MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Watching the Remake with an Open Mind

Watching the Remake with an Open Mind

posted 7 years ago by Ray (33)
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Perhaps not many people could say that they saw the Gus Van Sant's remake BEFORE they ever watched the original. Even less people would tell you they sat down to watch the 1998 film knowing NOTHING about Psycho. Well, guess what, I'm one of those people who actually saw the remake first while knowing nothing about the Psycho phenomenon or its plot or its legendary shocks and twists. Let me tell you a little bit about that viewing experience.

In 1998, I was still a kid who only recently started taking interest in cinema. My absolute favorites at the time were Brian de Palma's "hitchcockian" thrillers, namely Dressed to Kill, Carrie and Blow Out. Especially Dressed to Kill, which, as I've heard at the time, was an homage to the greatest Hitchcock's film called Psycho.

Naturally I got curious to see that movie since anything "hitchcockian" became synonymous with "good cinema" to me. I was dying to see what an actual Hitchcock's film was like. To tell you the truth, there were only two things I knew about Psycho prior to seeing it: 1) I knew there was some horror; 2) and I knew there was a certain scene where a woman was getting attacked while taking a shower.

At the time I was living in a small town and was unable to find a copy of Psycho right away. One day while looking at the shelves at my local video store I came across something strange: it was a film called Psycho -- but it was a new film. The VHS cover featured an over-the-top image that you all know featuring the hand, the blood and the shower curtain. So I figured, even though it's not a Hitchcock's film, it's certainly "hitchcockian". I'll give it a go!

The adventures of Anne Heche (I just can't call her Marion Crane) didn't seem exciting from the very start. They were dull and simply unconvincing. She didn't seem unhappy and desperate to start a new life AT ALL. She looked perfectly fine with her life. In the opening scene with Viggo Mortensen it seemed as if she was barely interested in continuing a relationship with him, let alone marry him. And the next thing we know, she steals forty thousand dollars for him? Give me a break.

This "private trap" that she deliberately stepped into just didn't look like a trap -- more like a pointless adventure she embarked on purely to spice up her life. As a result, her character was completely unappealing and uninteresting to me -- I wasn't able to sympathise with her whatsoever, or at least understand her motives. Throughout her stupid adventure she looked like she was actually ENJOYING this ordeal that she put herself through. And then she went to take a shower...

I had no idea what the shower scene would be like, how it would play out, who would attack her and how, what weapon would be used, etc. But the moment that ridiculously grotesque figure opened the shower curtain I couldn't really take this scene very seriously. Thankfully Anne Heche's character was now dead, so hopefully we were about to focus on some more interesting characters? Of course not. All we had was Vince Vaughn in an annoying attempt to look mentally disturbed. And one-dimensional supporting characters. The worst moment of this whole film is the image of Vince Vaughn in a dress -- and the preceding shot of a spider crawling over the Mother's skull. This is just camp at its laziest.

Some time later I watched the original film and was blown away by just how great (and different from the remake) it was. The most amazing thing is how Marion played by Leigh and Marion played by Heche are two completely different characters, even though they have the same lines and take the same actions. After seeing the original, the color scheme of the 1998 version started to look simply inappropriate to me. Those excessive colors only make the movie look even more artificial. So many little things in the remake seem uncalled for: from Heche's red nail polish -- to her stupid orange umbrella that she bothers using to protect her skin from the sunlight while she's meant to be distressed running from authorities; from the ultra-fancy shower curtain and showerhead (in a cheap motel) to Julianne Moore's yellow headphones. The most random little thing is probably the Mother's long fingernail in the shower scene -- you can see it when the knife is "stabbing the screen".

The unusual narrative of Psycho -- I mean the unexpected switch of a main character -- which is so effective in the original film, is completelely useless in the remake, because both of the main characters are completely dull.

So that's what is was like watching the 1998 version with a completely open mind. It's rather mediocre if you haven't seen the original -- and it's painfully terrible if you're familiar with Hitchcock's masterpiece. No surprises here, right?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

What particularly interests me about your analysis of "how Psycho played" for you in 1998 is how Anne Heche's portrayal of Marion Crane rendered not only the Marion Crane scenes BEFORE the shower scene, but the SHOWER SCENE itself...very "un-powerful" given how important these scenes were in 1960....largely due to Janet Leigh's performance leading up to the shower scene.

I've always felt that the Heche performance most pales before the Leigh performance on the reading of this line:

"Sam...let's get married!"

In Leigh's reading, it is a sudden outburst of desperate begging...very "1960" perhaps -- but emotional and painful. Marion Crane is around 30, unmarried, poor and "at the end of her rope'(Stefano's term.) Getting married is a big deal to her. (And it if is not such a big deal to women in 1998 -- maybe Psycho should not be made in 1998.)

In Heche's reading, the line is almost playful as if she is saying this:

"C'mon, Sam, what the hell, let's get married, whaddya say, huh?" And when Sam declines, Marion moves on. No big deal.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I had no idea what the shower scene would be like, how it would play out, who would attack her and how, what weapon would be used, etc. But the moment that ridiculously grotesque figure opened the shower curtain I couldn't really take this scene very seriously.

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Intriguing. What I would add here is that by now you had seen "Dressed to Kill" -- with its VERY bloody central elevator slashing -- and the first-time-ever shockeroo of Hitchcock's 1960 shower scene simply could not have the same impact as re-staged in 1998. (This problem applied to all viewers of the 1998 version I think...the Van Sant shower scene is like the 500th slasher kill in movies; the Hitchcock shower scene was the FIRST.)

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Thankfully Anne Heche's character was now dead, so hopefully we were about to focus on some more interesting characters? Of course not.

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The second-half characters of Psycho have long gotten no respect -- not even in the 1960 version, and not by Hitchcock himself("they were mere figures" to advance the mystery, he said.)

The two exceptions to this have been found to be Norman(who is played the film's top-billed star, Anthony Perkins, and who appears in Part One with Marion) and Arbogast (who is a classic supporting character guy with one-liners and attitude, but who dies too soon.) Alas, in the 1998 version, Vince Vaughn can't carry Norman believably at all, and William H. Macy as Arbogast is an interesting actor, but totally miscast as a tough guy. (Not with THAT voice; not with THAT face; not with THAT body.)

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All we had was Vince Vaughn in an annoying attempt to look mentally disturbed. And one-dimensional supporting characters. The worst moment of this whole film is the image of Vince Vaughn in a dress -- and the preceding shot of a spider crawling over the Mother's skull.

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And out of her mouth. THAT was a bit creepy to me, I accepted the addition of this, which wasn't in Hitchcock's version.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

This is just camp at its laziest.

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Perhaps. I am uneducated on the concept, but is not "camp" a subdivision of gay-themed presentation?

I am reminded that Van Sant was/is openly gay, and that he seemed ready to add some gay elements to a story which, certainly, had been about a character with some mixed-up concept of gender (Norman.)

But we get Lila Crane as a lesbian(evidently, her attire and her belt keys are a direct statement on this), and Sam listening to Judy Garland records (Lila's? But she came with a walkman) , and an emphasis on Viggo Mortensen's nudity.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Some time later I watched the original film and was blown away by just how great (and different from the remake) it was.

