Cinema is a fascinating world where stories come to life through various film elements and styles. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999) are two captivating films that use distinct techniques to engage audiences and reflect the cultural contexts of their respective eras. This comparative analysis will delve into the film elements, style, and cultural context of both movies, shedding light on their impact and significance.
Film Elements and Style:
Psycho (1960): Psycho is a masterpiece of suspense and psychological horror. Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant use of camera angles, editing, and music creates tension and keeps audiences on the edge of their seats. The film's iconic shower scene, with its quick cuts and haunting music, is a prime example of how Hitchcock masterfully manipulates emotions through visual storytelling.
The Sixth Sense (1999): The Sixth Sense is a supernatural thriller that relies on subtlety and atmosphere to draw viewers into its mysterious world. M. Night Shyamalan uses slow pacing, muted colors, and clever foreshadowing to create an eerie ambiance. The film's climactic twist challenges audiences to reconsider everything they thought they knew, showcasing Shyamalan's skillful narrative manipulation.
Cultural Context:
Psycho (1960): Released in the midst of the Cold War and social changes, Psycho taps into the anxieties of its time. The film's exploration of hidden darkness within seemingly ordinary characters reflects a society questioning traditional values and norms. Psycho's shockingly violent scenes challenged cinematic conventions and mirrored a world grappling with uncertainty.
The Sixth Sense (1999): The Sixth Sense arrived in a late 1990s landscape marked by technological advancements and increasing skepticism. The film's portrayal of a young boy who sees ghosts speaks to a society dealing with changing beliefs and new understandings of reality. The film's exploration of human connection and the afterlife resonated with a generation seeking meaning beyond the material world.
Discussion Questions:
- How do the unique visual styles of Psycho and The Sixth Sense contribute to the suspense and emotions experienced by viewers? Can you identify specific scenes in each film where these visual elements play a significant role?
- Both movies have iconic twists that change the way we perceive the story. How do Hitchcock and Shyamalan use these twists to engage the audience and challenge their expectations? What impact do these twists have on your understanding of the films?
- In what ways do the characters' struggles in Psycho and The Sixth Sense mirror the concerns and uncertainties of the times they were made? How does each film's exploration of hidden truths and mysteries reflect the cultural contexts of the 1960s and 1990s?
- Lastly, which film do you like better? Why?
1. Both “psycho” and “The sixth sense” use unique visual styles to enchanted suspense and evoke emotions . In “psycho “ Alfred Hitchcock uses stark contrasts ,unconventional camera angles , and the famous shower scene’s quick cuts to create a sense of disorientation and fear . In “The sixth sense “ M. Night ShyamAlan employs a misted color palette and subtle, eerie visuals to build a haunting atmosphere. Specific scenes where these visuals elements play a significant role include the shower scene in “Psycho “ and the reveal of the ghosts in “The sixth sense”
ReplyDelete2. Hitchcock and ShyamAlan both use their iconic twists to engage the audience by subverting expectations and challenging their understanding of the narrative . In “Psycho” Hitchcocks twist involving Norman Bates challenges the audience perception of the main character and adds a layer of psychological complexity to the story. Similarly , in “The Sixth sense,” ShyamAlan’s twist recontextualizes The entire film, forcing the audience to reassess what they have seen and understand the character’s motivations in a new light .
3. The struggles of the characters in both films mirror concerns and under-certainties of the times they were made in psycho , Marion cranes desperation and eventual fate reflect the anxieties surrounding gender roles and morality in the 1960s . Similarly, “The sixth sense” explores themes of isolation and communication, which were prevalent in the 1990s as technology began to change the way people interacted with each other . The films exploration of hidden truths and mysteries reflects the cultural contexts of their respective decades, with “Physco” delving into the darker aspects of human nature and “The sixth sense”
Exploring the supernatural and the unknown.
4. I lean more towards “Physco” for its groundbreaking impact on the horror genre and its timeless suspenseful atmosphere.
1. Both Psycho and Sixth Sense use their distinct styles to create suspense and emotions among the viewers. In Psycho, there is a low-angle shot of Norman with the taxidermy animals in the back. This scene cuts back and forth between Norman, the killer with the shadowy dead animals in the back, and Marian Crane, who hosts a camera angle level with Crane and has a lamp in the background. This creates tension, as it shows how Norman is secretly dangerous by using camera angles and mise en scene to forebode Norman’s killing through shadow, a low angle, and taxidermy animals that represent his lust for killing and how he hides the bodies. This scene also creates emotion, as the viewers believe that Crane is the protagonist and naturally root for her. This scene creates emotion by having Crane’s camera closer to her, removing the light, causing distress that Crane is in danger since the only light in the room has just left the frame and can’t be seen anymore. In Sixth Sense, during the scene where Cole finds the girl under the bed, there is a shot where Cole walks towards dolls that dangle in front of the camera only to be grabbed by a hand from under the bed. This scene creates tension, as in this shot, the viewers feel tension with the dolls that are in front of the camera since dolls can often be creepy due to their uncanniness. When Cole moves toward the camera, this creates dread in the viewer, as they want to know if these dolls are in some way haunted or supernatural but when Cole begins to move, they feel dread because they don’t want to actually see or live through a jump scare.
