Psycho analysis- Mother kills Arbogast

This scene from Psycho is the second, and last, murder of Arbogast, the private detective. It takes place in the Bates mansion and has Arbogast climbing the stairs slowly to then be greeted by “Mother” (Norman) and killed by falling down the stairs and being stabbed. This is a top down wide shot and is composed with Arbogast on the left of the frame and Mother on the right which can be seen with the rule of thirds grid. Stereotypically villains are portrayed on the left hand side of the frame but here Arbogast, who’s trying to find Marion, is composed on the left. This connotes that Arbogast is being portrayed as a villain which in turn represents he’s intruding on Mother/Norman and as Norman can be seen as schizophrenic with a childish nature it would give an ideology that Norman sees Arbogast’s intervention as a threat and decides to act to defend himself.

At the time of Psycho’s production in 1960 Hitchcock was limited by the Hays Code as it stated that violence, blood, murder, sex and things outside the cultural dominant ideology were not allowed to be showed on film. He pushed the boundaries as far as he could by having Arbogast’s face slashed and a little blood come out, along with the fall backwards down the stairs. This was drastically changed in the 1998 remake of Psycho where Arbogast gets 3 slashes across his face and a more brutal death. This was because the institutional context had changed and body horror had become more relaxed.

The knife that kills Arbogast is a phallic weapon and asserts Mother's dominating power over Arbogast and implies a sexual perspective to Mother/Normans murders as he’s lonely. This can be linked to the historical context of Ed Gein, who Norman Bates is based from, and the fact that they were both dominated by a dead mother figure in a schizophrenic manner and would kill people as the ‘Mother’ commanded it in his head.

The scene features low key lighting and motivated lighting from the bedroom behind Norman/Mother and casts long shadows in multiple directions across the hall. This represents Norman’s split personality as the light only hits him and sends his shadows down the hall to where Norman’s room is. This connotes his childish and true nature and another being cast over Arbogast connoting his immediate death. Another shadow is also on the door frame of Mother’s room connoting that Mother and that room is an important part of Norman too.

Using Andrew Sarris’ theory of Auteur theory we can see how Psycho fits into Hitchcock’s Auteur style. As the “Master of Suspense” this scene and the film in general fits the thriller aspects of murder and intrigue and having slow paced editing contrasted with scenes of quick paced montages for the action in the film.