They Moved Away the Highway: Nature and Neglect in Psycho
Source: Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960; design by Joel Gunz.
IN ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S PSYCHO (1960), stuffed birds—mostly raptors—glare down at Marion Crane and Norman Bates (Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins) as they nibble cheese sandwiches in the latter’s motel parlor. This intrusion of untamed nature into an otherwise domesticated indoor environment instils a creeping dread as it becomes clear that something is likewise off between Norman and his mother. Elsewhere in the film, animals are denied a life, whether it’s by chemical extermination, (during a discussion of insecticides at Sam Loomis’ hardware store), rendered inert as a scientific specimen (in zoological prints of birds in the Bates Motel’s Cabin One) or left neglected (as with a plush toy rabbit found in Norman’s bedroom). In fact, we see only one living animal in the entire film: that unharmed fly in the film’s jail cell finale. These representations of nature are well studied (see Boyd and Palmer 2006, Mondal 2017), but the wider issues that they hint at regarding the natural environment and elements are less so.
The Bates Estate was not immune to changes sweeping the US in the early 1950s. Driven by a growing middle class, there was a dramatic post-war exodus of people from the cities into the suburbs (Nicolaides and Wiese 2017). Tourism prospered and, initially, rural communities thrived by opening diners, gas stations and motels along the state highways. (Gunz 2004). Then came President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Act (1956), which connected the cities together with superhighways. By 1960, 10,000 miles of new road had been constructed, bypassing those rural communities and sequestering them from potential tourist trade. The brief period of prosperity in the 1950s was over. Hitchcock provides a snapshot of changing post-war America with the Bates Motel and natural surroundings being cut off from developing communities elsewhere: explaining his intermittent business activity, Norman notes wryly that “they moved away the highway.” The alienation of Norman from society in his childhood home is a key theme in Psycho, with nature and natural elements echoing that decline.
Source: Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
The role of natural vegetation in shaping the visual landscape of Psycho from the nature-depleted urban environment of Phoenix to the Bates Motel surroundings represents a fresh avenue for analysis of Hitchcock’s gothic environment. This essay will examine how Hitchcock seems to have utilized the natural elements in Psycho, focusing on characters and places interchangeably, aiming to bring in new perspectives on wild vegetation, natural elements (e.g. sunshine and rain) and a natural home.
The film begins in an urban desert where nature and humanity are largely absent—Phoenix, Arizona. In a slow pan across the desolate city, the skeleton of an unfinished building partially obstructs Camelback Mountain in the background. Thus, from the outset, untamed nature is pushed into the distance while urban development continues apace. The camera seems to fly into the darkness of the half-open window of a hotel room occupied by Marion Crane and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin).
In Phoenix, nature submits to human control, not unlike the pair of lovers whose destiny seems controlled by others: outstanding debts and alimony payments seem to stand in the way of their marriage. In the hotel room, sunlight streams through the half-open window creating a stark light and shade atmosphere, perhaps a metaphor for the difficult situation they find themselves in where their future is undecided. Despite temperatures as “hot as fresh milk” the hotel room feels drained of any warmth, maternal or otherwise, that the couple would derive from a shared home, and Marion yearns to escape this life she is trapped in.
In Lowery’s office, while she converses with the lecherous and larcenous Tom Cassidy, who flashes the wad of “cold hard cash” that she will soon steal, a photograph on the wall behind her depicts a desert scene. The lifeless, arid landscape with its unpredictably shifting sand dunes expresses the dreary situation she finds herself in and the changes she may face on the horizon—and perhaps belies her claim to Cassidy that she is not “inordinately” unhappy. This photo print visually sums up Marion’s stalled condition from which springs the action of the plot to follow, with the money serving as a MacGuffin that leads her to the Bates Motel.
Source: Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
Departing Phoenix triumphantly with $40,000 in stolen cash, Marion leaves the furtive uncertainty of the hotel room and the drab certainty of the office to drive out to meet her fiancé. Yet, the open road and the sun-baked countryside deliver only temporary comfort. After driving into the night, she pulls to the side of the road to sleep. In an otherwise pastoral and wild scene with the wind blowing through mustard flowers, she’s startled awake by a highway patrolman who looms up threateningly in her car window, puncturing the tranquillity of nature for the first time but, tragically, not the last. Anxiety and guilt over the theft are introduced and, in addition, she and we become aware of her loneliness and vulnerability. She’s a long way from the controlled urban environment of the hotel room and office. Neither the city nor a return to nature can provide any refuge for her. There is no safe place where she will be protected. Afterward, at California Charlie’s used car lot, she nervously replaces her car using some of the stolen cash. Here, Marion is back in the apparent safety of an urban setting where nature is controlled—but the menace of the highway patrolman from the hills remains as he reappears outside the garage, leaning against his car.
Later that night, an intense rainstorm causes Marion to inadvertently turn off the main highway and on to the old road to Fairvale, eventually seeking shelter for the night at the Bates Motel. The quiet wildness of the hill behind the motel is apparent even in the heavy shower Marion arrives in. The hill itself, though obscured by darkness and rain, exudes an untended and neglected feel: the house is framed by trees and overgrown bushes, while waves of rain pulse over the hill to create a gothic scene. The drooping branches of trees form a natural frame for the dilapidated but majestic house in the Second-Empire architectural style. Offering Marion an intimidating welcome and a key change in the film’s focus from the stolen money to the bleak environment, it’s not exactly the refuge that she expected on her escape with the money. Of course, we’re also aware that this is someone’s home.
