Eroica and Beethoven

The Eroica Symphony and Pop Culture
The Eroica-Napoleon link is recognized even today. Peter Conrad discussed Alfred Hitchcock's subconscious use of the symphony in his movie Psycho:

"In Hitchcock's films, the most innocuous object can rear up threateningly. What could possibly be sinister about the record of Beethoven's Eroica, which Vera Miles finds on a gramophone turntable during her investigation of the Bates house? At the age of 13, I had no idea - though I felt an unmistakable chill when the camera peered into the gaping box to read the label of the silent disc. Now I think I know the answer. The symphony summarizes [sic] one abiding undercurrent of Hitchcock's work. It is about Napoleon, a man who - like many of Hitchcock's psychopaths - set himself up as a god, and it includes a funeral march for the toppled idol. It first rejoices in the hero's freedom from moral inhibitions, then recoils in dismay. Truffaut, detecting unease beneath the joviality of The Trouble with Harry, suggested that Hitchcock's films were afflicted by the mood Blaise Pascal analyzed [sic] - "the sadness of a world deprived of God".