A psycho for every generation

For almost 40 years, thanks to Alfred Hitchcock's seminal film, the word Psycho has conjured up some of the strongest and most enduring, not to say frightening and even misleading images of mental illness in contemporary western culture. It has become a byword for terrifying homicidal impulses, the unpredictability of a deranged mind, and has created, in Norman Bates, an archetype for the Other. However, we must now accept that time has passed. There is now another Psycho with which we have to deal, so close in shot selection and script as to pass for identical. Gus van Sant has produced a Psycho for the 1990s--or so we might consider. This paper will examine the way in which the two films, one produced in 1960 and the second in 1988, deal with the notions of mental illness, madness and the construction of the Other. It will pay particular attention to the central character of Norman Bates, how and why he is so terrifying to us, how his madness is explained and demonstrated and what a deconstructed analysis of that portrayal may signal. It will consider the notion that, just as we have come to accept that every generation may produce its own interpretation of roles from the classical stage repertoire, such as Hamlet, every generation can and will interpret Psycho to mirror its own concerns.