The sight of mother pacing in the window is framed by a tree casting a shadow onto the house. After Marion sounds the car horn, Norman eventually comes out, running down a long staircase overgrown with vegetation, like a man emerging from a jungle. Nature has been set free from human influence and the viewer is left to wonder why a home would be so unkempt. Such scenes of barren desolation are a common gothic trope, and one that is effectively used in Psycho.
The rainstorm that forces Marion to turn in at the Bates Motel introduces another central natural element: water. There’s a contrast between the arid climate of Phoenix with the threatening and rainswept environment of the highway at night and at the motel. With a clear link to the sustaining of life (Bela and Mazur 1999), water has many meanings when used in literature or on screen, but it often suggests feminine sexuality and aspects of fertility, birth, rebirth and purity (Bela and Mazur 1999)—the maternal side of Norman and his deceased mother. Conversely, the rain spattering Marion’s windshield has also been compared to male ejaculate and foreshadows her watery murder in a fit of sexualized masculine rage. In any event, the rain is symptomatic of untamed nature, overpowering Marion at a critical time of need. How can she resist the unstoppable power of the rainstorm?
The water imagery may represent the womb and how Norman is still in that private trap (“I was born in mine”). When Marion first sees mother pacing in front of the window when she arrives at Bates Motel it is still raining intensely, a clear link between water and the maternal aspects of Mrs. Bates and Norman. The parlor discussion where Mother’s control over Norman first becomes apparent is accompanied by rain, although that has a swift end (“the rain didn’t last long, did it?”). Norman’s need to remain tied to mother leads to the transference of guilt after he kills her and a loss of self, which he replaces with her personality as his victim (Sandis 2009).
Source: Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
Following Marion’s grisly demise in the shower, Norman dumps her body off in the trunk of her car, which he then pushes into the swamp behind the motel. The audience joins in as horrified voyeurs, secretly willing the car and its contents to disappear into the water when it temporarily ceases to sink (Douchet 2004). Thus, the swamp becomes a catalyst, bringing the audience into complicity with his crime, overwhelming the viewer’s guilt at the conflicted emotions the gruesome scene evokes. Up until this point, mother’s control has kept Norman safe from harm, the smile showing that she now has dominance over his psyche. The swamp could also reflect the darkness of Norman’s troubled mind and its domination by mother, which is almost as unfathomable as the unseen turbid depths of the swamp. Interestingly, Norman’s room contains a painting of a ship on the ocean, as does a lampshade in Room 10, which is briefly occupied by Sam and Lila (Vera Miles). The ocean often symbolizes mystery (Hayashi (1993)), the surface visible but the depths hidden. As with the swamp, the darkness of Norman’s mind and its domination by mother may be akin to the unexplored depths of the ocean.
Swamps and bogs are typically portrayed as inhospitable places in gothic literature—and Psycho does not deviate from this trope. While such places are of high value for non-human wildlife—particularly rare species of invertebrates (Gardiner 2018, Miller and Gardiner 2018)—neither the water nor the flora and fauna are likely fit for human consumption. They offer little in the way of human survival, but much for human disposal.
Later, when Marion’s sister Lila walks up to the house, she passes the rusting remains of an old farm tractor which may have once been used to manage the Bates estate. As she passes the long grass and trees, we see a derelict fountain on the hilltop beside the house. The tussocky grassland on the hill next to the steps doesn’t appear to have been cut for a long time and the flowers have gone to seed. Left unmanaged, over time grassland often develops scrub and woodland via the natural process of succession (Murray and Rohweder 2000). The vegetation on the Bates estate is typical of sage and chaparral scrub found in coastal California and the Hollywood Hills (the film was shot at Studio Revue’s hilly and scrubby backlot, now Universal Studios, Hollywood) which develop in a drought-stressed climate (Schreiner 2020). Succession also implies change towards a stable climax vegetation (i.e. woodland), which can remain unchanged apart from the vagaries of climate, fire and human disturbance. Likewise, Norman’s mental state has progressed on a similar trajectory toward a stable psychological state where mother’s personality has complete control.
As revealed in detail at the film’s climax, the mansion’s interior contrasts significantly with the surrounding habitat. Here, there are numerous references to nature—all of them pointedly lifeless. Mother’s bedroom reveals glimpses of floral arrangements in needlepoint near her vanity table and painted inside her washbasin, holly boughs engraved into the mantle, trees in a landscape painting and some dried flowers in a vase. This inert floral imagery offers both parallels and contrasts with the stuffed birds that populate the motel parlor down below. The flowers suggest a pastoral condition to which the Bates Motel is returning through abandonment and the ‘progress’ of the new trade-diverting highway. And, of course, they suit Mrs. Bates, who is, in fact, pushing up daisies.
Throughout the film, we’re confronted with themes of alienation: first, with Marion and Sam, later with Norman and the Bates estate, stranded, as it were in a wilderness and extending, perhaps, to Mother, banished to the mostly fruitless fruit cellar.
It should also be noted that the film is set in December and vegetation throughout the film is dead or dying. This creates quite a different atmosphere than would be the case if it were set in the spring or summer with an abundance of green grass and flowers. Instead, the seasonal decline reflects Norman’s mental senescence. Whether it’s expressed through the wild landscape wrought by years of neglect or through a rainstorm of gothic proportions, nature is an overwhelming presence at the Bates Motel. These elements combine to form a powerful representation of a childhood home in decline—Norman’s “private trap” into which he was born—while mirroring changes sweeping changes the US in the late 1950s. A lonely, forlorn situation that no amount of time spent in taxidermic hobbyism could ever hope to dispel.
References
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