Psycho Image Analysis

In this scene from Psycho is where Marion Crane is driving away from what she has done, (stealing £40,000 from her work when she was supposed to give it into the bank). The camera angle in this shot is medium shot (news shot), so we can see what is going in the background and her facial expression.  In the car it’s very low key lighting with half covering her face, which shows she’s partly bad for taking the money but innocent to, also while the scene is going we hear a lot of voice over, “You lied about the £40,000 and I will replace it with fine sawed flesh”. This shows she scared if everyone finds out, but when the voice over is going on she’s smiling which suggests that she has fled away with the money successfully.

The background goes perfectly with this scene because the rain fits in with the atmosphere (pathetic fallacy), because she has just done something bad and the weather is reflecting off her personality, but also she is driving to her doom (the weather is warning her).This scene is more dramatic when she’s driving (point of view shots of the front); this creates tension to think that she is going to crash at some point. Furthermore, when the rain starts to get worse the high pitched string music stops, and we hear the rain more clearly until she pulls over the dark grimy Bates Motel.