Dawn of the Dead (1979) Image Analysis 3

In this scene, the raiders have broken into the mall and are hunting for the group. Stephen, overcome by greed and anger, says “We took it, it’s ours!” and attempts to shoot the raiders, either killing them or scaring them off. This fails and Stephen is attack by both raider and zombie alike, causing him to flee. His use of a rifle, a phallic symbol, displays male power, but his failure to cause any real damage further implies his lack of male power. Stephen’s greed ultimately proves his downfall when he flees into the elevator, where he is attacked and killed by the zombies. This could be interpreted as a metaphor for the dangers of greed and consumerism and how they can affect our lives negatively; for if Stephen had not been overwhelmed by greed and had simply hidden, he would have survived. [[[ROMERO AUTEUR THEORY]]] In terms of Andrew Sarris’s auteur theory, George A. Romero, the director of DotD (1979), shows his views on consumerism, how it can harm our society as we carelessly buy and discard untold quantities of products we don’t truly need. This is reflected in this scene with Stephen dying due to his need to possess the contents of the mall to himself, whereas he would have lived if he had not been obsessed. 

Dawn of the Dead (1979) Image Analysis 2

This scene is the final shot in a long montage of the group experiencing life in the mall. In this shot, it can be garnered that Fran and Stephen have just had sex, but from the expressions and poses of the two of them, it was not very satisfactory. This can be interpreted as a metaphor for their lives inside the mall which, while seeming fun and exciting initially, has had the initial excitement wear off and the harsh reality of their existence has set in, with the fake aesthetic joy of the mall serving only as a reminder of their lives before the outbreak. Stephen’s sexual incompetence could also symbolise that, while he had primarily been the image of the archetypal male hero, his ‘male power’ has failed and he has been relegated to a lower position in the hierarchy of power, with Peter taking the place of the male hero instead. 

Dawn of the Dead (1979) Image Analysis 1

In this ending scene from Dawn of the Dead (1979), we have Fran and Peter leaving the mall in the helicopter and surviving. This scene holds both historical and institutional context because of the impact of the two survivors and who they are. Fran is a strong woman, who doesn’t scream and doesn’t need a man to save or protect her. At this point in time, female rights were still being fought for and women were seen as lesser than men. Peter is a black male, and at the time, racism was still active and present in society.  Because of this, there had been no movies in which a woman and a black man had been the heroes and survived at the end; instead it would be the white male hero who survived. This demonstrates the historical context of society seeing woman and black people as lesser and the institutional context of there having been no films with this outcome at the end before. Just one year after DotD (1979) came out, Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott, was released and featured a strong, powerful female survivor in the form of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver.  This shows the effect of DotD’s ‘controversial’ heroes and the forward thinking attitude of the horror genre.

PSYCHO Image Analysis 3

In this scene, which is directly after the shower murder scene, the camera focuses on Marion’s body, mainly onto her eye. We reach this shot with a graphic match from the plughole. This shot mimics the plughole by tracking outwards and spinning slowly, the glazed-over eye replacing the empty darkness of the plughole. This scene is heavily filled with pathetic fallacy, the concept that inanimate objects can convey emotion and meaning; the plughole and its dark depths, with the blood draining into it, represents Marion’s life draining away. Another example of pathetic fallacy are the water droplets on Marion’s face. While we know they are left over from the shower, they almost look like teardrops, with their size and proximity to her eye. This connotes Marion’s sadness at her death, apart from obvious reasons, because she had just decided to turn her life around and return to Phoenix and turn herself, and the money, in. 

PSYCHO Image Analysis 2

While the audience could have assumed she was to be the final girl, this scene flips the character roles about and turns Marion into a female victim. This connotes to the ideology of the ‘taboo against sex’. In the initial scenes of the movie, we see that Marion has just had sex with Sam Loomis. In this shower scene, Norman murders Marion with a knife, a phallic symbol, which expresses his domination over Marion and the negativity of her having sex with Sam, as the two of them were not married and at the time this was severely against the norms of society. This idea of Norman watching Marion shower before murdering her is a form of voyeurism, also connoted through the use of the phallic symbol weapon, showing that Norman is gaining some sexual pleasure from this murder. The idea of voyeurism in this film stems from Alfred Hitchcock’s strange and perverse form of humour. He was notorious in Hollywood for throwing extravagant parties with weird catches. One example was when he threw a party in a much too small room and he behind a two-way mirror, watching as celebrities forced their way in and were slowly crushed together and against the mirror. He found this hilarious and gained some strange form of pleasure from it, which in turn is represented in this scene. 

PSYCHO Image Analysis 1

In this scene from PSYCHO (1960), Lila, the final girl, has descended into the basement of Norman Bates’ house, only to be confronted by Norman himself dressed as a mockery of his mother. This costume is part of the mise-en-scene that represents his split mental state. The lighting in this shot also lends to this idea of a split-personality as it creates a large shadow of Norman behind him, creating the idea that another person is directing him to kill. A theory that can clearly be used to help decode this image is Janet Staiger’s “Audience Studies.” In it, she writes about the importance of context in understanding the impact of a film. This scene can best be comprehended through its link to the context of Ed Gein. Ed Gein was a serial killer around 1937 who murdered women and dressed up in an outfit made of their skin. He also claimed to hear the voice of his dead mother who compelled him to kill; a trait that Norman Bates shares. 

Shooting Schedule

Risk Assessment

Shot List

Audience Research 1: Practice Poster