"embezzler" - 1 õppematerjal

Christopher Vogler The Writers Journey

168  T H E ORDEAL T h e wicked stepmothers and queens of the Grimms' fairy tales were, in the original versions, mothers whose love turned deadly. GOING P S Y C H O One of the most disturbing and subversive uses o f the Supreme Ordeal is in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. T h e audience is made to identify and sympathize with M a r i o n (Janet Leigh), even though she is an embezzler on the run. T h r o u g h the first half of Act Two, there is no one else to identify with except the drippy innkeeper, N o r m a n Bates (Anthony Perkins), and no audience wants to identify with h i m — he's weird. In a conventional film, the hero always survives the Ordeal and lives to see the villain defeated in the climax. It's unimaginable that a star like Janet Leigh, an immortal heroine of the screen, will be sacrificed at the midpoint. But Hitchcock does the