movie

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho: A Look at its Impact on the Film Industry
by Amanda Sage

Queen's University Film Studies

April 1999; final essay for for FILM 210: Historical Approaches.

Copyright © 1999



The 1960's marked a big change in American cinema. With the collapse of the Hollywood Studio System came a weakening of censorship laws; sex and violence moved from obscurity to the forefront of mainstream cinema (Nowell-Smith 464). Although it quickly became clear that a market existed for such films, the earliest attempts to foray into the world of modern cinema were met with ambivalence. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, made in 1960, was one of the first of many to depict sexuality and violence in a graphic manner (Nowell-Smith 491). Although the youth market was ready for such a change, the older audience resisted the modern trends. For this reason, Psycho was initially received by many with anger and critical rejection, before moving on to be named "Hitchcock's grea...