I never came up with an explanation or a theory. Over the years, though, I began to notice other things in the movie that seemed to rhyme with that shot.
There is also the food/digestion theme. Marion has two scenes involving a sandwich: one with Sam (doesn’t eat it, has sex instead), the other with Norman (eats it, but gets killed). We see her blood going down the drain in the bathroom, and afterwards her car going down the swamp (only to be regurgitated at the end).
I never noticed the first sandwich! Not in all these years. So are you suggesting that food/digestion goes along with the things-within-other-things motif? I can sort of see that.
I don’t know if it’s a subset, but it seems related!
There are also those moments where the camera pierces through a hole so we can see what’s inside something – I’m thinking of the first shots, where we enter the hotel through the window, and afterwards, when Norman is looking through the hole in the wall. The psychological equivalent would be the close-ups of faces, perhaps, especially of the eyes, the classical form of expressing someone’s inner thoughts and feelings. We see Marion’s eyes (the camera very close, spiralling backwards), and know there is nothing in there anymore. At the end, the camera approaches Norman, and we can’t help but think what the hell is going on inside his head. (Is the close-up of the police officer related to this? We don’t see his eyes, only those dark, opaque glasses, which makes him quite menacing.)
I've always been interested in the sound effects--Hitchcock's shower scene stabbing was voice by a bunch of casaba melons being stabbed: https://www.history.com/news/psycho-shower-scene-hitchcock-tricks-fooled-censors
Yes, they go into that in some depth, so to speak, in that documentary. Lots of melon-slashing.
There is also the food/digestion theme. Marion has two scenes involving a sandwich: one with Sam (doesn’t eat it, has sex instead), the other with Norman (eats it, but gets killed). We see her blood going down the drain in the bathroom, and afterwards her car going down the swamp (only to be regurgitated at the end).
I never noticed the first sandwich! Not in all these years. So are you suggesting that food/digestion goes along with the things-within-other-things motif? I can sort of see that.
I don’t know if it’s a subset, but it seems related!
There are also those moments where the camera pierces through a hole so we can see what’s inside something – I’m thinking of the first shots, where we enter the hotel through the window, and afterwards, when Norman is looking through the hole in the wall. The psychological equivalent would be the close-ups of faces, perhaps, especially of the eyes, the classical form of expressing someone’s inner thoughts and feelings. We see Marion’s eyes (the camera very close, spiralling backwards), and know there is nothing in there anymore. At the end, the camera approaches Norman, and we can’t help but think what the hell is going on inside his head. (Is the close-up of the police officer related to this? We don’t see his eyes, only those dark, opaque glasses, which makes him quite menacing.)