Scopophilia - the pleasure of looking. On several occasions in Psycho, Hitchcock indulges our desire to watch, e.g. Marion packing to leave town or Norman cleaning the bathroom of blood. When Brody is watching the bathers on the beach, there is also a sense of scopophilia.
Voyeur (voyeurism or voyeuristic) - spying on someone, usually for sexual pleasure. In Psycho, Norman spies on Marion through a peep hole.
Male Gaze - a theory that women are sexualised in the media for male pleasure. We see Marion on two occasions in her underwear and also see her undress before showering, where once again we are privileged to see an intimate act.
Privileged - when the spectator experiences a view, feelings, emotions or knowledge that goes beyond simply observing or is allowed to see or hear things that makes the spectator more knowledgable than characters in the film. For example, in Psycho the spectator is privileged to hear Marion's thoughts when she is driving.
Positioned - where the spectator feels placed within the scene. Often films 'distance' us from the action, but sometimes our positioning makes us feel physically involved. For example in City of God, we feel part of the crowd during 'Benny's Farewell'. When Marion lies dead on the bathroom floor in Psycho, the spectator is positioned uncomfortably close to her, our eyes staring into hers as if our head is also resting on the tiled floor. We can also be 'positioned' in terms of our feelings towards a character. The film-makers manipulate our feelings so that they put us in in a particular emotional 'position'.
Aligned - Sometimes our relationship becomes so close to a character that we feel 'at one with them' - we see and feel things in the same way as the character. A film-maker may achieve this by allowing us to experience things that the character does, e.g. Hitchcock allows us to hear Marion's thoughts and later we watch her through the peep hole as if we are Norman. Alignment is a further development from identifying and/or empathising with the character. Increasingly, we become aligned with Marion as circumstances threaten to uncover her crime; a crime that we want her to get away with. Later, we feel the same way about Norman's crime (see below). So, alignment also requires our emotional involvement with a character.
Interpellation - when we are interpellated by a film, we have submitted to its mechanisms and are effectively under its thrall (control). This means that the ideological messages of the film will be absorbed freely and without critical resistance. If we are interpellated with a character, we effectively become that character, our personal feelings and concerns from our own life being replaced with theirs. So when Norman anxiously watches the semi-submerged pause on its journey to the bottom of the swamp, our heart rate increases and we feel 'butterflies' in our stomachs - effectively, in that moment, the character and spectator have become one.
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