Psycho: A study of adaptation from novel to film to contemporary television

My thesis is an exploration of adaptation theory in media, focusing on the changes in the portrayal of the Psycho story through its adaptation from novel to film to television series. My goal is to show adaptation as a process of change and reinterpretation of a familiar artwork when portraying it in another medium, and that adaptations have the potential to improve on or derive from their source material. This contrasts with traditional thinking in the field of adaptation which emphasises fidelity to the original ‘text’ and consequently inhibits adaptions to be viewed as either superior to their source or as works in their own right.

Chapter one will introduce the novel Psycho (1959) by Robert Bloch and explore the story’s varying inspirations. Chapter two will address the acclaimed film Psycho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock as an overall faithful adaptation of Bloch’s novel. I will discuss the changes made in the film to visually portray the literary source, which became a more popular portrayal of the story that would inspire future adaptations. Chapter three will discuss the final season of the recent television series Bates Motel (2017), which used Hitchcock’s film as a point of departure to portray an unconventional adaptation of Psycho in a contemporary setting by changing the story to suit the format of a television series. This demonstrates the potential for adaptations to change and derive from their source material in other mediums to also exist as autonomous works of art.