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Constant visitors around here know that I call Van Sant's Psycho "the experiment that succeeded by failing." I stand by that. In trying to re-create a four-star classic of another era with a "shot for shot, line for line script," Van Sant failed to convey much of any of the feeling of the original Psycho. I don't see this as a bad film made by a hack director -- Van Sant is VERY respected in the industry, particularly the art film/indie side. I see this as an attempt by a good director to emulate the work of a great director -- and finding out that you can't copy genius. Van Sant couldn't replicate certain shots that Hitchcock got because Van Sant didn't have Hitchcock's knowledge of camera lenses, for instance(Examples: Norman under the stuffed birds in the parlor; Mother's final jump on Arbogast on the foyer floor). Van Sant said he couldn't even figure out Hitchcock's camera blocking for the opening hotel room scene.

The biggest "failure" of Van Sant's Psycho was its inability to BE of 1960. In 1960, what Psycho did was landmark, never allowed before, never seen before. In 1998, it was passe.

And then there were the casting issues. We are told that some of the greatest films ever made were "perfectly cast" and I'd put GWTW, Casablanca, The Godfather and Psycho on that list. How can you ever EVER beat what Anthony Perkins brought to Norman Bates?

Lots of actors said "no" to following Perkins for Van Sant; VV was like the last of 20 asked.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'd say that Anne Heche and William H. Macy were simply miscast -- I lay that at the feet of Van Sant. A good director knows how to cast right. Vince Vaughn was miscast..but out of desperation to cast SOMEBODY.

Julianne Moore was on record of saying about Lila, "I have no role to play here" and yet OVERplayed Lila for mean toughness; for all the disparagement John Gavin got for playing Sam, Viggo gave us more of a cornpone hick, with little improvisations along the way(like putting his arm around Lila) that suggested the guy was a jerk who would hit on ANY woman.

Indeed, given how well cast every little bitty role in Psycho had been by Hitchcock, it was rather a revelation to see how Van Sant's casting often went wrong in those roles. I'd say these folks (good actors all) were wrongly cast in Van Sant's Psycho

Rance Howard("Psycho" producer Ron Howard's dad) as Lowery (too bland)
Rita Wilson(Mrs Tom Hanks) as Caroline( a PRETTY Caroline? There goes the wedding ring line.)
James Le Gros as California Charlie(too young; Lincolnesuqe John Anderson was an unforgiving father figure)
Robert Forster as the Psychiatrist(too warm and empathetic)

But OK, this casting was pretty good:

Chad Everett as Cassidy(more virile than Frank Albertson as a "dirty old man" who was once a dirty young man)
James Remar as the highway cop(the one near-match in casting with Mort Mills)
Phillip Baker Hall as Sheriff Chambers (less rustic than John McIntire, but believable)
Some nice lady as Mrs. Chambers(not as perky as Lurene Tuttle, but believable)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

After seeing the original, the color scheme of the 1998 version started to look simply inappropriate to me.

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One of the great "what ifs" over the first 23 years of its existence(1960 to 1983) about Hitchcock's Psycho was "what would it have looked like in color?" It was hard to imagine, but a lot of us TRIED.

Came 1983 and "Psycho II," we finally saw the house and motel in color at least. (We couldn't get the Janet Leigh scenes re-done in color.) Interestingly, the green-and-orange interiors of the house in Psycho II were based on the green-and-orange interiors of the flat of Hitchcock psycho Bob Rusk(Barry Foster) in Frenzy. Those colors repeated in Psycho III(1986) and Psycho IV(1990) but by 1998, Van Sant elected to re-do everything rather in total. And thus -- courtesy of the art directors and the highly respected DP Chris Doyle -- we got a kind of " pastel Psycho" with an emphasis on pink and orange and brown -- plus a little green. Its rather a "pretty pastel" Psycho.

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So many little things in the remake seem uncalled for: from Heche's red nail polish -- to her stupid orange umbrella that she bothers using to protect her skin from the sunlight while she's meant to be distressed running from authorities;

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Hah! That parasol seemed to be an ultra-cute affectation and it destroyed the characterization.

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from the ultra-fancy shower curtain and showerhead (in a cheap motel)

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The shower curtain material was also used to make...the buttons for Anne Heche's dress! Which reflects, perhaps the "art school affectation" of the costumes in general. Like : William H. Macy's necktie has a lumberjack on it(an allusion to "Fargo"), and all the men who wear ties, wear rather stylized satin neckties.

Also, that stylized "diamond pattern shower curtain" ruined Hitchcock's effect of Mother approaching as a CLEARLY-SEEN shadowy figure -- we can make out the human monster as it approaches. In the Van Sant, Mother approaches as if an unfocussed blob of shadow.

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The most random little thing is probably the Mother's long fingernail in the shower scene -- you can see it when the knife is "stabbing the screen".

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Can't say I remember that...but YOU saw it, which makes it noticeably too much. Norman wouldn't have long fingernails.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The unusual narrative of Psycho -- I mean the unexpected switch of a main character -- which is so effective in the original film, is completelely useless in the remake, because both of the main characters are completely dull.

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An interesting point. In the original, Anthony Perkins was fascinating as Norman Bates, to be sure, but Janet Leigh took her "female lead" part and made it fascinating as well -- equal parts sexuality, practicality and...in-a-trance madness. Though Vera Miles is second-billed in Psycho, the movie has been forever advertised thusly : "Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh in Psycho." Those are the two classic actors in the classic movie; Vaughn and Heche couldn't come close -- though I salute Vaughn and Heche for their bravery.

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So that's what is was like watching the 1998 version with a completely open mind.

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Very interesting to read.

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It's rather mediocre if you haven't seen the original -- and it's painfully terrible if you're familiar with Hitchcock's masterpiece.

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Well stated. That it was "rather mediocre" viewed without seeing the original is perhaps the strongest indictment of the film. Same script, same lines, same characters same shots, and...mediocre?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

No surprises here, right?

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Right.

I suppose the one surprise that I will add is that I have a weird affection for Van Sant's Psycho, and I'm rather glad that it was made.

I recall that production was announced in April of 1998 -- the movie came together pretty much as fast as Hitchcock's did , with summer 1998 filming for a December 1998 release. And I spent April-December of 1998 excitedly waiting to see what Van Sant was going to do with my favorite movie. Would it be the same as the Hitchcock? Worse? BETTER? I was really jazzed all through 1998, excited like in "the old days" when the announcement of a movie going into production would fill me with excitement for the year until it came out (examples: Bullitt, The Godfather, Frenzy, The Towering Inferno, Jaws, Family Plot, The Shining.)

That Van Sant's Psycho flopped at the box office whereas Hitchcock's Psycho was his biggest blockbuster...is perhaps the ultimate rejection of the Van Sant. EVERYBODY wanted to see the Hitchcock version, NOBODY wanted to see the Van Sant. 1998 was not 1960.

But I have this weird affection for Van Sant's attempt. I feel he used the power and clout he got from "Good Will Hunting" to do something that maybe every Psycho fan would like to do: experience making Psycho. The experiment succeeded by failing.

