Movies

The films Psycho and Strangers on a Train, two of the very best movies by Alfred Hitchcock, display the characteristic concerns and methods of the Master of Suspense, including his perennial treatment of themes such as innocence and guilt.

In Psycho, Marion Crane takes off with lots of money so that she can be married with her boyfriend. When she is caught in a storm, she chooses to check in at a motel. The administrator is a young man who likes to stuff birds. After having dinner together, the woman returns to her room sorry about what she did with the money. She resolves to return home and give the money back. She takes a shower and the man watches her through a peephole. Then she is murdered.

 But whoever committed the murder is yet to be known.
In Strangers on a Train, Guy Haines is on a train to a small town to meet his wife Miriam, who had been unfaithful to him. On the train he meets Bruno Anthony, who recognizes Guy as a known tennis star. Apparently Bruno knows from the newspapers her being unfaithful, and that Guy wants to marry Anne, a senators daughter. However, Miriam does not want to be divorced because she is after his money.
Then Bruno tells Guy about what he thinks will be a perfect murder He will kill Miriam, and in return Guy will kill Brunos father. Because they are strangers to each other, no one will suspect that each did the murder for the other. Guy leaves, but Bruno is left thinking they had struck a deal. 
Bruno goes to the small town to kill Miriam, and then intrudes into Guys life to forcefully tell him that he is bound to kill Brunos father.
In approaching the themes of innocence and guilt, it is best to capture the essence of these films in their key scenes. It is useful to evaluate Hitchcocks presentation of his movies through such crucial elements as action, camera work, setting, and sound.
The shower scene in Psycho is one of the most indelible moments in movie history. It is only a few minutes long, but it is made potent by a succession of shots arranged effectively. Most shots are extreme close-ups in quick succession, making the scene seem longer and more brutal than it actually was, or if they were presented as stand-alone shots. 
Mixed camera angles present Marion and the shower in ways that become increasingly unsettling. The camera focuses on the wall, the water, the shower head, and the drain to show that she is taking a shower, and to imply that she has to cleanse herself. The bathroom door is shown through the shower curtain, and it suggests impending doom while mindful of the fact that she is still taking a bath in the shower.
It is interesting to consider the extent by which Norman and Marion are individually guilty or not. Normans transvestism is already at play in the shower scene, although it is not shown onscreen.
The psychiatrist in the movie explains that his transvestism was brought on by denial, and that the murders (including the others committed by Norman but not shown in the period covered by the movie) are a demonstration of a bold, crazy rebelliousness. It may be added that Norman is somebody who secretly looks for pleasure and thrill to go above life itself.
Religion-based imagery can be traced in the scene Marion dies. Going into the bathtub can be read as going into the water to be baptized. By taking a bath, she is cleansed of her sins and her guilt.  By being pure again, she has become unadulterated, and therefore virginal.
With the color white, she strangely looks luminous and virtuous. It is as if she has been transformed from a thief to an angel. Therefore, her place or status in the narrative has changed by the time she takes her shower.
One of the set pieces in Strangers on a Train is the one in which Bruno follows Miriam, and then strangles her. Because it is dark in the small island, the scene is already scary. But it becomes even more awfully scary because of how the scene was shot.
To establish the secure condition in which we first find Miriam, Hitchcock uses a safe medium shot. Miriam and her two male companions move from the right to the left. The surrounding background lends itself well to boding evil. There are bright lights afar, and the rest is in black- including the ripples in the lake. The pace quickens significantly, with leaps and runs across the frame. There is tautness between the irrepressible action and the sprawling yet narrow space within which this action takes place.
The visual design and energy is altered with the changes in the movement of the characters in relation to the camera. Suddenly Miriam goes toward the camera, and it is apparent that the point of view has shifted to Brunos. With it voyeurism and flirtation are suggested. When Bruno strangles her, he moves from right to left. These positions are a clue to whether the character- or what they are about to do- is good or evil, or strong or weak.
When her glasses drop, Hitchcock gives the audience a shot that resembles a concave mirror. Miriams death can be seen in her glasses, as if the glasses serve as a mirror. The face of the murderer is a little distorted and then blacked out. Bruno and Miriam are obscured into a blur and they seem to fuse. Bruno gets up to pick up the glasses with his hands, which appear like claws because of the distortion of the glasses as an image. In the same frame can be seen Miriams and Brunos feet- which echoes the opening of the movie, in which Brunos and Guys feet are walking toward the train station.
Subsequently, the chatter and the laughter of her friends are juxtaposed against the stirrings of the pipe organ. Hitchcock implies that her friends do not know what happened to Miriam, even though she is nearby. He uses sound to contrast two situations, not only to communicate dread, but also to indicate visually that Bruno has a twisted mind and a warped perspective. It also is a visual correlative for Miriams slow death. Finally, Hitchcock strips the scene of sound, aside from that of the carousel- which is used to emphasize the horrendousness of the crime.
