Psycho

Historical Markers of the Modern Soundtrack

Developed for RMIT Media Arts

Profile: BERNARD HERRMANN

Noted as one of the pre-eminent 20th century film composers who specialized in atonality (as derived from Schoenberg, Stravinsky, et al); frequency manipulation (symbolically , orchestral recording processes (recording low volume level instruments to be mixed at a high volume level); employing low rumbles, sheets of piercing high frequencies, etc.); and writing for psychological/interior states of mind (representing a character's mental state rather than their shifting emotions).

Born 1911; died 1975

1931 Became staff composer/conductor for CBS radio America

1936 Scored music for CBS' The Mercury Playhouse Theatre which was designed/produced by Orson Welles. Herrmann then went on to work with Welles CITIZEN KANE (4l) and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (42)

1944 Other dramatic scores included JANE EYRE (44), HANGOVER SQUARE (45), THE GHOST & MRS. MUIR (47), THE SNOWS OF KILAMANJARO (51), and GARDEN OF EVIL (51). These scores accent Herrmann's experiments in writing music for psychological dramas.

1955 Wrote his first score for Hitchcock: THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. Other Hitchcock scores - THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (56), THE WRONG MAN (57), VERTlGO (58), NORTH BY NORTHWEST (59), PSYCHO (60) and MARNIE (64).

1958 Herrmann started to specialize in fantasy film scores as well, particularly with the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen in films like THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, THE THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER, JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH and JASON & THE ARGONAUTS . Herrmann also worked with Francois Truffaut (THE BRIDE WORE BLACK and FAHRENHEIT 451), Brian DePalma (SISTERS and OBSESSION), Larry Cohen (IT'S ALIVE and IT LIVES AGAIN) and Martin Scorcese (TAXI DRIVER).

Some quotes of Herrmann: "A composer 's first job is to get inside the drama. If he can't do that he shouldn't be writing music at all." "The motion picture soundtrack is an exquisitely sensitive medium. With skilful engineering a simple bass flute solo, the pulsing of a bass drum, or the sound of muted horns can be far more effective than half a hundred musicians playing away." 'Hitchcock finishes a picture 60%. I have to finish it for him."

Repetition & structure of themes

The repetition of motifs constitute thematic threads in the cinematic text of the film. The motifs in PSYCHO can be basically divided into three:

1.words/phrases - quips, jokes, catchphrases, cliches or 'straight' dialogue are utilized to either prefigure or echo certain related plot occurrences and developments, eg.
(a) "A boy's best friend is his mother"
(b) "I'm buying off unhappiness''
(c) "My mother is not herself today"

2. images/shots - objects, locations and environments are reworked in terms of framing, angle and movement in order to tie certain scenes together for the purposes of visual mood and narrative suspense, eg.
(a) the house on the hill
(b) the interior staircase of the house
(c) the newspaper which conceals the stolen money

3. intervals/melodies - working along the lines of Serialism (as proposed by Arnold Schoenberg at the start of this century for the purpose of atonal musical composition) phrases and fragments of melody and harmony are continually rearranged throughout the film. Bernard Herrmann himself titled his score "PSYCHO : A Narrative For Orchestra". These fragments or motifs are key elements in narrating the exterior plot and interior character motivations of the story.

Musical motifs

1. Credits
Main theme in full - set against visuals so that one cannot make any direct or obvious visual associations. This works to help `burn' the music into your mind so that later the repetition, reworking and recalling of the theme and its variations will always build upon your recognition and identification of the music. At an abstract level, this opening theme connotes a certain `rush' - a feeling of being thrown forwards somewhere (the incessant `train chugging' rhythm). This actually mirrors both your vicarious involvement in the fiction (thrown into a fictional world with no knowledge of what's around the corner) and the Marion who similarly has no idea what she is about to get herself into.

2. Intro sequence of city shots
As a series of shots dissolve/cut to move us into the story, there is a feel that you are being sucked into the world of the characters - especially as the camera voyeuristically creeps in through a cheap hotel window. A theme - which I'll tag the `chance & fate' - plays across this sequence. Musically, it almost suggests a piece of paper being picked up by the wind, tossed around, floating up and down. The tonality of this theme never rests on a root or base note, giving one the feeling of being randomly lifted up and down, with no clear place to settle. The theme, however, resolves its tonality once we enter into the room and encounter Marion & Sam in bed.

