MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1998) Discussion > The one scene that truly doesn't work .....

The one scene that truly doesn't work ...

posted 7 years ago by burthelukyman
4 replies | jump to latest

One scene in the remake that truly doesn't work occurs right after Arbogast (Bill Macy) makes the phone call to Marion's sister Lila. After the phone call, he returns to Bates motel hoping to talk to his Mother.

In the 1960 original, seconds BEFORE we see Arbogast show up with his car, we see Norman Bates (Perkins) walking left to right with bed sheets on the boardwalk of the hotel. It's really dark and he manages to get out of sight before Arbogast shows up. Arbogast never sees him and that's why, when he goes into the open front office, he calls out his name.

In the remake, the motel is brightly lit and Bates (V. Vaughn) walks IN PLAIN VIEW and at the SAME TIME as Arbogast shows up with his car !!! The way it's filmed, it's IMPOSSIBLE that the sharp-eyed detective would not have seen him !! and yet, he acts like he didn't and calls out his name ... like WTF ?? So amateurish ...

[–] Popcorn Kernel (2368) 7 years ago

I also never understood how Norman got up to the house and upstairs BEFORE Arbogast.
You see Norman down on the far right side of the motel, walking left to right, away from the house.
Then you see Arbogast, who goes up the stairs to the house , pretty quickly, goes inside and goes upstairs, and Norman is already in mother's costume, in Mother's room, waiting for him.

It makes it really seem like it was Mother ( a separate living person) that killed Arbogast while Norman was still down at the motel. Arbogast specifically wanted to go up to the house to speak with Mother while Norman was busy down at the motel. But then at the end when you find out that Norman was doing all of 'Mother's killings, it makes that scene physically improbable. How can he be in two places at the same time?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

How can he be in two places at the same time?

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...via a nifty little trick of misdirection on Hitchcock's part that is "explained" later in the film...when Sam and Lila are at the motel.

In the original 1960 film, Norman spots Arbogast's car before it enters the frame, and indeed scurries left to right to a dark corner of the motel. We lose sight of him..maybe he hid in a room?

No,what he did was to use the same OPEN SPACE PASSAGEWAY between the two parts of the motel that LILA later uses to sneak out the back of the motel and up the hill to the house from BEHIND the motel.

Hitchcock saw Psycho ,he said, as both a "game" he was playing with the audience and his own "playing of the audience...like an organ."

What is happening here is that the later scene with Lila reveals EXACTLY how Norman got up to the house before Arbogast did, but we aren't really paying attention.

What's important back at the scene with Arbogast's car driving up is that...Norman is "off screen , screen right" and Mother is "off screen, screen left" (up at the house) and so we MENTALLY separate Mother and Norman as separate beings. Its wonderful trickery.

In Robert Bloch's novel of Psycho, Arbogast didn't drive off to a phone booth first. He confronted Norman and demanded to see Mother NOW. Norman said "I have to go up to the house and tell Mother you are coming, wait here." Arbogast waited, called Lila from the motel office, reported on Mary(Marion) and then got impatient and went up to the house and was killed by Mother in the foyer with Norman "watching." But this was all in Norman's mind -- other than the REAL killing of Arbogast(with a strait razor to the throat, in the book.)

Hitchcock couldn't film this scene this way, not with Norman "next to Mother" in the foyer, as in the book(Norman's mind's eye.) So Hitch and screenwriter Joe Stefano came up with the sequence of sending Arbogast OFF the property to the gas station phone booth to report to Lila, then BACK to the property while misdirecting the audience that Norman was off to the right while Mother was up the hill to the left.

Brilliant screenwriting and filmmaking, with a real payoff for audiences who were tricked by the whole ruse, and "believed in Mother."

[–] Popcorn Kernel (2368) 7 years ago

When Lila went up the hill from behind the motel, she still entered through the front door. It's only a slight shortcut but still leads to the same entrance. If Norman was doing that at the same time that Arbogast was walking up the stairs, Arbogast could see him enter the front door.
We are just supposed to believe that Norman is faster than the speed of light, or that he can teleport.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

We are just supposed to believe that Norman is faster than the speed of light, or that he can teleport.

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Ha! Norman has to move fast, to be sure...but Hitchcock gives him time.

Count the seconds it takes for Arbogast to park his car, walk from the car to the motel porch, enter the motel office, go into the motel parlor and look around, kneel at the safe to see if any money is in there(audiences were scared Mother would kill him at that point, I've heard), go back out to the office, and walk the porch to the edge of the motel.

Hitchcock timed all that material of Arbogast wandering around with a stopwatch -- against the time necessary for Perkins to run up the hill and run up the stairs.

You can add the 45 seconds or so that Arbogast remains standing in the foyer deciding to climb the stairs. Enough time for Norman to race up the hill, get up the stairs before Arbogast gets to the foyer, get dressed(he just pulls the dress over his regular clothes, as the fruit cellar scene proves) , put the wig on, grab the knife and voila.

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I've always liked that Hitchcock didn't give us a flashback at the end to EITHER of the two murders "from Norman's POV." We COULD have seen Norman make that run up the hill and then up the stairs, and we COULD have seen him get dressed and enter Cabin One and the bathroom. But Hitchcock preferred to leave these things unsaid and unshown, thereby keeping Mother as a separate being even after we know the truth!