When Bruno reveals himself to Miriam, his hands quickly go to her throat. The reflection on one lens shows two figures that are struggling. We are refused to see what actually happens when he strangles her.  The view then becomes something like a carnival or a funhouse. However it is still evident that he overwhelms her. Hitchcock seems to mask the murder with the jingle of the organ from the carnival. He also does this masking while indicating his strength and the inescapability of her death. All of this is achieved with the absence of the actual sounds in the struggle, the distorted images, and the camera angles. Consequently, his power is increased exponentially.
This veiling of a murder is also evident in Psycho. The bathroom door opens and a figure obscured by shadow gets near the curtain. When this figure opens the curtain, a knife is shown at shoulder height. About 40 seconds after the shower is turned on, there are about 28 cuts in a span of 20 seconds. Interestingly, there is not a single scene of spurting blood.
In treating innocence and guilt in these scenes, Hitchcock uses motifs and devices which are typical of the individual film as a whole.
Both movies show how cruel man can be, or how one man can meet a cruel twist of fate. For example, taxidermy may have been only a hobby for Norman in Psycho, but a glass case of stuffed birds does not translate to mercy.
Marions very death in an ordinary setting is an intrusion into everyday living. It is certainly unkind to kill somebody while she is doing something as ordinary as taking a bath. Even if it is granted that it is extraordinary in that it is equivalent to a spiritual reawakening, it is heartless to deprive her of carrying out her redemption.
There is a foreboding of the nastiness that was about to befall Marion In the scene in the hardware store, a customer picks up a can of pesticide and says, Insect or man, death should always be painless. Cruelty can also be found in Hitchcocks other movies, such as Foreign Correspondent and The Birds.
The color white figures in the shower scene, as it does again at the end of the movie. In the end Norman is at a jail cell, thereby suggesting that his imprisonment is also a form of death.
Strangers on a Train is a movie rife with images of doubles. This is perhaps not surprising, given that this is a movie about crisscross and its permutations double-crossing, and crossing ones double. Among them is a sequence in which there are two pairs of feet moving into the train station at the beginning of the movie. The men are also similarly well-dressed. There are characters that happen to be doubles for other characters, such as Barbara for Miriam.
It can be argued that the world order of business, sports, and marriage is contrasted with the underworld of death, sin, and divorce. Additionally, Bruno is a representation of Guys wish to have Miriam killed. It is like a wish-fulfillment fantasy writer.
When considering both scenes, the two movies show how Hitchcock masterfully manipulates the emotions and expectations of the audience.  He taps into archetypes, such as the influence of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a book depicting a murder done with a knife. His characteristic concerns and methods envelop these scenes- and the movies as a whole- and they have been responsible for the development of his career.  Perversion and voyeurism are staples in his projects, and suspense and terror are central to his entire body of work.
He used his actors very well and he was always mindful of their function in the movie. This is especially significant in the light of the fact that the movies are a visual medium. They are meant to be looked at. Proof to this is how he had elected to kill Janet Leigh early in the movie. However, even though they are actors or celebrities, they put them in their place. He uses them for a most striking effect.
 It goes to show that even the big stars can be used to advance the plot and the theme of the movie- and that there is no sacred cow to him. This may also be said to be another form of cruelty.  His movies have a tendency for androgyny and he admonished his actors to be both masculine and feminine to understand their character.
He also had a taste for alluring women- sensational not only because of their glamour, but also because of a strain of kink that runs through them. Their personality is intensified and fetishes are indulged. He plays his audience as well when it comes to sexuality. In Strangers on a Train, for example, Bruno propositions Guy, and the possibility of a homosexual attraction is suggested. Other ambiguous deals that touch on homosexuality include such Hitchcock movies as Rope and Under Capricorn.
These two films (and the scenes discussed above) have similar approaches to the theme. These may be different stories, but they are essentially the same. The narrative situations have similarities beyond a sinful woman being attacked by a vicious man. By employing shadows, tilt shots, and dutch camera angles, Hitchcock makes the proceedings look and feel like a film noir. These elements carry great weight, and effectively convey mood and suspense.
Although the victim is up on the screen, the audience is also subjected to battery visual and aural cues attack the senses as if the audience is a participant in the scene itself. In a way, he lets the audiences imagination do the work for him. Relentless camera and editing techniques have effectively cloaked the violence. This violence resides only in the imagination of the audience, as it is not in direct view.
Hitchcocks filmmaking skills, when at their very best, create an almost unbearable tension between appearance and reality, especially when mixed with macabre humor.