Adaptation In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

“Just as painting before it, cinema presents us with familiar images of visible reality- interiors, landscapes, human characters-arranged within a rectangular frame.” - Lev Manovich Films have become central dissemination of popular culture in and around the globe over the eons. They invite imagination and story- telling among all peoples and help to enlighten and enliven the audience beyond the boundaries of society and also open sometimes closed doors on the human condition. After a century of cinema, movies have changed substantially both technologically and stylistically, but even after hundred years, mainstream cinema is still telling and retelling stories, and most of those stories are still being/have been appropriated from literary or dramatic sources, as much as 85% by some calculations and accounts. Adaptation has always been central to the process …show more content…
Hitchcock even spells out the time 2:43 in the afternoon, that being the only time poor girl has to go to bed with her lover, sacrificing her lunch time and at once establishing an illicit affair. In the opening camera movement itself Hitchcock makes us aware of being voyeurs and creates a visual impression of despair and solitude in the scene. The novel on the other hand opens thus: “Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him. It sounded as though somebody was tapping on the window pane… Then he realized that the sound was merely rain” (2). Norman Bates’ interest in Psychology and the Oedipus situation is abruptly revealed through his conversation with his mother. The opening passage even cheats the readers as according to Truffaut “since she doesn’t exist, that is obviously misleading, whereas the film narration is rigorously worked out to eliminate these discrepencies”