Explore the process of narration in Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

The process of narration in film, or indeed any other media text can be defined as the means through which a story is told. There are two main types of narration: omniscient and restrictive. In omniscient narration the audience knows more than any of the characters in a scene, but with restrictive the audience has only the same knowledge as the characters on screen at a particular time. Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov defined the …

…Norman was attracted to her. Ironically the father would be the missing link to reward the hero, as he died when he was only five years old (possibly even murdered by Norman himself). To summarise, Hitchcock has used a wide variety of narrative methods very effectively to shock and terrify Psycho audiences even up to the present day. His superb use of distractions, tension building and restrictive and omniscient narration keeps the viewers guessing throughout.