figure intends to hurt her. this scares us as we don't know who the dark figure is, it makes us feel insecure as it could be anybody this frightens us.

The next still is of the women in the shower reaching out, this shows her last hope as she reaches out to grab on to anything or anyone to help her. telling by her facial expression this shows the fight is over and shes dying and she knows she has no hope but she reaches out anyway just encase it could help her. 

The last still image from the movie psycho i will be annotating today is of the drain in the shower, this is flushing the blood down and symbolizes the loss of life or waste of life, as she was a very young women who could of done anything with her life and all of her personality and talents have just disappeared as she dies and the drain symbolizes it all going down the drain. This gives the audience a feeling of despair and makes us feel sad for the women and angry at the dark figure, this makes him the villain.