Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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films can be used. The Slumber Party Massacre (1982; dir. Jones), which is
thematically complex in its own right, is exemplary of a film that uses changing
perspective to create a more straightforward episodic narrative. The events are seen
through a progressing series of victims, where the escalation of violence and the
deaths of increasingly more significant characters are the impetus that drives the film
from sequence to sequence, as opposed to a cause-and-effect plot structure. Psycho
(1960; dir. Hitchcock) uses this episodic structure, but the changes in perspective are
less comfortable for the viewer, requiring the transitions between perspective to be
more rigidly and intricately designed. The much-written-about shower sequence
shockingly removes the object of viewer identification, Marion Crane, whose
perspective has dominated the film. After this occurrence, the camera is left to
wander the hotel room, focusing on certain potentially significant details. Norman
Bates then enters the scene, and after a seemingly protracted absence of any object of
identification or perspective, the film immediately assumes his point of view. The
locations and events are experienced through Norman until the car containing
Marion’s body sinks into the swamp. After a dissolve to black, the story resumes in
a very jolting manner, immediately assuming the perspective of Marion’s sister
Lila. 2
While the film’s movement to Detective Arbogast is fairly seamless, his death
is jolting, making the transition back to Lila still uncomfortable. Psycho is also an
interesting case due to the fact that the episodic nature of the plot is also driven by a
of talent, genre, or another factor that appears marketable, whether the film was successful or not. I
will also use it to describe films that have exceeded in either profitability or cultural significance as
compared to other films with similar production costs within a comparable genre.
2 Although the shock provided by this change in perspective has been written about at great length by
many theorists, it was first brought to my attention by Berliner in the previously discussed
Introduction to Film Studies course. His lesson on Psycho is regularly cycled in and out of his
curriculum for that as well as other courses.