Semiotics and Motifs in Psycho: "Media Semiotics - An Introduction" (Bignell, 2002)

In Jonathan Bignell's "Media Semiotics - An Introduction" Bignell gives small, yet useful pieces of information about how motifs and semiotics work within film, such as "a shot from behind the shoulder of one person, followed by a similar shot from behind the shoulder of another person, is the conventional means for representing a conversation and is called 'shot-reverse-shot,'" which is something that I had been taught about from the early years of my media studies classes, however I did not see the shot-reverse-shot as something that represents a convention in everyday life, I had just simply understood it as the norm for a conversation within a media text.

It is the little things that Bignell has written, including the shot-reverse-shot, that has opened my eyes to how every shot literally will include something that connotes to another meaning which after watching "Arbogast Meets Mother" again has made me see so much more than before.

Take Arbogast climbing the stairs, previously I would have seen it as someone simply walking up them, however when thinking about semiotics this could be seen as walking into uncertainty, especially in the way that the camera is focussed on Arbogast as he walks towards the camera, and so the audience is forced also unto this uncertainty as we cannot see what is behind us. Therefore we, the viewers, are denied the opportunity of dramatic irony except for the creepy shot of the door slowly opening, but still we have no idea what is to come from this doorway, maybe Norman who will confront Arbogast on why he is intruding on the house even when told not to, or will it be knife-wielding Norma, which is what makes this scene so intense, especially in comparison to the shower scene, as even though we are unclear as to who killed Marion, we are still shown the attacker through the shower curtain pre-stabbing.



It is the shot of the door opening that also connotes that horrid feeling of uncertainty for the character, but Hitchcock plays with this through the use of lighting, as the light coming from the room is a golden, almost comforting and inviting, and so as freaky as it may be there is still that hint of hope that Hitchcock will twist the story and it is good news. And yet as soon as the music rises to the famous Psycho screeches and we see the old woman exit her room to claim a new victim, yet again utilising camera angles to disguise who is really dressed in the old woman's gown.

So what I can gain from Bignell's work on film signs and codes is that everything that is seen and heard within a shot all adds up to one great meaning, it is not just the action of a knife repeatedly coming down that represents a brutal killing, but the screeches of violins and the angle that does not show the body that adds to the feeling of unease of the senseless act.