And it is my second favorite movie of 1998 because it ran my life that year, kinda like the original.

My favorite of 1998? "Saving Private Ryan," which, among other things, took the violence level begun by Psycho up to a whole nuther place. And was a great story as well.

[–] MizhuB (165) 7 years ago

I have a different story that I find somewhat more sad.

About five years ago, I was sitting in an office with several people. We were talking about movies. The conversation worked its way to Hitchcock.

One girl, who I knew was twenty-four years old, said, 'Who's Alfred Hitchcock?'

I couldn't believe my ears. My first thought was, 'WHO hasn't heard of Alfred Hitchcock?' My second was, 'Is this another example of how old I am? People in their twenties don't even know who he is?'

There were others in there who were also in their twenties. They looked stumped.

Fortunately, I wasn't the only person there in my age group. One said, 'Are you kidding me?'

She shook her head. I said, 'You know, Alfred Hitchcock. He directed many classic thrillers (I figured I'd use the term she'd most likely relate to), like Rear Window? North by Northwest? The Birds? Vertigo?'

She just sat there shaking her head. She'd never heard of them. Then I said, 'Psycho?'

She said, 'I saw Psycho!' I asked her which one. She didn't know what I meant. I asked her if it was in color and she said, 'Yes. I didn't like it. I thought it was boring. And the murders were, too.'

We told her that was the Van Sant remake, but the original was excellent. She said, 'So this Alfred Hitchcock made the original? Was it in color?'

We told her no, it was in black and white. She said, 'Oh, I don't watch black and white movies. They're so old.'

We told her Rear Window, NxNW, The Birds, Vertigo, etc. were in color. She said, 'But aren't the people in those dead now?'

The others in her age group agreed with her. Moral of the story seemed to be, If it's old, it's no good.

I realize not every young person is like this. But that conversation made me also realize that as years go by, this may become more and more the norm.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I have a different story that I find somewhat more sad.

--

Having now read it , I can only say...yep.

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About five years ago, I was sitting in an office with several people. We were talking about movies. The conversation worked its way to Hitchcock.

One girl, who I knew was twenty-four years old, said, 'Who's Alfred Hitchcock?'

I couldn't believe my ears. My first thought was, 'WHO hasn't heard of Alfred Hitchcock?' My second was, 'Is this another example of how old I am? People in their twenties don't even know who he is?'

---

On the DVD of Van Sant's Psycho -- released in 1999(the movie was from 1998), there is a documentary in which a debate is taken up as whether or not it was a good thing to remake Psycho. Some older film scholars think the idea is terrible("Why do you re-paint the Mona Lisa?") but they finally do some man on the street stuff with young people and one guy(about 18) says "Alfred Hitchcock? Never heard of the man."

Never heard of the man. And that was 20 years ago. (Shocking: the "new" Psycho is now 20 years old!!!)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There were others in there who were also in their twenties. They looked stumped.

Fortunately, I wasn't the only person there in my age group. One said, 'Are you kidding me?'

She shook her head. I said, 'You know, Alfred Hitchcock. He directed many classic thrillers (I figured I'd use the term she'd most likely relate to), like Rear Window? North by Northwest? The Birds? Vertigo?'

She just sat there shaking her head. She'd never heard of them. Then I said, 'Psycho?'

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Some proof there that the one Hitchcock movie to survive to today is: Psycho. And why wouldn't it? Hitchcock. Bates Motel....

...though I've always felt that The Birds has survived as a title too. Attacking birds. People vaguely remember such a picture. Young people have heard about it, perhaps from their parents....

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She said, 'I saw Psycho!' I asked her which one. She didn't know what I meant. I asked her if it was in color and she said, 'Yes. I didn't like it. I thought it was boring. And the murders were, too.'

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Psycho is a slasher movie where the first slasher kill takes place 47 minutes in. Irony: it used to be said that this was too EARLY(the star is killed before the movie is half over.) Now, this is too LATE (we have to WAIT 47 minutes for somebody to get slashed?)

And I suppose the two murders could be seen as boring. Neither one is particularly gory -- we never see the knife in Marion, Arbogast is finished off below the frame. Van Sant's addition of two more face slashes to Arbogast's face is perhaps the worst of it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

We told her that was the Van Sant remake, but the original was excellent. She said, 'So this Alfred Hitchcock made the original? Was it in color?'

We told her no, it was in black and white. She said, 'Oh, I don't watch black and white movies. They're so old.'

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Well there you go. Van Sant and his producer Brian Grazer both said that they made the Psycho remake in color because young people won't watch black and white. I can protest this...but I have to accept it.

Truth be told, IN ITS TIME, Psycho was rather strange for being in black and white because Hitchcock, in comparison to Billy Wilder, worked in color all the time from Dial M on -- except for The Wrong Man and Psycho.

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We told her Rear Window, NxNW, The Birds, Vertigo, etc. were in color. She said, 'But aren't the people in those dead now?'

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Billy Wilder said he wouldn't watch old movies because "I don't like to watch movies with dead people in them."

I disagree entirely. Neither Cary Grant nor James Stewart nor Grace Kelly are "dead" when we watch their Hitchcock movies. Rather, we are travelling back in time to see them when they were alive. So they ARE alive. The concept of the movies as "time machines" doesn't get enough favor, I don't think. Its kind of a miracle that we can go back to 1959 anytime we want.

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The others in her age group agreed with her. Moral of the story seemed to be, If it's old, it's no good.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I realize not every young person is like this. But that conversation made me also realize that as years go by, this may become more and more the norm.

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Probably. What intrigues me is that -- probably because of the household I grew up in -- I had great regard for the actors of generations before me -- Bogart, Cagney, Tracy -- even when they were retired or dead. I was TAUGHT those great stars by my parents, even though they were not contemporaries. I don't sense modern youth having much interest in past stars. On the other hand, Tom Cruise -- first a star in 1983 -- is still a star today, and a fairly young looking one.

I am experiencing all of this first-hand with some teenagers I am currently in regular contact with, via my family. They were born in years like 1999 and 2001 -- years which I can remember as "not that long ago." They are intelligent, funny, witty and they like modern movies and music.

But I have experimentally tried out names on them like Steve McQueen , Paul Newman and Jack Nicholson and gotten ...bupkus.

Think of it this way: Forget Hitchcock's Psycho -- VAN SANT's Psycho came out before these kids were born..and one of them is college age!

I've come to accept all of this , even as I feel very young even as my calendar age says I'm getting up there...and that I have lived far more life than I have left to live. My youth lives on in Psycho. Maybe more to the point, my youth lives on in Frenzy -- with THAT one, I remember driving to the theater and seeing the movie, etc.

To my credit, I've gotten these young people to "politely" watch Psycho and NXNW and a few more, and they do like them...but only as "old movies."

But all that said, yes, I think the time has come where Hitchcock will get his fans as a matter of academics -- his films will be taught as the books of Dickens and Mark Twain are taught.

But they will be more fun.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

First and foremost I'd like to express my strong belief that Van Sant's remake is definitely a crime of passion, not profit.

A famous quote comes to mind: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". That was the driving force for Van Sant, I'm sure -- to honor Psycho. And he chose the ultimate way to do that: by making his own Psycho. He dared to "experience making Psycho" -- to borrow from you.

