Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho marked a turn from the “Golden Age” of Hollywood as part of the “New Wave” movement in film making. Bernard Herrmann’s music in the film reflects this turn. Herrmann utilizes only a string orchestra to produce harsh sounds that aren’t necessarily pleasing to the ear. He also does not underscore the entire film. His musical pieces serve the purpose of establishing the mood and do not function as filler. In contrast, The Adventures of Robin Hood, considered a “classical Hollywood” film, utilizes a full orchestra to achieve a rich musical color to emphasize its heroic tale. It contains an abundance of underscoring and utilizes such techniques as having the music mimic the action and Mickey Mousing.

While the scoring in Psycho may be different from the “classic Hollywood” sound, it does show similarities to Film Noir. A dominating characteristic of Psycho is that the music reflects a prevailing foreboding and eerie mood through music that is disturbing, perverse, and anxious-sounding. The way that Herrmann creates this mood through the music is by the use of disjunct and dissonant melodies. The clashing sounds and disorder in the music creates a feeling of anxiety and the general sense that something bad is about to happen.

The music in Psycho is often homophonic. There are 2 melodies that play at the same time however one seems to be the more dominant and in the forefront while the other sounds as if it’s almost playing behind the dominant one. While this was probably done to add more depth to the music, I think it reflects Norman’s and the clash between his two personalities.