INDIVIDUAL ANALYSIS OF PROPS

FIRST SLIDE – PSYCHOSECOND SLIDE – ONE HOUR PHOTO

THIRD SLIDE – CHAINSAW MASSACRE

The use of the plughole in Psycho is very symbolic, the camera slowly dissolves into it straight after the woman is killed. This is symbolic of her life draining away slowly, through camera movement down the “drain”. This also suggests how young this woman was and it was a pity to see her life go “down the drain” .

A plughole has fast running water that does down it with speed and efficiency, this could represent how fast she was killed, it was a sudden and simple death, there was no complication to it, this is symbolised by the water running smoothly with speed down the drain, showing a symbolic remake of her death. There is obviously the representation of blood, as it goes down the drain, it also shows that possibly to the audience this man would get away with this murder as the water so simply, goes down the drain and is out of sight.

The plughole also represents an eye, and appears to look like one when the camera zooms in, this shows that the killer was in fact watching his victim before he killed her, in order to choose the best time to make it happen. It could also be seen as the killers actual eye as we delve deeper all we see is darkness, suggestive of his evil soul.

Here the my choice of prop analysing is directed at a chainsaw. There's no surprise that a chainsaw is used as this film is called “Chainsaw massacre” so the clue is in the title. However this does create a symbiotic between the film title and the film, if there was no chainsaw in the film the audience would be confused as the name would have no meaning and link to the film, and therefore break realism for the audience.

The fact this mans choice of weapon is a chainsaw shows a lot about his personality, clearly he is deranged and has a set agenda, and doesn’t want any prolonged life, a chainsaw would mean a quick, extremely painful but imminent death for whomever his victim may be. A chainsaw is also very loud and aggressive, this could represent what goes on in this mans head, loud crazed noises or voices that push him into doing what he does?

Here I am analysing the use of a camera as a prop. This camera is the main cause for all of the problems that occur in this movie, as a woman always wants them developed where a store clerk develops an obsession with her. This prop allows us as the audience to recognise the irony of the prop, a camera which has the ability to create happiness and capture memories that families and friends would want to keep with them for a life time, - however this film tells a story that certainly the involved family would happily forget, by recognising the irony, it allows us to appreciate this and feel intelligent as the audience. This is beneficial for the psychological target audience as they are a genre whom enjoy the intelligence that a movie has the ability to make them feel.

The camera also represents how life scarring this event will be for the family, they definitely won’t be forgetting it as much as they’d like to for a while. It also creates a symbiotic link between the title and the movie, as a one hour photo title wouldn’t make sense if there were no photos or cameras involved.