From the moment when Marian pulls up in her car outside the motel, there is
a tense atmosphere which is created by the bad weather and the fact that she
arrived in the dark. Using this setting makes us (the audience) feel slightly
anxious even from the beginning, and also by using the second person
camera angles we are made to feel like voyeurs watching Marian and her
actions. When we are wanted to focus on a specific person or object, the
camera changes to create a point of view shot where we are seeing things
through Marians eyes and so we know exactly what she is looking at.
In order to set a scene the camera tends to pan around quite slowly so that
we can take in where a certain character is at any time. Once she gets out of
her car and has tried knocking at the office door with no success, the camera
changes to her point of view looking up at the main house.
Norman de R. Whitehouse & wife (LOC)
Norman Barr, Penn. (LOC)
Norman Bethune with Clark, Lewis and McNeil, membe...The whole house
is portrayed in darkness with a light in one window, this makes the viewer
see the house as quite sinister.
Once our focus is on the house a shadow of a man is shown walking across
the window, at the time we do not know who this is but later on in this part
of the film we discover that he is in fact Norman, the owner of the motel.
We soon learn that Norman has a possessive Mother, who does not like any
other women coming near him. The fact that we only see his shadow when
Marian arrives, represents the idea that he is not entirely himself and that his
Mother over-shadows him.
After Marian sees that there is someone in the house she gets back...