“Psycho” (1960)

Screenplay by Joseph Stefano based on a novel by Robert Bloch.

For most of my life, my telephone was listed under the name

Norman Bates. It stared as a joke on PacBell... When I first moved out
of my parents house at 18, I had a roommate - a guy I worked with at
the movie theater. The apartment building was a converted motel on
the very edge of Walnut Creek, CA - and looked a little like the Bates
Motel. A year later when I moved into my own place in Concord, I got
my own phone - and thought I’d try to pull one over on PacBell by
claiming my name was Norman Bates and that I was in college
studying Hotel & Motel Management. I figured they’d reject it - but
they did *zero* credit checks back then. They were the only game in
town, so if you didn’t pay your phone bill... well, you didn’t have a
phone. There were no other phone companies to go to, no cellular,
nothing. So when the new phone book came out, I was like Navin
Johnson flipping through to see if my name was listed... well,
Norman’s was! Every time I moved, I expected PacBell to figure it out
and yank my phone. They never did. When I moved to Los An.geles, I
was sure the game was over... but they asked me if I had graduated
college and asked if I was working in the Hotel & Motel industry. I
said “Yes” and kept Norman Bates as my phone listing... Until a
couple of years ago when I moved a couple of blocks down the street
into a building that was wired by Sprint - and *they* caught me. So, if
you forget my number, you can no longer just ask information for
Norman Bates.

Most people identify Hitchcock with “Psycho” - even though it is

nothing like any of his other films. I think it’s probably the
combination of Hitchcock becoming very famous from his popular TV
show... and “Psycho” being his biggest hit ever (which really says
something - his first US film, “Rebecca”, won Best Picture Oscar back
in 1940). At the time, low budget horror films made by people like
William Castle and Roger Corman were popular, and Hitchcock
thought it would be fun to make one. The plan was to make it cheap,
using the crew from his TV show between seasons and the backlot at
Universal. I believe he also used his own money - and kept the budget
under $1 million. The film was based on a best seller by Robert Bloch
(who, along with Richard Matheson, is one of the great horror
novelists) and I believe they spent $100k for the rights (10% of the
budget!). Screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who created “The Outer
Limits” TV show...

Maybe you’ve seen that wonderful completely fictitious movie

“Hitchcock” with Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren and think you
know the backstory on “Psycho” and it’s screenwriter... but they
fudged the facts! The movie makes Joseph Stefano look like a lunatic
who just got lucky and ended up writing a Hitchcock movie. Well,
Stefano was not the first writer on the film, that was James Cavanagh
who wrote one of my favorite “Hitchcock Presents” episodes “One
More Mile To Go”. Just like Hollywood now, there are usually a bunch
of “ghost credits” on older films: people who worked on the film
uncredited. Stefano replaced Cavanagh (and maybe some other
writers) and wasn’t some lucky new guy, he’d written a Sophia Loren,
Anthony Quinn movie directed by Martin Ritt two years *before*
“Psycho”. And he wasn’t rewritten by Hitch and Alma, though they
probably gave him notes as all directors do. Oh, and *Stefano* was the
one who went to the ratings board to fight, Hitch sent him so that he
wouldn’t have to waste time getting the story notes from the censors
and then passing those notes on to the writer. Cut out the middle man
and just send the writer! The amusing thing about the way “Hitchcock”
was fictionalized is that they removed the *real* drama of trying to
make a film on a tight budget and schedule and replaced it with a
bunch of false drama they thought would be more interesting to a
general audience. But the draw of this film was to see behind the
scenes of making “Psycho”, and that’s not a mainstream audience to
begin with. Should have just stuck with the truth! I’m not going to
spend any more time on the film, but it you are interested on what
*really* happened read the book the film is based on: Stephen
Rebello’s “Making Of Psycho”.

Hitchcock loved to experiment in movies. He understood the

medium like nobody before or after him, but wasn’t satisfied to just
make a movie using that knowledge... instead, he was always pushing.
Finding new ways to do things. Attempting things that had never been
done before. The novel “Psycho” does some things that work fine in a
novel, but don’t work at all in a movie. The solution to the main
problem may have been solved by Hitchcock or Stefano or both
working together - but it’s a very successful experiment in strange
storytelling.

