Mike Frank is right that Ron T has changed the focus of his analysis, in
that his comments about the ending of Psycho do not bear on the issue of
unreliable narration. The key to unreliable narration is that it
involves the spectator being duped by the narration into believing the
veracity of the narrative information, and the canonic example is the
lying flashback in Stage Fright. Unreliable narration therefore has a
defeasible status - it jolts us into eventually revising the narrative,
for we *retrospectively* realize that the narrative information conveyed
by the narration is not true, and needs to be replaced. This does not
apply to the end of Psycho. Where is the unreliability? Or the
retrospective revision? It is quite clear that the narration has shifted
focus to Norman. Moreover, Ron T asks why doesn't the narrative return
to Marion: it does - the film's final shot is the trunk of Marion's car,
with her body inside.
Warren Buckland
Associate Professor, Film Studies
Chapman University
School of Film and Television
One University Drive
Orange
CA 92866
USA.
phone: (714) 744 7018
fax: (714) 997 6700
Editor, "New Review of Film and Television Studies":
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17400309.asp
>Yes, these are excellent distinctions between the character and the
narrative. However, after that long-winded Psychoanalytic explanation
by the psychiatrist, the film ends with Norman/mother taking over the
narrative, ending the whole story with the murderer's point of view,
inviting some conscientious spectator to wonder what Norman angle of
vision is on the whole matter. Why doesn't the film conclude with the
psychiatrist's explanation, returning the viewer to a norma(l)world? Why
does it attempt to reframe the entire narrative--all that has
happened--as something that has only happened to Norman? In other words,
the film ends almost as if it were Norman's story, a story in which
Marian Crane and John Gavin and all the others didn't figure as very
significant. They were only significant to the viewer. Norman didn't
know Marian's story. So why does it all end as if it concluded Norman's
story? That is a sense in which the narrative is deceptive, leading us
to come to the conclusion that, perhaps rightly, that Norman Bates is
the central character. We were deceived into believing that Marian was
the central character, but after her death, no character can be
positioned in the center again. So does Norman take center stage?20
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