Gus Van Sant’s spine chilling thriller/horror shows a young woman called Marion Crane (Anne Heche) who steals money from a man her boss is doing business with, on her way to see her boyfriend still on the run, she stops off at an old hotel with a slightly senile, sinister owner Norman bates (Vince Vaughn) who seems to keep a suspiciously close eye on Marion.
The scene opens with Crane at her desk in her room, writing numbers on a pad and then ripping them up; this gives a sense of mystery, wondering what she’s writing and why she’s ripped it up. The mise-en-scene is plain and simple to start with, nothing to distract the audience from what is happening, the camera shot is a close up, this helps concentrate on the subject in hand and keeps the background out of focus. Then as the camera pans her movement into the bathroom with her dropping the discarded paper in the toilet, she gets undressed to enter the shower the camera angle follows down to her heels where it stays there until she is in the shower. After the low-angle shot on the heels, there comes another low-angle shot coming from the shower head on to her body. This particular angle shows the lack of authority on to the subject (Anne Heche).
The camera shots move from the shower head to Marion and back again repetitively to show a sense of confusion to the audience. This sense of uncertainty increases the tension without the audience fully understanding what will be within a short few minutes. There is no non-diegetic sound in the background which also increases tension, the midshot from the centre of the shower pans away from Heche and then zooms into the opaque shower curtain that shows a figure from behind the curtain opening the door and looking into the bathroom, then without any warning the figure rips back the shower curtain with a close up on to the killer however the lighting doesn’t reveal any facial features which, although this is the part of the scene with the most tension, still leaves the viewer wondering “who is that?!”. Then the shots frantically aims towards both peoples, one after the other 4 times whilst Marion screams, then as the shot is about to be put back onto the killer it moves further up at the knife, there must only be one conclusion after seeing this signifier – certain death. After the shot of the knife there is an extreme close up onto the woman’s mouth where the scream originates from which I think is a good way of showing a realistic point of view from the killer’s perspective. As the first stab is plunged into the woman’s chest non-diegetic sound creeps in with harsh violin screeching which gives a hollow feeling of hopelessness.
I would like to talk about the non-diegetic sound for a while as I think it plays a key part in how the tension is first met and then amplified, also how it may affect people in different ways. I think that harsh screech from the violins grind at the viewer’s ear drums after a long silence. After the next camera shot is made, another layer of lower toned violins were placed into the piece of music in a minor key. This minor key creates a sense of despair and fear which I think Van Sant was definitely looking for in this scene. For the sake of the sound I’ll fast forward through the murder scene but come back to it to analyse the shots, angles etc. All in all there are 4 layers or groups of violins/cellos that make up that piece of music. The first part of the music only lasts around 10 seconds but then is replayed over itself on a loop to extend the horrific scene. After the second loop is completed the violins are extracted from the music and then it’s solely cellos that finish the scene off. The dulcet tones from the cello insinuate Marion’s death will be inevitable no matter what. Throughout the whole piece I don’t think any of the instruments went below metzo-forte which is quite loud to come after a long silence, however because this is also a horror the genre matches well with the music.
Back to the stabbing, the murderer’s actions are very rigid and swift which could infer that the killer had done this before. As we had discussed in class, our group wasn’t too sure whether to believe the stabbing sounds were that realistic however, none of us had stabbed anyone so any word against was unjustified. There is a high-angle shot in the middle of the murder that I think is quite iconic but also subtly clever because the camera has captured Marion’s lack of authority over the whole situation (which explains her death). However because this shows Marion’s lack of authority it mirrors the killer’s dominance. Personally I like the shot shown through the water as if you were being stabbed; everything is becoming blurred, you can barley see the killer however you’re still in the shower completely in the nude which shows you’re literally helpless. Another high-quality shot is the pupil of her eye dilating to show her life draining away before our eyes, this is linked well with the shot of the plug-hole. I thought the weak reach out for help was well thought of but executed poorly; it wasn’t realistic – or wouldn’t have been assumed to be in a scenario such as that. I think Van Sant has really captured the victim’s feeble fight well and also the raw power of the murder scene with the shower curtain cloaking the dead woman as she lays over the shower, limp. As I mentioned earlier the shot that pans from her dead body to the plug hole is very clever and also powerful because it shows or one could infer it shows her life draining away without anyone knowing and as the sound of the water rushing down the drain is heard, they have cleverly added reverb onto that sound to give an eerie sense of loneliness.
Our group weren’t too keen on the shot that spun away from the actress’ eye as not only was it distracting it almost dropped tension from the scene from such an unusual shot. A brilliant way to wrap the scene up was to finish where the victim had started; at her desk in the room, slowly panning left to right from the bathroom (murder scene) to the bedroom is closes up on her desk that showed a newspaper with drawings on a map, a fantastic was to induce suspense and leave gaps for the audience to guess.