“Psycho” switches protagonists a couple of times. That’s easy to do

in a novel, but in a movie the audience *becomes* the protagonist for
two hours, so swapping characters usually just loses audience
identification completely. Hollywood is littered with movies that tried
this and failed, and landfills are filled with screenplays that tried it and
failed. So lets take a look at how they cracked the Serial Protagonist
Experiment in “Psycho”....

Nutshell: “Psycho” opens with location and date and time - almost
documentary style. The film is shot in black and white in a time when
most films were shot in color. The B&W was an artistic choice - to
make it look more “real” (and probably to deal with censorship issues
regarding all of that blood) . Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and Sam
Loomis (John Gavin) are in a cheap hotel, post sex. She’s in white bra
and white slip. They are not married - but sleeping together. This was
1960 - when you couldn’t do things like that on film. Sam is divorced
and broke - living in the back room of his dead father’s hardware
store... can’t afford to get married. Marion is too old to still be single.
They need to find some money so they can live happily ever after, but
this is the real world.

One of the things I love about old movies is that they often had to
find ways to talk about sex, without alarming the censors. This lead to
clever dialogue. Here we get Marion talking about licking Sam’s
stamps... and can’t help but think about other things she might lick. It’s
like a discussion of oral sex!

After the “nooner”, Marion returns to the Real Estate office where
she works. A wealthy old client completely hits on her - nothing subtle
about it - while brandishing a few bundles of hundreds he’s using to
buy a house for his 19 year-old daughter. She’s getting married, his
wedding gift is a house, he’s paying *cash*. Marion’s boss tells her to
take the money to the bank right away - he doesn’t want that kind of
money in the office safe. Marion takes the money... home with her.

Marion, black bra and black slip (bad girl) packs suitcases at her
apartment... finally packing the big bundles of money in her purse. She
gets in her car and drives to Sam’s place... but gets tired and stops at
the Bates Motel for the night. With this much money, she can pay off
Sam’s debts and they can live happily ever after. Though she’s
stealing, we completely understand it, and the horn-dog rich guy kinda
deserves to get ripped off. Why should his spoiled 19 year-old
daughter get a free house, when Marion and Sam are working hard just
to live on the edge of poverty?

Serial Protagonists Experiment: At the Bates Motel Hitchcock

and Stefano find the key to the protagonist switch experiment... and
the key to using a Serial Protagonist that would later be used
successfully in “The Place Beyond The Pines”. In the novel, Norman
is a fat, nasty, hick. In the film, Norman (Tony Perkins) is a fragile
young man with too many responsibilities, trapped in a life he doesn’t
deserve. We feel sorry for Norman. After Marion checks in, Norman
invites her to dinner up at the house... but Marion overhears Norman’s
mother yelling at him - verbally abusing him - belittling him - for
inviting a strange woman to the house. Marion is eves-dropping, and
knows she shouldn’t be listening to a private conversation... but does
anyway.
 Later, Norman brings sandwiches and milk down from the house,
and has dinner with Marion in his parlor behind the office. Here is
where the baton is passed from one protagonist to the next, and it’s a
brilliant scene. Norman and Marion talk about being trapped in their
lives - and we find out that poor Norman has been stuck in this motel
his entire life - taking care of his mother. He has no life outside the
motel. His mother is demanding and abusive... and a little crazy, but he
can’t just abandon her. He can’t afford to send her to a private
sanitarium, and the State run facilities are, well, looney bins - he can’t
send his mother to someplace like that. Norman is trapped in his life...
and we feel sorry for him. We wish he could find some way out of this
trap.

At the end of this scene, we don’t leave with Marion (whom we

entered the scene with)... we leave with *Norman*. Norman has
become our new protagonist. Before she leaves, Marion hints that
she’s going to drive back home and return the money - probably
resolving *her* plot problem. But Norman still has a problem - his
abusive mother - and we’re gonna stick around and see how he escapes
*his* trap. The baton has been passed! We have a scene with our old
protagonist and our new protagonist where our allegiance is transferred
from one to the other.

And that is the key to the serial protagonist: the baton must be
passed in a scene between the two characters, and both characters must
be sympathetic to the viewer.

The same thing happens in “The Place Beyond The Pines”, when
Gossling’s robbery has gone wrong he has become less sympathetic,
and we are able to transfer allegiance to Cooper during the chase and
siege scenes. This is the tricky part - finding the scene that allows the
audience to move from one character to another without rejection.