3. Marion packing her things
As soon as the camera fills the frame with a close-up of the bag, a new theme commences - the Marion thinking & worrying' theme. It resembles the metronomic ticking of a clock, accentuating the passing of time. Marion keeps glancing over at the bag containing the money, her anxious looks seemingly driven by the clock-ticking element of the theme. Combined with this is a 2 note motif played on very high strings, evoking a child calling someone's name as kids do when they call their friends out to play. We will later discover that this 2 note motif is part of the Mrs. Bates theme, in that it symbolizes the mother calling the son. It thereby functions to symbolize Norman calling Marion, luring her with the prospect of easy money, but leading her to her ultimate death.

4. Marion leaving in car
As soon as Marion is spotted by her boss, the main theme starts up - let's tag it agitation. Marion is now heading into the unknown - driven by extreme anxiety, on a roller-coaster ride unable to get off.

5. Marion starting up car after talk with patrol cop
The agitation' theme starts up again - note how it starts up as soon as Marion turns on the car ignition. The car is the machine which is now, in a sense, `mystically possessed' by the forces driving Marion to her impending doom. The music serves to symbolically bind the plot function of the car (continually passing forks in the road) and Marion's agitated state of mind (reflecting on her guilt).

6. Marion waits for caryard salesman
At this stage Marion thinks she has eluded the patrol cop. While pondering which car to buy - her choice dependent on the car having out-of-state plates - the chance & fate theme plays, echoing the random sequence of events falling into place as she continues her journey.

7. Marion in caryard washroom
As soon as Marion is by herself - locked in the claustrophobic space of the washroom - she has, literally, time and space to hear herself think. Thus we hear what's in her mind once again: the Marion thinking & worrying theme.

8. Marion travelling in car
The agitation theme starts again, this time incorporating a series of verbalized thoughts going on in Marion's mind. As she mentally sifts through the possible consequences of her actions, the music increases in tension, and is coupled with a progressively more `Gothic' visualization: night, lightning, rain, expressionistic light upon her face. At the peak of this sequence, the windscreen wipers are timed perfectly with the `stabbing' violins. This of course is a symbolic projection of her ultimate demise: right in front of her face is a warning sign - blades slicing through water - which will eventually be transformed into a knife blade slicing through a running shower. Finally she spies the Bates Motel neon sign ahead. As she turns into the parking lot, the music resolves itself.

9. Marion unpacking in hotel room
Dealing once again with the packet of money, the Marion thinking & worrying theme fills the private space of her room. This time, the theme is modulated by low cellos playing the Mrs. Bates2 note motif: she is nearer than ever to danger. The deeper the frequency of the Mrs. Bates motif, the more omnipresent and inescapable is death. In a mode of high irony, the music score is warning a deaf character.

10. Marion hears Mrs. Bates screaming at Norman
A version of the chance & fate theme plays lightly here. Its main function is to introduce a musically mirroring of the architectural relationship between the hotel and the house:
(a) Norman / Mrs. Bates
(b) hotel / house
(c) modern / Gothic
(d) ground-level / hill-top
(e) public / private
(f) in-control / out-of-control
(g) alive / dead
(h) low cellos / high strings

11. Norman & Marion chat in Norman's back room
As soon as Marion suggests that Norman lock his mother up in "an institution", Norman starts to lose it. A new theme signals this - I'll call it the Norman-Mother Knot theme because it symbolically entwines musical traits of Norman & his mother. As Norman's speech about people's views of madness & mental sickness accelerates, two distinct yet wavering atonal melodic lines swirl around. Gradually, the low melodic line reaches the uppermost register, while the initially high line sails downward until it reaches the lowest register. For a considerable passage in the middle, both lines form further atonal harmonies, suggesting a confused, knotted and twisted mind - that of Norman trying to control the mother-personality. At the end of this section, the low melody clearly sounds the key Norman motif: an ominous 3 note clarion call. This is echoed, each time an octave lower. Once it has reached so low, the high violins go so high they appear to evaporate. This total diminishing of both melodic lines is perfectly timed with Norman regaining posture and laughing off the serious monologue he just delivered. This time, Norman was able to therapeutically `talk' himself through his emotional and mental instability: he came out the other end of it as `Norman'. (Next time this theme is repeated, he will come out of it as Mrs. Bates.)

