Mise en Scene practise: Psycho

Psycho: Mise en scene In Psycho during the office scene, Norman invites Marion into his office and offers her tea and other refreshments, she accepts and enters his office. After he tells her to sit, you start to get a view of his office. Immediately, you feel threatened- being put in Marion’s shoes being uncomfortable in the situation as the room is poorly lit and the little amount of lights shone cause shadows that are enhanced by the black and white filter that fits the horror genre that it is trying to portray. Norman admits that he is a taxidermist and that he has stuffed the birds that are on the wall that surround the room and as a result, surround Marion, all staring at her like Norman which could suggest that his eyes staring at her are like a bird looking for its prey and after he has found it, he will never keep his eyes off her until he has caught her. The camera angles focus only on the two characters in the scene in close shots of him at mostly a low angle to represent dominance in the scene and more straight medium shots of Marion eating to represent a point of view and that the audience is on her side and at her level. As Marion is eating, he blankly stares at her and speaks to her, asking her questions which makes her uncomfortable as she is trying to eat and feeling nervous as he watches her eating bread, he doesn’t eat anything in the scene which could make the audience think that the food is tampered with as he is a stranger to her.