“Pines”, like “Psycho”, does a third baton pass to Cooper’s

teenaged son years later... whose best friend is Gossling’s son! The two
boys have no idea their fathers had any sort of connection. Again, this
baton hand off from one protagonist to the next is done in a scene
where both old and new protagonists are present and we move from
one to the other. “Psycho” is a little bit tricky, here - it passes the baton
from Norman *through* the private detective Arbogast to Sam Loomis
and Lilly (Marion’s sister) in a phone call. And much like “Place
Beyond The Pines” that last baton pass is to two characters who are
connected to those in our first segment. Sam and Lilly both go to
investigate the Bates Motel together, just as the two sons become
friends in “Place Beyond The Pines”. Our third act has co-
protagonists.

The “baton pass” is the key to serial protagonist. Also - these are
*serial protagonist* - at no time do we ever have two simultaneous
protagonist (except during the hand off scene). Once the baton has
been handed off, that’s it - we no longer sympathize with Marion’s
character, we are now with Norman. Norman is the character with the
overbearing mother problems... Marion’s problems are solved.

Here’s a transcript of part of the “baton pass” scene where Marion

and Norman eat sandwiches in the back room:

Norman:
"You eat like a bird".

Marion:
(Looking at the stuffed birds in his den)
"You'd know, of course."

Norman:
"No, not really... I don't really know anything about birds. My
hobby is stuffing things. You know, taxidermy. And I guess I'd rather
stuff birds because I hate the look of beasts when they're stuffed. You
know, foxes and chimps... Only birds look well stuffed because - well,
they're passive to begin with."

Marion:
 “It's a strange hobby. Curious.”

Norman:
“Uncommon, too.”

Marion:
“Oh, I imagine so!”

Norman:
“And it's not as expensive as you might think. It's cheap, really.
You know, needles, thread, sawdust. The chemicals are the only thing
that costs anything.”

Marion:
“A man should have a hobby.”

Norman:
“It's more than a hobby...”

Marion:
“Do you go out with friends?”

Norman:
(resigned)
“A boy's best friend is his mother... Where are you going?”

Marion:
“I'm looking for a private island.”

Norman:
“... I think we're all in our private traps. Clamped in them. And
none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the
air. Only at each other. And for all of it, we never budge an inch.”

Marion:
“Sometimes we deliberately step into those traps.”
 Norman:
“I was born in mine.”

As these two strangers come closer together and we see the

similarities between them, we switch protagonists. Marion says she
made her own trap, but Norman was born into his... which is more
sympathetic.

Out With The Old Protagonist: Just as Marion eves-dropped on

Norman, Norman pulls back a painting, uncovering a peephole in the
wall, and spies on Marion as she undresses for a shower. But just as
she gets down to bra and slip, Norman turns away. Covers the
peephole with the painting. There’s something almost innocent about
this - he’s a lonely, virgin man... he will spy on a girl in her bra, but
seeing her naked is taking it too far. Strange as this seems, when he
turns away and replaces the painting, we kind of admire his restraint.
And we couldn’t have that admiration unless he was peeping in the
first place. It’s like Marion wanting to return he stolen money.

And everything would be happily ever after except for Norman’s

mom....

Because she’s afraid that a woman like Marion might lure her son
away... and then she’d have no one to take care of her (and no one to
verbally abuse). So, she does what any mother in the same position
would do... she brutally kills Marion. Now, poor Norman must clean
up the mess - blood all over room #1s bathroom, a dead naked woman,
her car, her belongings. Norman must get rid of all of it before anyone
discovers what his mother has done and puts her in the looney bin.

And our protagonist swap is complete.

Great Scenes: No shortage of great scenes in “Psycho” - this is the

movie that made people afraid to shower alone. But before we get to
the shower scene, there are a couple of other scenes that deserve
mentioning...

Driving Out Of Town: As Marion is driving out of town with a

purse full of stolen money, she stops at a light, and crossing the
street.... her boss! She’s supposed to be at the bank! He sees her - they
lock eyes - then he finishes crossing, the light changes, and she tears
out of there. This scene would be repeated in “Pulp Fiction”, in the
story written by Roger Avary starring the Bruce Willis with Ving
Rhames crossing the street.