I very much agree with your notion about Psycho being the "the experiment that succeeded by failing". I'm grateful this movie was made -- it's an invaluable experiment that showed how elusive "movie magic" really is: even if you use the same script, the same score, the same locations, the same anything -- you just can't step twice in the same river.

The remake was doomed to fail. But let's be honest here: it could fail less badly. WAY LESS badly. It's amazing just how flawed it turned out to be -- considering all the great talents that were involved with this film. Gus Van Sant is a really strong filmmaker, of course. I had a chance to meet him once and he was kind enough to sign my copy of My Own Private Idaho and The Elephant. Haven't asked him any questions about Psycho, though I was tempted to. But I haven't -- as I suspected it could be a touchy subject to him.

Clearly Psycho was his passion project and I would never believe he was ever happy with the final product. How could he be? Almost everyone was miscast -- and he certainly knew that, he's not blind. But it was a major Hollywood production, so I believe he wasn't able to spend more time looking for the right actors -- especially considering that practically half the Hollywood turned down the major roles.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

ecarle, I feel obligated to say you were perfectly SPOT-ON when you had to say this:

Anne Heche's portrayal of Marion Crane rendered not only the Marion Crane scenes BEFORE the shower scene, but the SHOWER SCENE itself...very "un-powerful" given how important these scenes were in 1960....largely due to Janet Leigh's performance leading up to the shower scene.

I've always felt that the Heche performance most pales before the Leigh performance on the reading of this line:

"Sam...let's get married!"

In Leigh's reading, it is a sudden outburst of desperate begging...very "1960" perhaps -- but emotional and painful. Marion Crane is around 30, unmarried, poor and "at the end of her rope'(Stefano's term.) Getting married is a big deal to her. (And it if is not such a big deal to women in 1998 -- maybe Psycho should not be made in 1998.)

In Heche's reading, the line is almost playful as if she is saying this:

"C'mon, Sam, what the hell, let's get married, whaddya say, huh?" And when Sam declines, Marion moves on. No big deal.

You deserve thunderous applause for this. Very true. This "Sam, let's get married" line is one of those moments where the two films differ the most. In the original this line is crucial -- in the remake it means nothing. Nothing at all really.

<<< I am uneducated on the concept, but is not "camp" a subdivision of gay-themed presentation? >>>

Not necessarily. The term "camp" has several meanings, one of them being "something considered amusing not because of its originality, but because of its unoriginality". It can also be synonymous with "banal", "vulgar", or "artificial". All of those apply to the image of Vince Vaugn in a dress and a wig with a knife in his hand. Painfully campy. Not in a fun way, that is.

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

ecarle, my kids are a bit older but they were generously exposed in high school to Hitchcock films (notably Psycho and The Birds) plus a few Twilight Zone episodes, which hooked them so well they binge watched a marathon.

However, when watching a somewhat lesser film, THe Woman in the Window, they sneered throughout at the plot machinations which never bothered me.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

So he made his version in color, but tried in every other regard to match the original "shot for shot, line for line."

ecarle, I'm curious to ask you something. Do you ever feel that it's not exactly accurate to call Van Sant's version "a shot-for-shot" remake? The more I hear people calling it that -- the more differences I notice every time I watch the remake.

My point is, if Van Sant's main intention really was to make an identical film, a "carbon copy" -- then he probably could have done much better, because the two films are simply not very identical, they are too different from each other. Right now I'm talking purely about technical differences like mise-en-scene, editing, camera movements, camera positions. In some of the scenes it feels as if Van Sant was purposefully avoiding to match the shot to Hitchcock's vision. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but the problem is that every such difference that I happen to notice -- is disappointing, i. e. pales in comparison.

You probably would think that I also must take issue with those infamous inserts (involving a sheep and a naked woman), but that's not the case surprisingly -- I don't mind them really. As well as the scene where Mr. Bates masturbates -- sure, the movie could have done without that, but I believe many viewers blew that out of proportion. The film has way more outrageous issues -- such as Anne Heche's acting in numerous scenes for example. Seriously, it often looks as if she's hugely delighted and thrilled to have committed a crime -- without having concerns about possible consequences. She seems to be taking it as a silly little adventure. Is she meant to actually have some mental disorder, is she supposed to be a psycho of some sort? Well, then it makes sense.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

ecarle, I'm curious to ask you something. Do you ever feel that it's not exactly accurate to call Van Sant's version "a shot-for-shot" remake? The more I hear people calling it that -- the more differences I notice every time I watch the remake.

My point is, if Van Sant's main intention really was to make an identical film, a "carbon copy" -- then he probably could have done much better, because the two films are simply not very identical, they are too different from each other.

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You've hit upon one of the reasons that the Van Sant Psycho is actually a rather fascinating artifact. For part of the "experiment" that the film created was...an experiment UPON Gus Van Sant, upon his ability to "simply reshoot the original" without making changes. Turns out -- he could not bring himself to do that. He was too much his own man. But it ALSO turns out, sometimes he COULD NOT MATCH what Hitchcock did. He said so himself. Even with a DVD of the original on set, he could not match Hitchcock camera moves or camera angles or figure out "how he did that"(for Hitchcock had lots of tricks by which to manipulate his images, like building tables taller than usual so they would show in the frame, etc.)

Among the changes Van Sant made:

DELETION: He took out the entire scene with the sheriff at the church!

DELETION: He cut the psychiatrist scene roughly in half(removing the stuff about transvestitism and about Norman having killed two other women before Marion.)

DELETION: He started the scene with Sam and Lila meeting the sheriff and his wife at home LATER in the scene(no more introductions from Sam.)

.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

ADDITION: Norman masturbating at the peephole.

ADDITION: A bloody slash on Marion's back that trails blood down the wall of the shower as she slides down.

ADDITION: Storm clouds during the attack on Marion.

ADDITION: (A censor-cut Hitchcock shot): Overhead view of the nude Marion collapsing to the shower floor, with anatomical detail.

ADDITION: The half-clad lady and the calf during Arbogast's murder.

ADDITION: Two more slashes to Arbogast's face during the murder (forming an "X" around his eye.)

ADDITION: A POV shot -- from Arbo's view falling down the stairs -- of shadowy Mother in pursuit after him. (Suggesting: Arbogast doesn't see Norman's face?)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I would here like to point out two "very small changes" that actually rather screw up Hitchcock's original precision, both having to do with Arbogast:

ONE: At the phone booth, Van Sant cuts this dialogue:

Arbogast: Lila, you'll be happy what I think. I think our friend Sam Loomis didn't know that Marion was here. No...no...you stay there. I'll be back in an hour. Or less.

First the cut removes a little bit of characterization: Arbogast, having not trusted Sam, now trusts Sam and feels that Lila should trust him too(crucial if they are going to investigate.)

But in cutting the "hour or less line," Van Sant blows the feed to what Lila later says to Sam in the hardware store.

Lila: Sam...he said an hour. Or less.

THAT line from Lila stays in the Van Sant. But since we never heard Arbogast say it -- its a big gaffe.

