“If It Doesn’t Jell, It Isn’t Aspic”: Multiple Narratives in Psycho
HitchCon '23: Hitchcock Unbound
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32m
In "Psycho" (1960), several characters break "Arbogast’s Law" that a story, like a proper aspic, must jell. U.C. Santa Cruz Professor H. Marshall Leicester explores how these figures mistakenly expect the others to behave according to genre fiction conventions. Such derailments of the narrative culminate in Sam Loomis' misreading of Norman Bates, which in turn leads to the film's climactic crisis and big reveal.
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