Non Voice Over Voice Over Experiment: As Marion drives, we

get an interesting variation on Voice Over Narration. Instead of Marion
*telling us* what she thinks and fears with narration, we get
*dramatic* Voice Over of what Marion imagines other characters will
say when they discover she’s stolen the money. What will Sam say?
What will her boss say... and do? What about the wealthy old guy she
stole from? As these voices rattle around inside her head, we get
*drama* instead of an exposition dump. This is an interesting method
for turning internal monologue into something we can hear.

Usually we get the character speaking to themselves, which is not

only undramatic, but “second hand”. The character talks to themselves
about what others might be thinking or saying, or what *they* might
be thinking or reacting. But in “Psycho” Stefano gives us the other
character’s voices as the bounce around in Marion’s mind. It’s a
*conversation* rather than a *monologue*. A dramatic scene instead
of a static one.

Knocking On The Window: Marion is exhausted, pulls to the side

of the road for a nap... and wakes up with a Highway Patrolman
pounding on her window.... and the money in her purse. He wants to
see her license (also in her purse - under all of the bundles of money)
and she just wants to get the hell out of there. This is a great suspense
scene built around the bundles of money in her purse - she can’t let
him see them! It uses the confines of the car’s interior to create some
claustrophobia and a feeling of being trapped, with that Highway
Patrolman right over hr shoulder peering through the window. Will he
spot the bundle of money?

With a suspense scene like this you want to draw it out, to milk it
for all of it’s potential suspense. Hitchcock makes finding the license
and registration difficult, it’s at the bottom of her handbag, and that
means *more time* with that nosey Highway Patrolman looking over
her shoulder... maybe seeing the bundle of stolen money. After the
Highway Patrolman lets her go, he follows her...

High Pressure Car Sales: I have this thing I call The Rule Of The
Logical Opposite - the idea is to do the exact opposite of what the
audience expects in a scene, but make sure it’s still 100% logical.
Many stories end up with scenes we’ve seen before, and that makes for
a dull film. What you want to do is find the version of the scene that is
fresh and new... and one way to do that is to subvert the audience’s
expectations. Do the opposite of what we expect to see, but still have it
make sense.

Marion is afraid the Highway Patrolman will remember her car, so

she decides to go to a used car lot and trade it for another used car. We
are used to seeing a used car salesman high pressure a potential
customer, trying to close a deal. That is what the audience expects in a
scene like this.... but we get the opposite. Marion high pressures the
car salesman trying to quickly close the deal... and this makes the
scene different and interesting. It also makes the car salesman
suspicious.

Add to that - when Marion isn’t looking, the Highway Patrolman

spots her, pulls across the street from the car lot, and watches the entire
transaction take place. She doesn’t know he’s there - we do. That’s
called “audience superiority” or “dramatic irony” and it’s a great way
to build suspense. You just want to yell at the screen, “The cop is right
across the street! Get out of there!” but she can’t hear you.
 Next Marion gets stuck in the rain, with Bernard Herrmann’s score
keeping time with the wiper blades, and decides to pull off the road at
the first motel she comes to... a mistake. We have that great baton pass
scene and Norman is now the audience’s identification character, he
spies on her as she had spied on him... but looks away when she’s
undressing and replaces the picture to cover the peephole. Because the
audience is the ultimate voyeur, we continue watching...

Shower Scene: Once Marion steps into the shower - where she is
naked and vulnerable - Norman’s mother attacks her with a very sharp
knife. Slashing her. Killing her. And here’s where Hitchcock’s amazing
control over angle and composition and everything else comes into
play. There are 70 shots in the shower scene... and the censors were
sure that they had seen Janet Leigh naked (both breasts) and that they
had seen the knife actually penetrate the body. In fact, when you see
this scene, you will think you see those things, too. Especially the
knife entering the flesh - everybody sees that. It’s right there, on the
screen. I saw “Psycho” on the big screen a couple of years ago - some
anniversary - and that knife cuts through skin. Except, it doesn’t. There
are no breasts shown, and the knife *never even touches* the skin.
Everything you *think* you see is created by selecting specific angles,
movements, framing, juxtaposition of images. It’s the Kuleshov
Experiment all over again - by juxtaposing specific images, you can
make the audience see things that are not there. Here, we think we’ve
seen a brutal murder - but the knife never touches the body.

