The Manipulation of Sympathy in Parasite and Us.
In his movie Psycho, Hitchcock famously had Marion Crane, played by the movie’s biggest star Janet Leigh, murdered in the first third of the film. The audience was given a point of entry through a protagonist and then she was eliminated with two thirds of the film left to go. Through careful manipulation Hitchcock managed to attach the audience’s now untethered sympathy to the boy-like innocence of Norman Bates.