12. Norman spies on Marion
This scene is divided into 2 sections:
(i)Norman watching Marion: As he spies on her we hear what I'll call the fretting theme - a slow pulsing one note passage. In its first variation here, it simply rises a semi-tone at each development in Norman's increasing arousal. The theme here thus symbolizes both Norman's sexual awakening and its simultaneous repression.
(ii)Norman goes to the house:Once Norman decides to confront his mother - almost as if for a moment he is going to stand up for himself and pursue his natural `Norman' desires, the fretting theme develops into lower cellos playing a plodding rhythm. This matches Norman's awkward walk up to the house, to the foot of the staircase - and then, defeated, to the back kitchen.

13. Marion resolves to come clean
The chance & fate them plays once again, this time mirroring Marion reflecting and sifting through her options to `come clean' and return the money. If chance and idle wondering led her into this mess, chance & idle wondering could lead her to clear her head and get out of the guilt-driven ride she has been on since she left her town. As she flushes the paperwork down the toilet, the shifting tonality of this theme resolves itself. Ironically, she takes a shower to further absolve herself.

14. The shower scene
The sonic prelude to the music of this scene is the drawn-out sheet of white noise (the running shower) which serves to intensify an inordinate amount of camera angles. This is then sonically ruptured by an exaggerated sound effect of the shower curtain being ripped open, followed by 3 key elements:
(a) stabbing sounds (a sonic match to the abstracted high-glint blade flashes)
(b) Marion's screams (an acoustic correlation of the presence of Marion's body)
(c) the shower theme (musically mimicking the stabbing & screaming)
This then moves into the 2nd part of the shower theme which symbolically portrays the ebbing life force of Marion. Note how the thudding of the deep violins communicates the dying and convulsing heartbeats of Marion. Rather than link to the dramatically-scripted emotions of a character, Herrmann's score is tied to the very life force of a character: when they die - so does the music. The 2nd part of the shower theme then gives way to a small sonic montage: the white noise of the shower continues, then joined by the slow unplucking of the shower rings, followed by a loud body thump. The white noise of the shower then fades slightly into the loud sound of the drain gurgling. All sound fades away as the camera tracks out of the bathroom.

15. Norman's clean-up
This is a long sequence which basically delineates the unnerving state of Norman's `conscious' mind (his covering-up for his mother, etc.). It is divided into 4 movements:
(a) the fretting theme is played as Norman commences preparations for the clean-up
(b) after a brief pause in the score (to highlight Norman washing his hands as water gurgles down the basin) the blood theme commences, played for the first time. It consists of a `buzzing busy bee' series of notes on the violins, symbolizing both Norman's hurried clean-up and also the chaotic way in which the blood has splattered everywhere
(c) joined to (b) is this new theme - Norman ticking - played briefly here to heighten tension as he prepares the car for the body
(d) once the body has been placed in the trunk (in silence) Norman returns to the room to check everything. As soon as he shuts the door, the Norman/Mother knot theme is played again - but this time with the lower Norman 3-note motif clearly loosing out to the high swirling strings
The clean-up sequence finishes with no score - just long slabs of silence, punctuated only by the gurgling of the car as it sinks into the swamp.

16. Arbogast's search montage
A condensed version of the agitation theme is played as detective Arbogast tries to logically trace Marion's last steps. Ironically, the theme that symbolized Marion's `illogical' entrapment in a set circumstances plays over this montage, highlighting how much the detective is missing.

17. Arbogast see house on the hill
In clear, loud tones, the Norman 3-note motif sounds, almost crying out to the Arbogast "don't go upstairs in that house!" Of course, like all characters throughout PSYCHO, he never listens to the score.

18. Arbogast leaves cabins & phones Marion
Perversely, the chance & fate floating theme plays as Arbogast tells Marion he's figured things out. Matched with his perspective, the music suggests things are going to work out OK. We of course know or suspect otherwise.

