Intro to Film Studies
Blog Draft #2
Mr. Monahan
11.09.18
THEME: Psychological Deterioration
The word psychological connects to the mind and it’s mental state while deterioration, in this context, refers to a damage that’s breaking something or someone down. When talking about psychological deterioration in a person it refers to when a person is going insane or mad. The brain is a very complex thing that can sometimes feel like a parasite inside of someone that’s causing them to behave in a unconscionable way and many things can cause it to go through psychological deterioration like being alone for a long period of time or personal experience like going through an abusive relationship.
The two movies recently watched, Psycho (1960) and The Shining (1980), all show signs of psychological deterioration in it’s main characters as the movie progresses. Deciding whether it’s characters developed psychological deterioration because of the unreal occurrences happening at the time or was it already embedded in the characters from childhood is up to the viewer's perspective.
The movie Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960 begins with the focus on a woman named Marion Crane as a secretary in a real estate office. She steals a big sum of money from a wealthy home buyer when he came in with cash and Marion was sent to the bank by her boss to deposit the money. With a deep desire to be with her lover who was a few states away she heads back home, packs her bags and starts her journey. While on her way she stops at a motel where she meets a very intriguing and disturbed Norman Bates, the receptionist and son of the original owner of the motel. Marion is stabbed while showering, the scene was made to make viewers believe that Norman’s mother had stabbed and murdered Marion, but in a very twisted reality, it is soon discovered that Norman had this mental instability that caused him to dress up as his deceased mother and do unspeakable things. Including keeping his mother’s rotting corpse in their home as if she were still living.
In the well-known film, The Shining, we are presented to a family, the Torrance’s, who consist of the husband Jack, the wife Wendy and young son Danny. As Jack is hired to look after a hotel during it’s off season, we find out that he has dealt with alcoholism and there has been abuse towards his son and wife. As they settle down in the hotel inexpiable things begin to take place which causes every family member to have illusions and Jack, especially, to become more violent towards his family. On the day where everything seems to be finally crumbling down, Jack finds himself chasing after his family with an axe until he follows his son into a huge maze. As he struggles to find his way out his son reunites with his mother and flee and he is left to die of hypothermia.
Arguably, I can make the inference that Jack and Norman developed mental deterioration as a cause of their surroundings and environment of isolation. As we know Jack had already suffered of alcoholism and was clean for over three months, however it begins to develop as the family finds themselves alone constantly and tied down to the hotel. It is discovered that Norman began these unusual behaviors after his mother died, or better yet, killed. In order to replace his mother he began talking to himself in his mother’s voice but eventually got caught up in this world of his that he struggled to distinguish his personality and his mother’s. All of this began because he was alone proving my statement of isolation being the cause of this mental deterioration on these main characters.