ReplyDelete2. Hitchcock and Shyamalan both use their infamous plot twists at the end of both the films Psycho and Sixth Sense to engage the viewers and even challenge their expectations of the characters in these films. At the end of Psycho, it's revealed that “Mother”, Norman Bates’s supposedly alive mom is a different persona he took on when his mother died. Viewers who had no idea of this twist were shocked, as the film places its point of view into Norman’s Perspective when his mother speaks, and during any scenes where this different persona kills, we can mainly only see a wig, a knife, and a shawl, leading viewers to believe that this truly might be Norman’s mother. At the end of the film when it is revealed that Norman’s killer mother is just an alternate persona that Norman takes on that Norman believes is his real mother, the audience is shocked and they become even more engaged in the film. They become more engaged because their expectations of what they thought was a reality are a lie, making the viewers revisit the film with this new knowledge and see all of the signs and easter eggs earlier that foreboded this twist. This twist also challenges the audience’s expectations of Norman Bates, as they expect him to be a nice, socially awkward man with an overbearing mother, when in reality he is a murderous lunatic, challenging viewers if they even knew the character at all. At the end of Sixth Sense, it is revealed that Malcolm Crowe has been dead for most of the duration of the film as he’s killed in the opening 10 minutes of the film.
2 (continued): This engages the viewer, as I said earlier with Psycho, it makes the viewer revisit the film and become gunters (egg hunters, specifically easter eggs) from Ready Player One as they analyze the movie for any clues they may have missed before that showed Crowe’s fate. This twist challenges the viewers' expectations of Malcolm Crowe, as they expect him to be a child psychologist with trouble communicating with his wife when in reality the twist reveals that he doesn’t have marriage issues, he’s dead, which is why his wife hasn’t been talking to him and why he can only connect with Cole, who can speak to dead people. Both of these twists also impact the viewers’ understanding of the film, because both films have themes of not truly knowing a person, so these twists both help viewers understand this message.
Delete3. Norman Bates is seemingly a nice, socially awkward man on the outside, but one thing the guests at his motel don’t know about him is that he’s a serial killer with dissociative identity disorder. The struggles of the characters who come to the Bates Motel and meet their demise show a problem we as a society faced in the 1960s. The 1960s were a time of distrust in strangers, as we were in the middle of the Cold War, a war between America and Russia that popularized spying, as both sides of the war were sending spies to spill the secret tea behind the enemy lines. These spies started fear in American citizens, as they feared strangers as they thought they could be Russian spies. The struggles the characters in Psycho face reflect this real-world problem, as the characters who encounter Norman Bates believe him to be anything but a serial killer, which is what he turns out to be. Just as people couldn’t tell who was or wasn’t a spy in real life, those who encounter Norman Bates never knew he was a killer until after they were already victims. In the 1990s, there was constant innovation for the future and things were always changing. In these innovations, capitalism engulfed our world as we saw money become the only thing that mattered in life anymore as human relationships also became harder to build. Malcolm’s struggle with his wife and his death shows some of these problems. Malcolm's inability to communicate with his wife shows the real-world struggle of not being able to retain human connection during these times and how many often just ignore each other. Malcolm realizing he's dead by the end of the film shows the real-world issue that many people were living the same day over and over and that even if they were to die or see a big change happen, it wouldn’t mean anything because they’d still be stuck in the same loop over and over.
4. Typical answer, but I liked Psycho more than Sixth Sense. I feel Psycho uses its understanding of the cultural context of its time better and this understanding elevates the film to higher levels than most other films. Also, the story and writing are better, which makes sense due to Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest directors in my opinion. Anthony Perkins also gives a great performance that I believe still holds up to this day. I can say that Psycho is my favorite film of its director, while I can’t say the same for Sixth Sense even though it is still one of my favorites by Shyamalan (I prefer Unbreakable over Sixth Sense). Psycho and Sixth Sense are both great classics but Psycho has more iconicity and has done much more for the film industry, most importantly, showing the first toilet and the first flush on screen in a film. However, I still do like Sixth Sense a lot, just not as much as Psycho. I like the way Sixth Sense is shot and how Shyamalan’s style creates a certain loneliness that doesn’t make the film feel overly heavy but still adds to the lead protagonists and their story. Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment both give very good performances and their chemistry elevates the story and film. Funnily enough, I grew up watching both of these movies, so they have sentimental value for me and I find myself being transported to simpler times when I watch these movies. Both of these films were also gateways into these directors' other movies for me when I was younger, and I enjoy the films made by both Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan.