The Clean Up: After Norman’s mother kills Marion, Norman is

stuck cleaning up the mess. And that’s just not fair. She’s abusive,
she’s ruined his life, and now she’s killed Marion and left Norman to
do the clean up. We get a great, messy, clean up scene - that will later
be plucked by the Coen Brothers for “Blood Simple” (another
character stuck cleaning up the mess after someone he loves commits
murder).
 By the way, “Psycho” is the first Hollywood movie to show a
*toilet* in the bathroom. Before this film, every single bathroom in the
movies had no toilet! This clean up sequence ends with a great bit -
sinking Marion’s car (with her corpse and belongings - including the
money - inside). At this point we care about Norman, and don’t want
him to have to pay the price for this murder his mother has done. So
when the car *stops* sinking in the swamp, we gasp - what if it
doesn’t sink? What if it’s just stuck in the swamp like that, where
everyone can see it? Because, at this point, we care about Norman and
don’t want to see him get in trouble for something his crazy jealous
mother did, we want that car to sink! And eventually it does - after
drawing out the tension to the breaking point.

Arbogast’s Death: Sam and Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) hire
private eye Arbogast (Martin Balsam) to find Marion... which means
he’s poking around the Bates Motel. The great thing here is that
Norman is still our protagonist at this point, so we worry that Arbogast
will uncover some clue to Marion’s murder and this will ruin
Norman’s life. The entire time Arbogast is interrogating Norman, we
are hoping he finds nothing... but Norman keeps slipping and Arbogast
keeps hounding and soon we fear that Arbogast suspects something
happened to Marion at the motel. There’s a great bit with the motel
register - evidence that Marion was there - which Norman wants to
hide and Arbogast wants to look at. Creating suspense. It’s strange,
because we are not on the “cop’s side” we are on the “criminal’s side”
in this scene. We really don’t want poor Norman to get into any more
trouble - his life is already hell.

Arbogast breaks into the Bates House to question Norman’s

mother... and this creates a great conflict in the audience. Because we
don’t want any more trouble for poor Norman, but we also worry
about what mother might do if Arbogast finds her. So we are afraid for
Norman *and* afraid for Arbogast. This is an element of the final
baton pass. Just as Norman and Marion found common ground,
Norman and Arbogast (the surrogate for our final pair of protagonists)
end up on common ground. The audience worries for *both* of them
at the same time.

We get a great suspense stair climb as he searches for Mrs. Bates,

ending with a high overhead that makes us feel like Arbogast is a
victim even before mom rushes out of her bedroom with a knife and
slashes ay his face and body a dozen times. Arbogast then falls down
stairs - but doesn’t tumble. It’s a great shot where he just falls
backwards until he reaches the floor... then Norman’s mother stabs him
again and again... leaving Norman another mess to clean up.

Lila Meets Norman’s Mother: You know, there are only so many
murders you can cover up for your mom before you begin to lose
sympathy with the audience. After Arbogast’s murder we begin to
think Norman would be better off if his mom *was* in the state run
looney bin. Yes, it’s his mother - and none of us want bad things to
happen to our mothers... but she’s freakin’ crazy! Norman would be
better off with her in the looney bin. This covering up thing has got to
stop!

Which is why this is the perfect place to pass the protagonist baton
once again. We already know Sam Loomis, we know he’s trapped
living in that little room behind his father’s hardware store, trying to
pay off his father’s debts. So he becomes our new protagonist... with
Lila Crane as his helper/co protagonist. This is an interesting baton
pass because Arbogast connects to Sam and Lila through a phone call
right before he climbs those stairs to his death. Up until that point we
didn’t know who he was working for so he could remain an antagonist
to poor Norman. After the phone call we know that he is working for
the fiancé and sister of our first victim, so he becomes more
sympathetic. He has been prepped for the baton pass.

By the way, think about Norman and his mother, Sam and his
father, the wealthy old guy and his daughter, Marion and her dead
mother’s picture (talked about in the opening scene), the other girl at
the Real Estate office and her nosey mother, and all of the other
parents & children paired up in this film. Things like this are not an
accident. Screenwriters often have a motif that carries through the
story or a theme the story is exploring. The other girl at the Real Estate
office could have had a nosey *room mate* or a nosey *sister*, but
“Psycho” is exploring the relationships between adult children who are
haunted by their parents , be they dead or alive. All of the characters
are living in the shadows of their parents... or *creating* those
shadows like the wealthy old guy. When you are watching movies,
look for character connections or similarities that cover most of the
cast.

