Psycho: Defining a Genre

Ah, how topics take interesting turns. This conversation about Psycho takes me back to me old college film school days. I missed these old genre discussions and figured instead of spamming up Rush's nice thread with off topic banter I would create a new thread to continue this discussion on what genre Hitchcock's 'Psycho' fits within, as began in post#7.

With this thought I grabbed one of my text books, 'Film Genre Reader' containing a compilations of essays covering various genre's. The final answer to this debate over whether Pyscho is a horror or thriller or even fits within a 'war movie' is covered in this one paragraph in an essay entitled, 'Experience and Meaning in Genre Films' by Barry Keith Grant.

It is true that Psycho encourages viewer identificationwith Marion only to transfer it later to Norman; but it is also true that the profoundly disturbing and frightening quality of this experience 9and hence of the film's essential meaning) depends largly upon generic expectations: the horror icon of the Victorian (in California?) house on the hill as opposed to the clean modern motel room; the unexpected death of the protagonist; and so on. Such a response is deepened by both our past experience of thrillers and horror films and by Hollywood cinema itself as an istitution, with certain seemingly inviolable rules entrenched acros genres. One of these primary rules is that the protagonist/hero does not die, especially after being redeemed by a correct moral choice. The notable exception to this is, of course, the war film,.....

later he goes onto to say;

More procisely, as the exemplary case of Psycho reveals, it is a certain kind of interaction that characterizes the horror film; and this dynamic, the degree to which our experience of horror is examined or exploited may also serve,.....,to distinguish the aesthetically better horror films from the rest.

In another essay, 'Children of Light' by Bruce F. Kawin, he states:

As a strategic aspect of its programmatic project - its intention to show us what we are comfortable ignoring - the horror film often turns reflexive, reminding us that we are watching a movie, that we have chosen to have this nightmare experience, and that we must take responsbility for submitting to a catagory of illusion. This is, in a nutshell, the difference between Psycho, which implicates the audience in the voyeurism of the mad killler, and almost every other mad slasher movie that pretends to pay homage to Psycho....

There are many other reference to Psycho within the book, all of which contain the word 'horror' in the same sentence as the title of the movie.

The most brilliant thing about the movie though, is that it is self aware of the genre's it expects to audiance to anticipate. It begins as a 'Gangster movie' but since our protagonast, Marion, is a woman, most would more readily identify it as a melo-drama, where the woman will eventually have to chose between her own desires and her love for another. Either way, the audiance will expect some sort of ethical choice to be made.

Once she makes that choice however, and the audiance's expectation is met, we are thrown into a completely different genre. The horror or thriller, which has its own set of rules which the audiance must now come to terms with.

Essentially, Psycho plays with all the genre's and constantly keeps the audiance guessing what it should expect. That is what makes it a true classic that will surely never lose its appeal.

I would love to hear what others think about this and what their views are, especially Lord Condormanius and Barbarian-Prince.

This is consistent with my view that Psycho falls under several categories (Horror and Suspense instantly come to mind).

The problem here is that some people try to define certain movies under one category exclusively. But movies aren't always kind enough to fall cleanly under 1 category.

Movies like Psycho, Jaws, and Audition are just a few movies that can't be confined to 1 specific category.

I just want to clarify: I never called Psycho a War Movie nor did I call Saving Private Ryan a Horror Movie. I was using examples to dispute Lord's definition of a Horror Movie which he defined as a movie with either "supernatural elements" or with "gratuitious violence."

Hmm, seems like no one can really disagree with the assesment that Psycho is horror.

Well, I'll continue on with my thoughts of the movie as a corner stone of a genre.

Psycho established much iconography that we take for granted in movies today. Several of which is the menacing house on the hill, the seemingly disturbing unknown person peeknig out from a window, the classic shower scene to name a few.

But then there is the question of labels. Do we need to label a movie like Psycho and place it in a genre? Or can a movie stand alone without such labels? Or, by placing things into a genre, do we make ourselves more comfortable and prepared for what we are about to watch?