Canadian Review of American Studies (2010) - "We all go a little mad sometimes": Alfred Hitchcock, American psychoanalysis, and the construction of the Cold War psychopath
Details
- article: "We all go a little mad sometimes": Alfred Hitchcock, American psychoanalysis, and the construction of the Cold War psychopath
- author(s): Robert Genter
- journal: Canadian Review of American Studies (2010)
- issue: volume 40, issue 2, pages 133-162
- DOI: 10.3138/cras.40.2.133
- journal ISSN: 0007-7720
- publisher: University of Toronto Press
- keywords: "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" - by Stephen Rebello, "Hitchcock on Hitchcock" - edited by Sidney Gottlieb, Adolescent Behavior - ethnology, Adolescent Behavior - physiology, Adolescent Behavior - psychology, Alfred Hitchcock, Angus MacPhail, Anthony Perkins, Anthony Shaffer, Antisocial Personality Disorder - ethnology, Antisocial Personality Disorder - history, Antisocial Personality Disorder - psychology, Arthur La Bern, Arthur Laurents, Authoritarianism, Autoritarisme, Ben Hecht, Chicago, Illinois, Criminality, Criminalité, Criminals - education, Criminals - history, Criminals - legislation & jurisprudence, Criminals - psychology, Deviance, Déviance, Ernest Lehman, François Truffaut, François Truffaut, Frenzy (1972), George Sanders, Jay Presson Allen, Joseph Stefano, Marnie (1964), Maxwell Anderson, Men's Health - ethnology, Men's Health - history, Motion Pictures as Topic - history, Motion pictures, New York City, North by Northwest (1959), Notorious (1946), Paramount Pictures, Parent-Child Relations - ethnology, Parent-Child Relations - legislation & jurisprudence, Patrick Hamilton, Peggy Robertson, Psychanalyse, Psycho (1960), Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis - education, Psychoanalysis - history, Psychoanalysis psychopathe, Psychopath, Psychopathology, Raymond Bellour, Robert Bloch, Robert Genter, Rope (1948), San Francisco, California, Sexual Behavior - ethnology, Sexual Behavior - history, Sexual Behavior - physiology, Sexual Behavior - psychology, Sexuality, Sexuality - ethnology, Sexuality - history, Sexuality - physiology, Sexuality - psychology, Sexualité, Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Sidney Gottlieb, Simon Oakland, Spellbound (1945), Stephen Rebello, Strangers on a Train (1951), The Birds (1963), The Wrong Man (1956), Universal Studios, Winston Graham
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Abstract
This article explores the image of the psychopath in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho. The famed director’s portrayal of a psychologically damaged young man connected with a much larger discussion over political and sexual deviance in the early Cold War, a discussion that cantered on the image of the psychopath as the dominant threat to national security and that played upon normative assumptions about adolescent development and mother-son relations.