.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

More of a "precision" thing:

Danny Elfman did great work reorchestrating Herrmann's score. GREAT work. But boy was it hard, what with Van Sant making shot and timing changes.

IN THE ORIGINAL: Arbogast, returning to the motel, snoops around the parlor, comes back out to the office, looks around there, goes out to the porch, turns "our left" walks to end of porch and SEES: The House. Herrmann's "three notes of madness" sound RIGHT ON the shot of the house: "Duh duh...DUH."

IN THE VAN SANT: Arbogast, returning to the motel, snoops around the parlor -- the SHOT OF HIM COMING OUT AND LOOKING AROND THE OFFICE IS CUT -- goes out to the porch and ON THE PORCH we get Herrmann's three notes of madness, not on the key image of the HOUSE. Why? Because Van Sant cut the footage of Arbogast in the office on his way out. So something really great -- Herrmann's three notes of madness on the POV shot of the house -- are now "thrown away" on the porch. Arbogast moves to the edge of the porch and sees the house and -- minimal music.

Poor Gus Van Sant. He really didn't realize just how precise , at their peak, both Hitchcock and Herrmann really were.

And in certain ways, Van Sant just keeps fumbling and stumbling. Its like those movies where you go back in time and any little thing you do different screws up everything.

Cut Arbogast's line "I'll be back in an hour or less?" It doesn't pay off when Lila STILL says "He said he'd be back in an hour or less."

Cut Arbogast's moment in the office on his way out to the porch? It doesn't pay off in Herrmann's three notes of madness on the POV shot of the house.

(As you can see, I've watched Van Sant's Psycho quite a few times, but actually, if the original is glued into your brain, you catch these gaffes almost right away -- "Hey, the music isn't playing over the house shot!" etc.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In some of the scenes it feels as if Van Sant was purposefully avoiding to match the shot to Hitchcock's vision. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but the problem is that every such difference that I happen to notice -- is disappointing, i. e. pales in comparison.

----

When Van Sant's Psycho works best is when the shots and music DO match the original exactly. It feels like everytime it doesn't, Van Sant has made a less effective choice. As I learned later, sometimes it was because Van Sant could not match what Hitchocck did.

But things like the masturbation, the extra shots in the Arbogast murder, and especially the cuts of dialogue and scene sections -- all play WRONG. It wasn't broke, no need to fix it.

---

You probably would think that I also must take issue with those infamous inserts (involving a sheep and a naked woman), but that's not the case surprisingly -- I don't mind them really. As well as the scene where Mr. Bates masturbates -- sure, the movie could have done without that, but I believe many viewers blew that out of proportion.

---

With the naked lady/sheep shots, they just seemed extraneous and Van Sant never bothered to explain them. The naked lady shot is a "lift" from a Nine Inch Nails video; the sheep or calf or whatever is evidently all that remains of Van Sant's intentions to intercut Arbogast's slaughter with cattle slaughter. These ideas are unclear in the film. Hitchcock was BIG on clarity. These shots get in the way of the main event: Arbogast's horrific and acrobatic death. (And about that naked woman, I'll bite: she was Arbogast's Greatest Lay, probably.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The film has way more outrageous issues -- such as Anne Heche's acting in numerous scenes for example. Seriously, it often looks as if she's hugely delighted and thrilled to have committed a crime -- without having concerns about possible consequences. She seems to be taking it as a silly little adventure. Is she meant to actually have some mental disorder, is she supposed to be a psycho of some sort? Well, then it makes sense.

---

Marion IS supposed to be a psycho of sorts -- at least temporarily("We all go a little mad sometimes") in both pictures. But whereas Janet Leigh captured the state as a kind of "trance," Heche goes for the "regular gal" and its just all wrong. She also overplays where Leigh underplayed:

When Cassidy walks away from Janet Leigh after coming onto her, her eyes glide left in quiet resentment at him.

When Cassidy walks away from Anne Heche after coming onto her, she makes an angry face that he doesn't see.

When Norman says "A boy's best friend is his mother" to Janet Leigh, she pauses for a moment, gulps a little, but otherwise maintains a straight face.

When Norman says "A boy's best friend is his mother" to Anne Heche, she makes a face of slight fear and gulps hard in revulsion -- probably a more "true" reaction, but it removes Hitchcock's subtlety.

Anne Heche had never seen Psycho before she was offered the audition. She watched it the night before, announced it Van Sant as "her new favorite movie"(self-promoting, Anne Heche was, just ask ex-beau Steve Martin) and jumped into the part with little real sense about what it MEANT. Ditto Vince Vaughn, who simply never really seemed into the role of Bates.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Indeed, I would suggest this: the actors who worked for Hitchocck on the original all knew that they were working for HITCHCOCK, and that they didn't get asked to that level a lot, and they worked hard and DID THEIR BEST.

The actors who worked for Van Sant liked him but weren't in fear or respect of him. Heche and Vaughn goofed around between takes. Moore and Macy were on record as finding the material beneath them. There was a lack of thought and focus to these performances in the main(though I think that Macy tried the hardest and did the best - he said "I think Arbogast is the best written part." He even delivered all his lines as Balsam had changed them from the script, not as from the script.)

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

... many lines were cut, a few lines were changed, a grand total of TWO lines cut from Stefano's original 1960 screenplay were restored ("Bed? Only playground that beats Las Vegas") and ...well, something Norman says to Marion in Cabin One, I can't remember it now.

Yes, the remake features an extra piece of dialogue between Norman and Marion in Cabin One:

- You have something that most girls don't have.

- I have?

- There's not a name for it, but, uh, it's something that puts a person at ease.

- Well, thank you again.

This piece of dialogue comes right between Norman asking her to call him "Norman Bates" instead of "Mr. Bates" -- and him offering her to have dinner with him.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

- You have something that most girls don't have.

- I have?

- There's not a name for it, but, uh, it's something that puts a person at ease.

- Well, thank you again.

This piece of dialogue comes right between Norman asking her to call him "Norman Bates" instead of "Mr. Bates" -- and him offering her to have dinner with him.

---

Aha. Yes, that's it!

And it was weird. If you know the dialogue in the movie(not the script) by heart, you listen to this Cabin One talk and when THOSE LINES appear, you are jarred: "What? What are they saying?" Off to the original screenplay for a read...and there are.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

On the DVD of Van Sant's Psycho -- released in 1999 (the movie was from 1998), there is a documentary in which a debate is taken up as whether or not it was a good thing to remake Psycho. Some older film scholars think the idea is terrible ("Why do you re-paint the Mona Lisa?")

If I were to compare Psycho to Mona Lisa, then I would say the 1998 version looks like Mona Lisa with unnecessary colorful makeup applied to her face, red nail polish and breast implants... with orange umbrella in her hands.

But despite my endless critisisms towards Van Sant's film, I totally get your fascination with it, ecarle -- because I'm fascinated with the remake as well! Yes, I hate it. Yes, it's sort of painful to watch it. But I keep rewatching it -- because it's a fascinating experiment. This movie is not good -- but it makes the original look even more powerful than it seemed before.

It's a rare cinematic failure that makes me want to analyze it shot by shot, line by line.

