Psycho is a 1960 film directed by the already renowned Alfred Hitchcock. After the great success of one of his films ( North by Northwest ) already in Technicolor, he decided to produce a film entirely in black and white, with a completely different narrative for the time.
More than half of the film is just the prelude to one scene: The Bathroom Scene.
Imagine that we are talking about the United States in the late 1950s, where home and family were considered sacred. By killing off the main actress halfway through the film, in a setting that had been little explored in cinema, Hitchcock innovated and provoked.
Shortly before her murder, the young actress shredded a piece of paper on which she had written some notes and threw it into the toilet. This was the first time that a toilet had been shown in a movie. Until then, it was considered extremely unpleasant.
The scene unfolds with Marion entering the shower, where the cuts begin to pick up pace. We realize that something very bad is going to happen when we notice this huge empty space in this scene. Our eyes can't stop looking at the upper left side:
A hand holding a large knife appears, and only then does the soundtrack start. There are 52 quick cuts, from 48 different camera angles. We don't see the knife piercing the actress's belarus phone number data body in any scene, but with the disorientation caused by the cuts and the angles of the scene, our brain is certain that we have just witnessed a murder. (click on the scenes to enlarge)
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Despite being extremely specific, lasting around 45 seconds, the soundtrack is essential to the composition of the scene. At first, it was provisionally added by the editor as a reference, as Hitchcock only wanted the sound effects of the shower and the stabbings. But the high and low strings and the dramatic tone were so well-matched that the soundtrack was kept.
For the sounds of the stabbings, the team recorded the sound of melons being stabbed with a knife in the studio.
Until then, characters in movies had died with their eyes closed. This was one of the first times that a dead character was depicted with their eyes open. This moment is particularly important, as the final scene of this sequence is a super close-up of the dead character's eye, which merges with a close-up of the bathroom drain.
It's interesting how almost 60 years later this scene is still innovative and used as a reference in so many works. We recommend that you take a few hours and watch this masterpiece of the seventh art. For now, here's the original scene from the film for you to enjoy: