Cutting through the Censors: How the film Psycho slashed its way past the censors of 1960

Paper by Gregory Difilippi. Viewed on DVD.

The ripping of a curtain as the silhouette of a large blade cuts through it, slashing its way down onto an unsuspected woman showering in a lonesome motel. This blade not only ripped through a measly shower curtain, but through the 1960’s production code to alter censorship in America from then on. The film Psycho (Hitchcock 1960) and its violence broke out from the production code and presented society in the 1960s with something different that gave way to a new violent age in cinema.

The Production Code created by William H. Hays and headed by Joseph Breen was created to set rules of censorship in Hollywood. The Codes were actually unsuccessful at first. Before the aid of The Catholic Legion of Decency, “Hays was initially unable to persuade the studios to regulate themselves …” (Lewis 117). The Catholic Legion of Decency gained power with pushing the codes through the use of, “Threats of an organized boycott of certain films … [which] gave well- organized church-sponsored pro-censorship activists a lot of power” (Lewis 117). The Codes themselves, which varied in nature, but all fell under the guidelines, “… promised to clean things up in Hollywood and improve the public image of the industry as a whole” (Lewis 117). The Codes that Psycho broke through in 1960 included Crimes Against the Law, which included Murder and “Brutal Killings are not to be presented in detail” (The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry). Another main code that Psycho challenged was II. Brutality, which included, “ Excessive and inhuman acts of cruelty and brutality shall not be presented. This includes all detailed and protracted presentation of physical violence, torture, and abuse” (The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry). The famous shower scene in Psycho with the murder of Janet Leigh’s character violated VI. Costume. This code included how, “Undressing scenes should be avoided, and never used … This includes nudity in fact or in silhouette … “ (The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry).

The film Psycho altered cinema by ignoring these codes and working around them. At one point, “ Hitchcock was tired of dancing to the whims of censors … [and with Psycho] used charm and evasion as his weapons” (Howell Toronto Star). His charm was especially used when he, “courted Geoffreey Sherlock, the chief U.S. censor … who was not immune to the lubricating effects of alcohol” (the STAR). Through these tactics Hitchcock was able to get away with certain scenes. The murder of Janet Leigh’s character Marion Crance in the shower scene as Michael Brooke points out, … [audiences] had never seen anything quite like it before – the total shock of killing off a lead character a third of the way in, and just the complete feeling of disorientation … “ (Robb BBC) Hitchcock’s choice to kill a lead character so early on altered how films were seen up until then. The shower scene with its close up shots and the use of such an intimate setting produced such a viewer’s vulnerability for horror. Situations with moviegoers in the theaters at the time were as French explains that, “Half an hour into the movie, when Janet Leigh stared out at us from the floor, a man sitting in front of me staggered into the aisle and vomited: testimony to the sensitive stomachs of the time … “ (French The Guardian). This one scene altered cinema and certain scenes are what make an impact on viewers as French points out, “People judge a movie by the strength of its story and overall impact, but ultimately what they remember are individual moments and sequences” (French The Guardian). The past of Hollywood had used techniques to paint an image in the viewer’s mind as French points out, “Such indelibly iconic moments have been part of moviegoing since the Lumiere Brothers’ first public screening of a dozen short scenes in December 1895. One of them had the audience recoiling from a train entering a station, another had them chuckling when a cheeky boy tricked a gardener into spraying himself with a hosepipe” (French The Guardian). In the 1960’s reviews at the time of Psycho’s release such as Sarris’s, acclaimed Hitchcock’s work as, “the most daring avant-garde film- maker in America today” (Brody The New Yorker). This review stirred controversy to, “ … little old ladies who lived on the West Side, guys who had fought in the Spanish Civil War—and this seemed so regressive, to them, to say that Hitchcock was a great artist” (Brody The New Yorker). Society itself was shaken up by Psycho as Brody points out, “Despite critical and even medical outcries at the time of the film’s release (as in a 1960 letter to the Times from a doctor who wished that Hitchcock had self-censored), it was clear that Hitchcock tapped into ugly elements of the unconscious at a time when lots of people were ready to become conscious of them” (Brody The New Yorker).

The tactics used in Psycho such as the use of black and white film instead of color was for a purpose. The choice for the film to be shot in black and white as Brooke explains was, “… unusual for Hitchcock by that stage of his career – partly to cut costs, but also to manage the graphicness of this scene … the shower scene in colour in the 1960 would have just been unshowable (Robb BBC). Through the use of creative ways to work around censors such the lack of color, it enabled the film to achieve a bloodiness that would not have been possible otherwise, “Hitchcock knew he would not get shots of red blood splattering the wall and floor past the censors of the time” (Robb BBC). The black and white of the film also made possible, “… to show blood going down the drain in the shower scene, something that would have never been tolerated in colour” (Howell Toronto Star). Hitchcock utilized varying degrees of film making to trick the censors into approving the violence in Psycho. Among these techniques are as Clarke explains, “To get the scene past the censors Hitchcock claimed the knife never touched the victim, but studies have since suggested it does … [and] … chocolate sauce was used for blood …” (Robb BBC). This shower scene with Norman Bates dressed as his mother in a close up shot with the silhouette of the knife slicing through the shower curtain at a nude, unsuspecting Janet Leigh was shot with care to break through the censors. As Clarke explains, “Most of the film was shot quickly with a crew from television, but the 70-plus shots for this 45-second scene took a week to film” (Clarke Story Of The Scene). Psycho did more to break the codes than just violence, “ It pushed past the Code’s rules for the depiction of sex – the film opens with a post-coital scene … [and] the first film to show a flushing toilet, another Code no-no” (Howell Toronto Star).

Psycho’s utilization of violence matched the outlook of American society in 1960. Civil right movements in 1960 such as when, “four black students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, in February 1960 and refused to leave” (History) were drawing focus on spots in America’s society. Society itself began viewing things differently as “The protesters drew the nation’s attention to the injustice, brutality and capriciousness that characterized Jim Crow” (History). With a new president taking office society, “ … believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age … however, that golden age never materialized. On the contrary, by the end of the 1960s it seemed that the nation was falling apart” (History). The endless war in Vietnam and the assassination of Martin Luther King with, “… the urban riots that had erupted across the country every summer since 1964 continued and intensified” (History). All of these played a factor in losing the idea of a golden age in the 1960s. Psycho opened the 1960s with violence that would only continue well past its theater debut. As Thomson points out, “Psycho was the film that jolted Americans out of their post-war innocence … It helped usher in the 1960s as the decade of social upheaval” (Howell Toronto Star). Psycho had underlining meanings as well, “ Most films of the ‘50s are secret ads for the American way of life … Psycho is a warning about its lies and limits” (Howell Toronto Star). The violence of Psycho altered how filmgoers viewed violence itself as Brook points out, “ … watching the film, you think it’s a lot more graphically violent than it actually is” (Robb BBC). Even after the film was released, “Walt Disney refused to allow Alfred Hitchcock to film at Disneyland in the early 1960s because Hitchcock had made “that disgusting movie, [Psycho]” (IMDB).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho produced a new era in filmmaking. The full censorship of violence was gone and was now replaced to mimic where society was. The violence of war and civil rights movements followed to present how the brutality of violence could no longer be hidden in real life or in Hollywood cinema.

Works Cited
Brody, Richard. “The Greatness of Psycho.” The New Yorker. N.p., 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Clarke, Roger. The Story of the Scene: The inside Scoop on Famous Moments in Film. London: Methuen Drama, 2009. Print.
French, Philip. “The Greatest Film Scenes Ever
Shot.” Www.theguardian.com. N.p., 13 Mar. 2010. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
History.com Staff. “The 1960s.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.
Howell, Peter. “How Hitchcock’s Psycho Changed Everything | Toronto Star.” Thestar.com. Toronto Star, 2009. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Lewis, Jon. American Film: A History. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008. Print.
“The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry (1930-1967).” The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry (1930-1967). Ed. David Hayes. N.p., 2009. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
“Psycho.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Robb, Stephen. “How Psycho Changed Cinema.” BBC News. BBC, 04 Jan.
2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Cutting through the Censors: How the film Psycho slashed its way past the censors of 1960,” an entry on Student Film Reviews

Published:
01.25.15 / 9am
Category:
Academic Papers, DVD, Films