And the more I analyze it, the less I want to call it a "shot-for-shot" remake. It's not really. What makes me keep saying that? It's the fact that Psycho 1998 is not the only "shot-for-shot" remake in film history -- there are other films like that, so we can compare Van Sant's daring experiment to other movies of this kind.

The finest example of a shot-for-shot remake ever made is probably the 2007 film Funny Games starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. It's an American remake of a highly-controversial Austrian film of the same name from 1997. What's interesting is that the American version was made by the same director -- and it does seem to be a 100% shot-for-shot remake.

You don't have to try hard in order to find differences between the two Psychos (they are too obvious and too many to count) -- whereas the two versions of Funny Games are very identical. They are like twin brothers. Psycho 1960 and Psycho 1998 are half-siblings at best.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

If I were to compare Psycho to Mona Lisa, then I would say the 1998 version looks like Mona Lisa with unnecessary colorful makeup applied to her face, red nail polish and breast implants... with orange umbrella in her hands.

---

Hah!

---

But despite my endless critisisms towards Van Sant's film, I totally get your fascination with it, ecarle -- because I'm fascinated with the remake as well! Yes, I hate it. Yes, it's sort of painful to watch it. But I keep rewatching it -- because it's a fascinating experiment. This movie is not good -- but it makes the original look even more powerful than it seemed before.

---

I agree with everything you said there.

Its kind of sad for Van Sant -- clearly he was obsessed with Psycho as millions of others, and he was SO obsessed that he "cashed in a golden ticket"(the backing the powerful Universal production company Imagine) from "Good Will Hunting"(he was Oscar nommed for it) to make...Psycho. It turns out he had been trying to remake it for years -- he pitched a version in the 80's with Timothy Hutton as Norman and Jack Nicholson as Arbogast. Which would have been great casting but I don't think he coulda got Jack OR Hutton(who was called "a young Tony Perkins type" when he debuted in Ordinary People.) Anyway, Imagine bosses Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were power players who finally got the Universal brass to give the Psycho rights to Van Sant.

Consider, BTW, the power of the success of Good Will Hunting: An Oscar for Robin Williams. Writing Oscars for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. STARDOM for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. And "Psycho" finally achieved for Gus Van Sant.

That Harvey Weinstein sure had the Midas Touch!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's a rare cinematic failure that makes me want to analyze it shot by shot, line by line.

---

I think first of all, this is because I don't think we have seen -- or will see -- as classic a movie as Psycho remade. Van Sant went to the top of the list here -- imagine Casablanca or The Godfather or Pulp Fiction remade -- and that bugged people.

But Van Sant noted this: Psycho was such a "bare bones" story -- so simple in its scene by scene, shot by shot tightness -- that you could not HELP but notice each and every change made to it. I lost my lede there: one reason that Van Sant remade Psycho is because he found it so "simple" he felt it would be EASY to remake. Far easlier than, say, North by Northwest(said Van Sant.) He was wrong.

I only read a few comments by Van Sant after the film got roasted, and there were rather bitter.

Here's one: "I was shocked by how right wing people got about my remaking Psycho." Right wing? Uh, I don't see that.

Here's another: "I personally made more money off of my Psycho remake than any other movie I ever made." He said that in some triumph. He made more than he made off of Good Will Hunting. More than he made off of that Sean Connery mainstream film he made. And certainly more than off of any of his indies. So, Psycho was good for him THAT way.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And the more I analyze it, the less I want to call it a "shot-for-shot" remake. It's not really. What makes me keep saying that?

---

I'm reminded of Vince Vaughn hosting SNL in December 1998 to promote Van Sant's Psycho.

He announces it as "the shot by shot remake of Psycho" and Darrell Hammond as the Ghost of Alfred Hitchcock stomps out to exclaim:

"The what by what what of WHAT?????!!!"

Psycho is "shot by shot, line by line" rather in comparison to what I consider the two worst remakes ever made: The Manchurian Candidate and The Truth About Charlie(from Charade), in which director Jonathan Demme(sadly, and RIP, and his other films were great) allowed the scripts of the originals to be re-worked, thrown out, turned upside down, and converted into movies that were nothing like the originals.

---

It's the fact that Psycho 1998 is not the only "shot-for-shot" remake in film history -- there are other films like that, so we can compare Van Sant's daring experiment to other movies of this kind.

The finest example of a shot-for-shot remake ever made is probably the 2007 film Funny Games starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth. It's an American remake of a highly-controversial Austrian film of the same name from 1997. What's interesting is that the American version was made by the same director -- and it does seem to be a 100% shot-for-shot remake.

---

I am familiar with both Funny Games, but -- having only sampled part of the remake on cable -- I just don't have the stomach for them. "Too much suspense," too much cruelty, no way out.
---

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

You don't have to try hard in order to find differences between the two Psychos (they are too obvious and too many to count) -- whereas the two versions of Funny Games are very identical. They are like twin brothers. Psycho 1960 and Psycho 1998 are half-siblings at best.

---

Interesting comparisons. I think what is odd is that Van Sant's Psycho is a least a "scene for scene" recreation of the original(less the church scene!), but the scenes don't play right, much of the time.

And by the way: for those who think the shrink scene is overlong and tells us what we already know, the "chopped in half" version in the Van Sant is really terrible: perfunctory, skimpy, tells us almost nothing. There..the experiment really worked.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And just like the Psycho 1998 experiment, the remake of Funny Games was also a failure. It failed to emulate the feeling of the original -- the chemistry was different, that elusive "movie magic" was gone despite re-creating the original film practically shot-for-shot.

---

Now THAT is really interesting. Even with "legitmate" shot for shot-ness -- it didn't work. There is something to be said, I think for how a good to great movie "comes together" in elements not found only in the script or camera shots.

---

As I mentioned somewhere around here, I have sometimes liked remakes very much. In the 2010s, two of them were favorites:

True Grit: A more polished production than the John Wayne original, with Good Actor Matt Damon taking over for Bad Actor Glen Campbell. The famous "bold talk for a one-eyed fat man" scene is the same in both films -- yet not:

Wayne: "I aim to kill you now or see you hanged at Judge Parker's convenience...which will it be?"

Bridges: "I am to kill you now or see you hanged at Judge Parker's convenience...which will you have?"

There are about 10 scene matches from original to remake; but the remake also has about six newly created scenes that make it "original." I favor the Wayne original for its two touching final scenes -- both removed from the remake in favor of the dour anticlimactic conclusion of the book.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

"The Magnificent Seven." Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen were the stars of the original; Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt are the rough equivalents in the remake -- in both films, an established star and an "up and comer."(We will see if Pratt matches McQueen. Doubtful.) BOTH films are exciting and moving. The new one has "bigger, more violent action"(ala The Wild Bunch.) BOTH films have great characters, and a great villain.

The two films only share a few lines ("So far, so good" from McQueen/Pratt and "If God did not want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep" from the villain) and a few character traits -- and the new one eventually closes with the magnificent musical theme of the original to "meld them together."

The first one is a classic, the second one is a good movie built upon the sturdy foundation of the original.

So, some remakes I like: True Grit, The Magnificent Seven.

Some remakes I hate: The Manchurian Candidate, The Truth About Charlie.

And ONE remake, well, just fascinates me: Psycho.

