The great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock had a profound insight into the workings of the human mind. "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it," he once said, and the shower scene from Psycho, demonstrates this perfectly.
This scene is one of the most shocking ever filmed. Yet, it does not include any shots of the knife penetrating the flesh of Janet Leigh's character, and the only hint of blood comes right at the end, when it flows into the plughole.
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Brain & Behavior
Comments (8)
I was robbed, beaten, and left for dead. I was hijacked with a knife at my throat. And I was hunted for my flesh.
No, the anticipation is nothing like the 'bang', not if you're on the receiving end. And I can't believe it's any different for an onlooker.
I think Hitchcock was talking about storytelling, but only the kind where the actual violence is left out.
For a thought-experiment test case, imagine seeing a large vicious dog chasing down a small shrieking child. The anticipation is the threat of harm. The actual bang -- when the dog is ripping flesh from the child and the blood is gouting -- hits so much harder than the anticipation.
Posted by: 6EQUJ5 | February 16, 2008 5:37 PM