The "Hitchcock Rhymes" in Psycho

Hitchcock was sometimes called " a cinematic poet," and while I'm not sure exactly what that means, I do get a sense from his films of a penchant for "rhyming certain shots" so that they rather echo each other and create a "soothing cinematic flow."

A few examples from Psycho:

ONE: At the end of the "Arbogast meets Sam and Lila at the hardware store" scene; after Arbogast says "She's here, in this town, somewhere" he walks away from Sam and Lila, screen left to right, on a diagonal across the shot and out of the shot. Hitchcock lingers on Sam and Lila watching the now offscreen Arbo, with looks of tension(Lila) and light anger(Sam) on their faces.

At the rather contentious end of the "Arbogast meets Norman" sequence -- the last part, on the porch of the motel -- Arbogast, thrown off the property by Norman says "Ok, then," and AGAIN walks away, from Norman, on a diagonal across the shot and out of the shot. Hitchcock lingers a LONG time on Norman watching the new offscreen Arbo, with a look that shifts from anger, to tension and then, incredibly, to a big breaking smile and giggle. (All this as the unseen headlights of Arbogast's car illuminate him.) Still...its a "Hitchcock rhyme" to the earlier walkway from Sam and Lila.

TWO:

When Marion has finished her parlor chat with Norman and says goodnight, he follows her out to the office and stops behind the desk as she heads out the door.

We get Norman's POV: the female figure of Marion , going out onto the porch, turning left, and disappearing.

When Mrs. Bates has stopped stabbing Marion endlessly in the shower and Marion turns around to look

We get Marion's POV: the female figure of Mrs. Bates, leaving the bathroom for the bedroom area of Cabin One, turning left, and disappearing. Another Hitchcock rhyme. (Though the shot of Mother departing carries its own "kick" : a full glimpse of her gray hair in a bun, her flowered dress, and the big knife in her hand -- that knife is the last thing visible as Mother leaves the shot.)

THREE:

Three different characters at different times: Marion when first arriving at the Bates Motel; Norman after peeping on Marion and heading up to the house; and Arbogast (twice) walking down the porch of the Bates Motel(first when he first sees Mother in the window; later when he determines to climb the hill to the house itself) -- all pretty much take the same walk: down the porch, alongside the motel, stopping at the edge of the porch.

I call these shots -- all rather soothing in their camera movement even as they are tense in "what is going to happen" -- the "magnetic porch." It is if the porch is MAGNETIC in calling upon each character(first Marion, then Norman, then Arbogast) to walk down that porch and "behold the house." Marion and Arbogast actually see Mother in the window which -- in certain ways -- dooms them (no one should know about mother.)

It is notable to me that neither Sam nor Lila takes this particular walk -- and they both live.

FOUR

The many, many, MANY shots of the house itself, throughout the film, with one exception.

Other than the exception, the shot is practically always the same, from either the character's POV(looking at the house) or ours (watching the character come down from the house -- Norman -- or climb up to the house -- Arbogast).

The shot: the house is up the hill, to our left and above the motel, with only the front of the house and one side of the house visible to us.

There are variations on this shot -- the motel side wall is sometimes in the shot, sometimes not, and time of day and weather differ - but Hitchcock never chooses to look at the house in a different way until the third act: when Lila makes HER approach to the house "straight on"(walking up the hill, not the stone steps), and not from an angle. This is important, because THIS time, WE are going into that house and -- unlike Arbogast -- we are going to get to see the rooms that Mother and Norman live in.. It is TIME for a different approach to the house. (And of course, on this low budget Hitchcock movie, this meant he only had to build the front and one side of the house.)

These "Hitchcock rhymes" create both the flow of Psycho and the poetry. We probably don't even realize how much we are enjoying how much attention Hitchcock has given to making the shots rhyme and match up, and how that helps the movement of the film: Arbogast as an intruder angrily watched by people as he walks away; the magnetic porch as a "draw" to Mother's house and doom(Arbogast goes up and gets killed, but Mother come DOWN to kill Marion); and of course, all those similar shots of the house itself, which give the house "a character and life of its own."