[–] Ray (33) 7 years ago

@MizhuB. Sad story, indeed. But you know, many young people really love vintage films. From the 1990s...

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

I've been enjoying this thread.... and holding off on reposting some old material about the single shot that to many of us at the old IMDb board crystallized the chasm in quality that objectively exists between Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998), even setting aside questions about originality and cultural context. Here are the lowest points for the camera in the bathroom immediately after Marion's murder in each case:
https://tinyurl.com/p2bswjs
and
https://tinyurl.com/papgurc
On a first level, as IMDb user moosefethers observed, Leigh looks shocked/terrified whereas Heche just looks pissed off! I'd add that Leigh looks heartbreakingly deader to me (but still warm/beautiful with big water droplet tears) whereas Heche looks alive just slightly smushed/uglied up.
Going deeper, the 1960 image is a work of photographic art in a way that the later image can't touch (notwithstanding all of 1998's advantages in camera size, more sensitive film-stocks, etc.). Hitchcock and his DP Russell have got their much larger camera *much* lower, building a false bathroom-set floor to allow the camera to be right *at* Marion's eye level (and low enough in fact to pick up a ghostly reflection of Marion's face in the tile-floor. Amazing!). This lower angle creates (a) a horizon line of light and dark in the frame through Marion's face, sculpting the space around it so that one eye is in shadow, her mouth and under her neck are darkness, and so on, and (b) receding perspective tile-floor lines drawing us to Marion's face at the center of the image. With all the geometric structure in the image thanks to (a) and (b), Hitch and Russell now add very precise shallow focus - only Marion at the horizon is fully in focus, both the tiles in the foreground and the bathroom wall behind are blurs.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

By way of comparison Van Sant and DP Doyle's image is, in a nutshell, flat and boring. It has no horizon and no geometric structure, and no play of light and dark. Heche's face is only slightly more in focus than the floor in front and the towel behind her, and as a result the 1998 image contains lots of irrelevant information that ultimately makes the image meaningless.

Gee, you'd almost think that remaking one of the greatest and most influential movies of all time might not be the smartest move... (except perhaps as an exercise in fascinating failure).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've been enjoying this thread....

---

Good. Ya gotta admit, Van Sant took on a helluva classic film and ended up providing the world with an inadvertant textbook on WHY Hitchcock deserves all that praise he gets. These images you have reproduced again tell us: it was NEVER just about the story and the lines with Hitchcock. His artistry was in other places, too.

---

and holding off on reposting some old material

---

Yes, but I think we have new readers here -- and even old readers like me forgot about these images.

---

about the single shot that to many of us at the old IMDb board crystallized the chasm in quality that objectively exists between Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998), even setting aside questions about originality and cultural context.

---

Its a great comparison, advantage Hitchcock and Leigh -- which means Leigh met Hitchcock's high standards and brought her own talent to the fore.

There's almost an identical comparison that was shown, I think, by the LA Times in 1998 comparing the OPENING shot of the shower scene(or one of them): Marion taking that shower before the killer turns up.

The "old" photograph of Janet Leigh under the showerhead was far more profound(in overall visual style) and far more EROTIC than the new photograph of Heche(Heche simply looked like a woman taking a shower.)

---

Gee, you'd almost think that remaking one of the greatest and most influential movies of all time might not be the smartest move... (except perhaps as an exercise in fascinating failure).

---

That's about the size of it. Poor Van Sant was sucked in the "bare bones" of the story, but he forgot that the cinematic flesh put ON those bones was...incredibly detailed and profound.

I mean, its the experiment that succeeded by fai--- oh, never mind.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

A sidebar that also plays to the "Det. Milton Arbogast" thread elsewhere here(on topic! on topic!)

I noted that Hitchcock's original Psycho had not credit crawl at the end -- not even the "Cast of Characters" that was about all we got in 1960 movies, let alone the endless crawl of everybody from grips to make-up to sound to coffee caterers that crowd the end(and clear the theaters) of modern films.

But VAN SANT's Psycho DOES have a credit crawl.

And there it is:

Milton Arbogast...William H. Macy

So the billing was given there, even if Macy never gives Arbogast's first name either.

More notably, the Van Sant credit crawl gives way to the required five minutes of so of additional credits, and Van Sant elects to give his Psycho a "new final scene" based on the old one:

Norman in the cell gives way to Marion's car coming out of the swamp...but then we get the whole process of skin divers, cops and mechanics hooking the car up to a tow truck and driving away with the car as reporters and others follow, until the swamp area is silent and empty of anybody. Over this long, long, LONG footage, we get very weird, unnerving music based largely on Herrmann's score -- particularly the creepy "rising" music as Lila climbed the hill to the house. Eventually, all music cuts off and we get a shot of the swamp by itself -- silent, waiting, a road with some cars driving by in the far distance.

This is all OK enough -- and quite creepy with the music -- but it rather begs logic.

They only pulled MARION's car from the swamp? What about Arbogast's? The other victims? And they don't open Marion's trunk(I guess they would wait at the station for that.) It is a long final scene that rather undoes the perfection of Hitchcock's final shot, you ask me.

Plus, what with that busy highway in the distance, I've always wondered: where DID they film this swamp? Not on the Universal backlot at Falls Lake this time...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

My favorite of 1998? "Saving Private Ryan," which, among other things, took the violence level begun by Psycho up to a whole nuther place. And was a great story as well.

---

I belatedly return to compare Saving Private Ryan ..a bit ...with Psycho. The FIRST one.

If Psycho famously took screen violence farther than it had ever been taken before(how LONG Marion is stabbed; the slash to Arbogast's face, and the scream-inducing terror of both scenes), it does seem that there were a few -- only a few -- movies to follow that took violence up to the next levels:

Bonnie and Clyde: How everybody bleeds in the gunfights(especially cops); how an elderly bank clerk gets shot point blank in the face as a coda to a slapstick scene(shades of Arbogast); but most of all how Bonnie and Clyde get massacred in a slow-mo massacre at the end. Technicolor, slo-mo, a hail of bullets -- Bonnie and Clyde left behind the black-and-white suggestive knife play of Psycho.

The Wild Bunch: Peckinpah was out to best Bonnie and Clyde -- and he did. The slaughter of Bonnie and Clyde paled before the massacre of scores of Mexican soldiers(and four suicidal Americans) at the end of Peckinpah's gore Western epic. Slo-mo AND other varying film speeds left B and C far behind.

Dirty Harry: No slo mo -- just a fair number of cheerable gunbattles and Harry's 44 Magnum delivering justice. The increase in violence here marked the cop movie becoming the ultraviolent action thriller -- Dirty Harry is as much a horror movie as anything else.

Halloween and Friday the 13th: Back to the Psycho knifeplay, but now with far more blood and far more brutality(though Halloween has almost as many stranglings as stabbings). Come to think of it, Halloween isn't all that bloody. Psycho is bloodier. Friday the 13th? A different story.

..

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

and then I think(honestly) that you have to get all the way to Saving Private Ryan to see the movies taking on a new TYPE of violence.

