Critical Studies

Marxist Theory Paper




Visual Language Assignment 



Link to Laura Lulvey paper.

http://www.composingdigitalmedia.org/f15_mca/mca_reads/mulvey.pdf

Vertigo Summary

In The movie “Vertigo” “Sigmund Freud's” theory of the “oedipus complex” isn’t as obvious but is still apparent when you change around the characters a bit in regards to who is the father figure and mother figure. While in the beginning of the movie John is very rational and his ego is in full charge of his personality but as the movie starts to play out you see how he begins to let his id take control when by spying on Gavin’s wife Madeleine. You can tell from the first time he saw her that he was sexually attracted to her as he stares at her and the music becomes intensified to help add to the emotion. The restaurant in which they are in is full of the color red with lots of materials, which would help stimulate the viewer’s emotions and feelings like, warmth, love and passion.

Scoptophilia was used a lot in the early stages where John followed Madeleine to multiple locations. He was always spying at her from the distance and in the shadows. Madeleine's husband Gavin must have been the father figure, as in the beginning he was giving John a job to do. While Gavin was explaining what he wanted John to do there was a lot of masculine symbols apparent in the scene. The large room was full of square and rectangle shapes along with a huge industry being built behind him. This gave Gavin a sense of power and masculinity. Gavin therefore was competition for John in his fight to win the love of Madeleine. John would later in the movie fight his worst conscious fears to feed his unconscious sexual desires.

When John takes Madeleine back to his home after she tried to kill herself. He undressed her and lay her down in his bed. This would have further added fuel to his id when he has an image of her naked body in the back of his mind. When he witnesses the fake suicide of Madeleine, he has a total breakdown and is hospitalized due to how severe the loss he just endured, effected him mentally.

When he meets Judy at the hotel he instantly overwhelmed by his id and persists to keep Judy for himself to satisfy his desire for Madeleine. He tries to change her so much so that she would be unrecognizable from the old Madeleine. His id is in full control as he knows that Judy and Madeline are to his knowledge not the same person. Madeleine agrees to this because she too has fallen in love.

The Oidipus comples may also apply to Madeleine as John the older man she has fallen in love with wants to take care of her and keep her safe as any father would for his daughter. She lets her ego allow John to dress her up as he did so that he would love her and she could be with him meanwhile keep her secret of the murder hidden.

Her mistake was putting on the old necklace she had received from Gavin as payment for her part in the murder. John recognized it instantly and went into a state of shock. When he took her to the church to show her that he had uncovered her and Gavins murder he was heartbroken. Even though he knew of her crimes, in the end he couldn’t control his id and kissed her showing just how strong his desire to have her was. 

Phycho Summary

While watching the movie Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock I got to see how Sigmund Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex was very apparent throughout the movie. Where Norman Bates becomes a psycho due to being heavily effected by the environment he grew up in. Norman was very jealous due to his other being in a loving relationship with his father instead of him and he didn’t hope back any of the desires he felt. He then murdered his mother and father due to his desire to have his mother all for himself. Norman spent the next few years with his mother’s corpse in his bed so she could be with him as if she needed him now instead. Normans mind couldn’t cope without his mother being alive to be with him so he developed a schizophrenic disorder in order for his brain to be at ease. He would at different times act out as if he was actually his mother and others as he was still himself. He would act out of control when he was impersonating his mother being very bossy towards Norman. This gave a small glimpse into what way Norman was treated by his mother during his childhood and was probably a big factor in the reason he develops into a psycho in later life. The abusive way he was treated might have made him become jealous of anyone whom his mother might have treated kindly. 

Sigmund Freud's id personality trait was very apparent with Norman. He let all the inner desires and urges he felt take full control of his mind. So much so that even long after his mother’s death his id was still in full command of his consciousness. Any time guests would arrive at his hotel and a beautiful woman was among them and Norman might be attracted to. His id would take control and his schizophrenic behaviors would return His superego could not control the id sexual and aggressive urges. He would start to impersonate his mother gain and because he was attracted to the women he would hope that his mother too was jealous of her as he was jealous of his father. He would then kill the woman as he would feel his mother would have done it too because of the love he wished she had for him and him alone. So there could only be one woman for Norman and no other but his mother.

When Norman would come back out of his impersonation of his mother and return to his normal ego would take hold again he would show remorse and all the normal reactions you would expect a normal person to have when they see that someone has been murdered. Realizing what had happened he wanted to hide the pain and cover up the murder to he would hide the bodies and try to make sure the crime would stay hidden forever.

During the movie there were lots of sculptophilia types scenes where the even the camera would look out through the windows and watch the actors move through the scenes. Not only the camera was used but even in scenes Norman had put hole behind a picture where he would look through it and spy the guests without their knowing. He would get a sexual pleasure from this looking and it helped fuel his uncontrollable id.