Delete1. In a kind of opposing manner Psycho gives us visuals that make us expect something but it never delivers until the final moments of the film while The Sixth Sense gives us shocking visuals when weren’t expecting it. Psycho throughout doesn’t definitively inform us of who the murderer is, though it heavily implies that it was the man’s mother, though by the end it’s revealed that the man’s mother was dead all along and the murderer was him from the start under the alternate personality of his insane mother. The usage of light to hide his face during his murders allowed for the twist to happen at the end, and in addition hid the emotions and true intentions of the murderer throughout the film. In contrast, In The Sixth Sense, one of the most significant visual shocks is the boy who wants to show off his father’s gun. Though we understand that he is dead, what the audience did not expect to see was a hole in the back of his head when he turned the back of his head towards the camera. Additionally, in often happy moments, the boy is forced to see something so grotesque that it perfectly contrasts and contradicts the happy moment, making it impossible for him to life a happy and consistent life. These powerful shocks helped emphasize the difficulty and morbidity of the boy’s situation and mental health crisis.
ReplyDelete2. The twists in both films were incredibly interesting and shocking. In Psycho, someone who merely ran the motel that the at-the-time protagonist was staying at led on that he had a troubling relationship with his mother. Later on, the protagonist would get murdered and discovered by the same man. Hitchcock ends this movie after a few more murders and when the man gets discovered for who he truly is; a mentally-damaged murderer who had separate personalities spawned from the guilt he had from murdering his mother years prior. In The Sixth Sense, the huge twist was that the therapist the entire time was a dead man, which was even more shocking when the audience realizes that his death was hinted at throughout the movie. These twists challenge our expectations because they force us to acknowledge our previous obliviousness and subsequently force us to accept the message at hand; for example the twist in Psycho forces us to accept that anyone can come from anywhere - for example, a murderer from a humble and kind motel manager. Likewise, the twist in The Sixth Sense forces the audience to recognize that someone as calculated and intelligent as the therapist was oblivious to his own situation for the entire duration of the film just as we were, even though we the audience also received the necessary information to believe he had died. In fact, the first scene is where he is shot and killed, though the following scene has him walking around so our preconceptions that he had died start to fade away, just as his preconceptions did. For the entirety of the film the audience is led to believe that he had recovered from the incident even though there were multiple hints that would justify him being dead; the fact that he was shot first thing in the film, studied and mentally assisted a young boy who could see the dead, and was additionally told by the boy that the dead don’t even know that they’re dead. The twist at the end therefore sends the audience into a strong shock because, like the protagonist of the film, we didn’t even realize that he was dead even given the hints placed throughout the duration of the film. This moment well exemplified the idea that people can often be complacent or oblivious in even the most obvious and blatant scenarios. Additionally, this twist also flips the entire plot of the film on its head, as we were also led to believe that the man was helping the boy with his issues, when in fact the boy was helping the man with his all along. In the beginning of the film, the man was murdered by a boy that he “failed” when trying to help him with his mental illness. This failure of his led him to pursue closure, and when he met this boy he realized he would be able to find it, to right what he previously wronged. This want for closure and self-acceptance was what the boy gave him through the therapy, and this realization that the man was the one who needed saving all along really exemplified how helping others can in change help yourself, even if you don’t realize it.
Delete3. In The Sixth Sense, a young boy tries to get over his mental issues and tries to fit into his environment, but he’s often excluded and misunderstood. These issues mirror those of bullying and the mentality of “us and them” which can be seen not only in the 1990s but generally throughout time. Additionally mental health has only really recently started to be taken seriously. Though the 1990s weren’t too far away, I believe some of the most significant advancements in society’s noticings and understanding of mental health has happened in recent years. Based on an internet analysis that I read, it seems that Psycho explores the faults of individualism. The initial protagonist’s lover had debt to pay after his divorce and management of his store, the protagonist steals money, the antagonist is predatory towards women, etc. Though the more apparent criticism made by the movie is that threats can exist anywhere in anyone, the film could also be interpreted to criticize the selfish nature of the progression of the United States, which is quite apparent nowadays.
Delete4. I watched Psycho quite a long time ago, and refreshing myself on the plot makes me want to watch it again. I personally think that I would like Sixth Sense more though. Though I think I could enjoy Psycho more on second watch, I really enjoyed the plot progression of The Sixth Sense and its incredible twist.