Psycho and the Death of God

Entertainment Weekly online currently features an essay that looks back at the mystique of Psycho in light of the new film Hitchcock. The essay includes this gem:

Why it really is about the death of God. Like just about all the greatest movies, Psycho works on the level of myth. It starts out as a faintly chintzy morality play in which Marion Crane, though she made a big mistake, will presumably be chastened, redeemed, protected, and rewarded by a universe that saves those who save themselves. It turns into a movie in which no one — not even a sinner who repents — will be saved. And that, for the first time in Hollywood, is a truly godless world. Psycho cleaves the 20th century in half: It turns order into madness, ushering us into a new way of seeing, of being.

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