Desaturated gray images. A version of the D Day landing that takes the crisp, tragic battle action of "The Longest Day"(1962) and extends it into a charnel house of fish-in-a-barrel slaughter. Moreover: bullets slice, sever and rip male bodies and faces as if these human beings were hamburger in the meat grinder. Intestines spill out while the victim cries for his mama. The machine gun bullets that tear into men for once don't sound like "exciting" gunfire -- they sound like razor-edge factory metal tearing through bodies like, again, meat.

After the charnelhouse of the initial D-Day sequence in Ryan(our guys win, but take monstrous dismembered casulaties getting there), Ryan settles into intermittent sequences of hyper-realistic confrontation and death.

The worst of it is a rendering of the Arbogast Murder Done Realistic:

It comes after many realistic killings. Here, a young American GI turns a corner in an abandoned house -- and comes face to face with a Nazi. A REALLY BIG Nazi. The two men pull knives, grab wrists and engage in the "required" hand to hand combat, but it is heartbreakingly clear that the slightly built American cannot overcome the German in this fight at all. He can only hang on and try to delay the inevitable. Which is, as the American falls on his back and the German slowly thrusts his knife into the boy's chest -- the stabbing death that was kept below the frame of Arbogast. "Wait a minute! Hold on! Please!" the young American pleads with macabre matter-of-factness. He is trying to reason with the brute who must kill him, because that is war.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Saving Private Ryan didn't win the Best Picture Oscar for 1998. I think that was a shame. It was a salute to the Greatest Generation, sure -- but also a look at the brutal realities of war.

And, in its violence, it was a throwback to Psycho way back there, but also to Torn Curtain and Frenzy -- two films in which Hitchcock looked hard at the realistic, sweaty grueling types of murder that were hard work for killer and victim alike.

I wonder why both Hitchcock and Spielberg -- as superwealthy men after career peaks -- decided to go for such grueling, punishing ultraviolence in their movies. Were they punishing their audiences for the enjoyment of such "fun" thrillers as Rear Window, Psycho, Jaws and Raiders?

I dunno.

[–] Culburn (3638) 7 years ago

[[[Bonnie and Clyde: How everybody bleeds in the gunfights(especially cops); how an elderly bank clerk gets shot point blank in the face as a coda to a slapstick scene(shades of Arbogast); but most of all how Bonnie and Clyde get massacred in a slow-mo massacre at the end. Technicolor, slo-mo, a hail of bullets -- Bonnie and Clyde left behind the black-and-white suggestive knife play of Psycho.]]]

Even the credits for B&C are preemptively bloodletting.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Even the credits for B&C are preemptively bloodletting.

---
Indeed...that great, weird "fade to red" that each title conjures up.

There can be no doubt that Bonnie and Clyde -- like Psycho before it and The Wild Bunch after it -- elected to stake its notoriety on blood.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Among the changes Van Sant made:

DELETION: He took out the entire scene with the sheriff at the church!

---

I return because I was pondering this recently -- I'm bound to ponder Psycho-related things given my presence here.

So , the question: why DID Van Sant delete this entire scene from his alleged "shot for shot, line for line" remake of Psycho?

And: what effect did the loss of the scene have?

I'd say part of the reason was Truffaut's remark to Hitchcock: "I felt a letdown in the two scenes with the sheriff," and Hitchcock's reply, "Whenever people say: why don't they go to the police? I always say "they don't go to the police because it is dull. Here is a perfect example of what happens when you go to the police."

In other words, Hitchcock dissed HIS OWN film...but probably was also saying "in this film, they HAD to go to the police."

And thus, Van Sant elected to whittle two "dull police scenes" down to one.

Now, the first scene was very necessary: here is Sheriff Chambers telling us that Norman's mother is dead and committee murder-suicide. Which might immediately finger Norman as the current killer, save for the Sheriff's great line, "if that lady you saw up in the window is Mrs. Bates...who's that woman buried in Greenlawn Cemetary?"

The "cut scene" is the next morning, as church lets out and Sam and Lila meet the sheriff and his wife outside, to say they'd like to go to the motel with him. He tells them he's already been -- earlier that morning, talked to Norman, "saw the whole place." Nothing.

I suppose Van Sant(and maybe Joe Stefano) figured: "the first scene with the sheriff accomplishes the same goal -- he talks to Norman(on the phone) , decides nothing is wrong. So Sam and Lila take off for the motel alone the next day. There is no need for the intervening church scene."

Fair enough.

I think the church scene COULD be cut. But somehow it seems like it IS necessary, for various reasons.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It makes the point that Sam and Lila, before venturing out to the motel alone, at least tried to make contact again with the sheriff first, so that they could all go together.

It makes the point that the sheriff is actually a pretty diligent guy, and took it on his own to go investigate the Bates Motel as early as possible. He's a GOOD cop -- rather like Thomas J. Doyle in Rear Window -- willing to investigate even if dubious.

It ADDS SUSPENSE. WE know Mother exists. WE know Mother killed Marion. WE know Mother killed Arbogast. And yet here is this sheriff refusing to believe, pre-emptively closing the case, believing Norman and not Lila. Hitchcock, as the Master of Suspense, knew how to work the big suspense pieces(Arbogast climbing those stairs) with the small, ongoing suspense arc -- WE know Mother is alive and killing, the sheriff refuses to believe.

It also adds mystery. We gotta know what's going on here. Did Mother kill another woman and did Norman help bury her in Mother's grave? ARE we getting suspicious about Norman as Mother? This church scene "fuels the fire." We gotta know. We go with Sam and Lila to the motel to find out.

The scene also establishes day and time. When Arbogast was killed , Hitchcock dissolved to Sam saying "Sometimes Saturday night has a lonely sound." Now, we are reminded: its now Sunday. Church Day. And I've always found it rather -- prosaic? -- that Sam and Lila will uncover the secrets of the Bates Motel in the broad daylight of a "lazy Sunday afternoon" after church.

And: given Hitchcock's roots as a Catholic filmmaker, believers can see the church scene(which strongly plays out AS a church scene) as suggesting some kind of Divine Intervention, some role for God -- even if this is a God who allows innocent women and men to die horribly, He/She is also a God who brings justice eventually.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

All of these elements are rather "why the church scene exists." One figures that both Hitchcock and Stefano felt the scene needed to be there; as I recall , the same scene is in Bloch's novel, so to that extent they were just "giving the audience a dramatization of the book."

But this: newcomers to the Psycho story likely didn't miss the church scene at all. The story still "flowed" and it made sense for Sam and Lila to drive to the motel directly on Sunday without seeing the sheriff again.

But if you KNEW Psycho already, by heart, shot for shot, line for line -- the deletion of the church scene was a great big giant jolt -- an affront, if you will -- from Van Sant.

But the deletion of the church scene also might have stood for the proposition: "Maybe I can make Psycho a little better than Hitchcock made it -- I got rid of one of the scenes HITCHCOCK HIMSELF said was dull. " Just like he would cut the shrink scene in half -- responding to other critics about the "weaknesses of a masterpiece."

Well, that's enough, I guess.

For me, the issue is simple: I came to see a total remake of Psycho, and here's a whole scene gone missing. I KNEW that scene. I MISSED that scene.

I guess Van Sant was messin' with me.

And with you...