Warping Time

Time loses meaning and importance as the film moves forward. Psycho-time is immediately subjective: for Marion, it takes an entire day/night to drive one state over, from Phoenix, Nevada to Fairvale, California; Marion Crane can hear Monday’s conversations between her boss, Cassidy, and Caroline (the secretary) on what the audience interprets be Saturday night, and according to Arbogast (in conversation with Norman) "a few weeks now" have passed between Marion’s murder and his arrival at the Bates Motel. His dialogue will later confuse this assertion as he will recount to Lila that Marion spent the night at the motel "last Saturday." Without time as a stabilizing element, the audience is kept attune to important diegetic revelations.

Past skeletons dictate characters actions in this film, not present motivations or future desires. Sam cannot legitimize his relationship with Marion because he has to pay his fathers debts and alimony from his failed marriage. Marion, whom the film tells us little about (but the novel tells us that she was once her mothe's caretaker, a position which made her feel more like an old maid than a young woman), steals the $40,000 not to solve any immediate problem of hers, but to rectify Sam’s past issues. Norman cannot hope for a sexual and unrepressed future with Marion because his attachment to mother kills her. Lila does not pursue Marion with the intent to clear her sister’s name, but to discover where she has been for “a few weeks now.” The fact that this film codes the influence of the past as so much stronger than that of the present removes any hope that the characters shadowboxing before us will have any real effect on the outcome of the narrative, and the extent to which they are chastised, even down to Norman’s incarceration (Wood 143).