So Sam and Lila set out for the Bates Motel to find out what
happened to Marion and Arbogast. They check into a room together as
a couple (hey, did Sam nail both sisters?) and while Sam keeps
Norman busy, Lila breaks into the Bates house to talk to Mrs. Bates.
That phone call from Arbogast was about him going to the house to
question the mother, so they are continuing this action.

Miss Direction: Now, by this time we’ve had a great reveal *plus*
a great bit of misdirection. Sam and Lila have gone to the local Sheriff
(John McIntire) and told him everything... and he reveals that Mrs.
Bates died ten years ago. Wait! If she’s dead, who killed Marion and
Arbogast? When Sam *insists* that Arbogast has seem Mrs. Bates
(and Sam has, too), the Sheriff says, “If the woman in the window is
Mrs. Bates, whose body is buried in Greenlawn cemetery?” Did crazy
Mrs. Bates find some way to fake her own death? Is there another
murder victim besides Marion and Arbogast? How long has this been
going on? The great thing about the Sheriff’s dialogue is that he tells
us Norman’s mother is dead, then gives us an alternative possibility to
keep us from figuring out the truth. Audiences always try to guess
what will happen next, so a good story gives them some good
alternatives to what is about to happen in order to create misdirection.
The writer is a magician who knows exactly how the “trick” works,
they have to! But to keep the audience from knowing, they do those
hand flourishes and show that there is nothing up their sleeves... and
set the trick in motion while the audience is distracted.
 So when Lila climbs those stairs, just as Arbogast did, we wonder
what she’ll find - and who. She enters Mrs. Bates bedroom - and
someone is living there. The closet is filled with clothes, make up is set
out on the vanity... and there’s an indentation in the bed. A *deep*
indentation. But no mother. Norman’s bedroom is a child’s room -
complete with stuffed animals and a kid’s bed. It’s like he’s living as a
child. But no sign of mother - we keep waiting for her to burst out of a
closet and attack... but it doesn’t happen.

When Lila tries to leave, Norman enters the house! Lila hides
under the stairs as Norman goes upstairs... and that’s when she notices
the fruit cellar door, and descends... and meets Norman’s mother in the
big shock scene... a mummy! You know, in the scene between Norman
and Marion at the beginning of the movie Norman says his hobby is
taxidermy - completely setting this up!

Then Lila meets Norman’s mother *again* - this time with a knife,
and we find out that Norman *is* his mother. Sam grabs
Norman/Mother before he can kill Lila... and then we get that hellishly
long scene with Simon Oakland as the shrink explaining why Norman
was dressed in his mother’s clothes. Hitchcock has said the reason for
that scene was to allow the audience time to calm down, but I think a
major part of it was that transvestites hadn’t really been seen on screen
before and those hicks in the sticks needed a full explanation in order
to understand. Add in that both Hitchcock and Sefano were interested
in psychology and psychiatry (we’ll look at “Spellbound” in a later
chapter), and you have a very long scene that really doesn’t work
today. A huge exposition dump... at the end of the movie!

Don’t miss two things at the end: Ted Knight (“Caddyshack”,

“Mary Tyler Moore Show”) as the cop guarding Norman’s cell, and the
subliminal skull superimposed over Norman’s face.

Hitch Appearance: Outside the Real Estate Office - you can see
him through the window.
 Bird Appearance: Lots of stuffed dead ones in Norman’s parlor.

Hitch Stock Company: His daughter Pat is the other girl at the
Real Estate office.

Sound Track: Great Bernard Herrmann score! Not only is the

music in time to the windshield wipers of Marion Crane’s car, the
“stings” in the shower scene are probably the first time anything like
that was done. Now we *expect* stings in a horror film, but no one
had done that in a movie before. By the way, the Herrmann score is
100% strings - also kind of weird.

“Psycho” was a ground breaking horror movie, and Norman Bates

is the Hamlet of the horror genre - a young man we feel sorry for...
even after the final twist is revealed. But the film is also a great
experiment in serial protagonists and how to pass the baton from one
character to the next without losing audience identification. A method
that a movie like “A Place Beyond The Pines” uses even today. But
what if you have multiple stories instead of multiple protagonists?

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