So, it's Sunday morning and we have some time to... watch 'Psycho'. It occurs to me that the individual humans who come into contact with Bates are defenceless and doomed; simple inquisitiveness, vulnerability, are barely registered on the scale of his libidinal drive to erase relations inimical to that with his mother. The crucial moment is the arrival of the couple. Despite it being an asexual pair, the sororitous fearlessness and knuckleheaded masculinity are contriving to protect each-other without even realising it. (The figure of the married hunk is a pitiful one; he is by far the most directionless, tw0-dimensional, easily-led character in the movie). So the murders and explanations are simply 'events' to stage the real film around: Bates scrubs ineffectually at the blood on the tacky plastic bath panel; his neck is gruesomely exposed as Arbogast asks to see the handwriting sample. The dread-ful and fore-boding, fuelled with a painful-to-watch psychical unravelling. Almost too good, even now. Shame on Gus Van Sant!
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