Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Psycho IV

         Since last time, Norman Bates has been institutionalized again and has fallen in love with a psychologist and has married her. She was married once before and lives in a beautiful split level house. Her name is Connie. Norman is out on parole now and is living a near normal married life. As we join Norman in the beginning of Psycho IV, it's his birthday and he's listening to a radio talk show called "Talk of the Town" on KTK, 490 AM.  The talk show is hosted by a lady called Fran Ambrose. The subject of the night is "Why boys commit matricide" or what causes boys to kill their mothers?

         As we join Norman talking to Fran Ambrose, it's early in the conversation and a young man , who has been committed, named Raymond Linette, is telling Fran about the therapy he's received at his institution. A Psychiatrist, who is also a guest on the program, remarks that the recidivism rate is much too great in institutions today. Raymond also says his mother told him that he would never amount to anything. He says, "I killed my own mother." "Is that amounting to anything or what?" His maternal grandfather is there with him and agrees with him, even though it was his daughter that he killed.

         Norman Bates manages to avoid questions that might give away his age or the location of his younger life such as "How old were you when you killed your first victim?" Also "Where were you living when all of this started?" Norman has his back to the camera and as he turns around and says, "I might have to kill again" you can see where Anthony Perkins might have had a slight stroke on the right side of his mouth--it droops just a little. Perkins was 58 years old when he made Psycho IV. He had just two more years to live. (1932-1992). You can see that age and possibly an illness was taking its toll on Perkins.

         I think Perkins had some sort of an identity issue during his life. It was well known that he had a hard time of shedding the character of Norman Bates through the Psychos I through IV. (1960-1990). This happens to some actors whose personalities are prone to this kind of malady. It's like being hypnotized by the character your playing.

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