19. Arbogast surveys the motel & house
Playing upon some of the architectural precepts set out in point 10 above, this sequence of events breaks up as follows:
(a) office search: a high version of the fretting theme
(b) Norman's back room search: as above, but more `knotted' and containing a low cello playing the Norman 3-note motif once
(c) climb up path to house: the first version of the stepping theme is played here as Arbogast moves up toward the house (a low cello plays the Norman 3-note motif once more). Note how this theme simultaneously rises & falls in pitch through a series of atonal motifs with the same rhythmic hop-and-step. This symbolizes the plot drawing the character towards his death, coupled with the audience's desire to halt the character from heading towards certain doom.
(d-i) opening the house door: a low orchestral tremble, not unlike an orchestra preparing to play something, is now heard: the tremble theme
(d-ii) the tremble theme rises a semi-tone as Arbogast looks up the stairwell (almost cuing the audience to say yet again "don't go upstairs!")
(d-iii) top of the stairs: as he moves up the stairs, a long drawn-out cello sustain is synced to a close-up of the bedroom door opening; everything peaks as he reaches the top landing

20. Arbogast's death
The shower theme is played again, slightly faster and in a condensed form. The ending is different, though: a swirling of violins that seems to mimic the image of water spiralling down a drain. Stab sounds and Arbogast's screams are combined.

21. Sam checks out the hotel
Repeat of the chance & fate theme.

22. Norman removes mother from upstairs
Further developing the architectural precepts set out in points 10 & 19 above, this sequence of events breaks up as follows:
(a) Norman in back room: a new theme - "clarity" - plays. This matches a pause wherein Norman is able to think clearly. This section resolves in a long shot of Norman walking up to the house on the hill.
(b) Norman goes upstairs: a version of the stepping theme is played (as in 19c)
(c) Once Norman has entered his mother's upstairs bedroom, a mother/Norman drone carries across their off-screen dialogue. Its first phase is as a high sustained resolution of the preceding fretting theme; its second phase is a very low drone of the same note. This theme is a complete fusion of the high Mother 2-note motif and the low Norman 3-note motif, symbolizing the fact that Norman & the mother are the same person. This theme also co-incides with the only shot in the film of Norman carrying the mother's body.

23. Lila & Sam arrive at hotel
A new theme - search & climb - plays. Basically, it's a combination of elements from the stepping & Mother/Norman knot themes. A low-to-mid version of this theme matches Norman's perspective from the house on the hill as he sees them arrive: he perceives more people come to investigate and possibly uncover his secret. The theme resolves as he encounters them on ground level in the office.

24. Lila & Sam search the hotel rooms
The search & climb theme is played again, this time higher in pitch. Ironically, the music serves to `lure' the characters to the psychological whirlpool central to the plot (Norman, the psychotic killer), as if Marion is being called up to the house.

25. Lila approaches the house
A full version of the stepping theme plays, totally drawing out the tension caused by simultaneous rises & falls in pitch as each rhythmic hop-and-step matches Marion's cautious climb toward the house. Note how clearly the shot/reverse-shot of this climb impregnates the narrative with a victim view & a killer view: the house lures Marion & Marion stares at her potential doom. This theme finishes the moment Marion is inside the house and has fully closed the door: her fate is seemingly sealed.

26. Marion enters Mrs. Bates & Norman's rooms
Two variations of a new theme - childhood - are played as Marion enters and surveys Mrs. Bates bedroom and Norman's kiddie bedroom. This theme has a nostalgic flavour, symbolizing a lost mother/son relationship. The `past' of this theme is connoted by a clear old-world melody that lingers throughout (very 19th century for Herrmann) while the `present' is connoted by an atonal series of descending chords, played in a thudding, dragging fashion. These variations peak as Marion reads Norman's diary, and carry across into the next scene of Sam questioning Norman.

27. Norman fights Sam
A new theme - realization - plays as Norman realizes that Marion has gone up to the house. Due to the momentum of the plot as the narrative closes, the music here primarily serves plot-tension, as we by now have already guessed much of the psychologically disturbed aura of the house and its owners (Mrs. Bates, Norman, whoever). (Note that many films - as the plot draws to an end - use music more for circumstantial purposes than for the presentation of psychological resonances.)

28. Marion meets Mrs. Bates
Basically a variation of the shower theme, with a preceding build-up (echoing the Mother/Norman drone) and an aftermath as in point 20.

29. Norman/Mrs. Bates in sheriff's office
The Mother/Norman Knot is played, enforcing the split-personality traits outlined by the psychiatrist in the preceding scene. Note how a final dislocation between sound & image re-enforces this psychotic state of the music: an image of Norman coupled with his internal voice of the mother.

Text © Philip Brophy.