Psycho Vs. Psycho (1960/1998)

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Directors: Alfred Hitchcock (1960)/Gus Van Sant (1998)

Screenplay: Joseph Stefano

Based on the novel by Robert Bloch

Cast: Anthony Perkins/Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, Janet Leigh/Anne Heche as Marion Crane, Vera Miles/Julianne Moore as Lila Crane, John Gavin/Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis, Martin Balsam/William H. Macy as Milton Arbogast, John McIntire/Philip Baker Hall as Sheriff Al Chambers, Simon Oakland as Dr. Fred Richman/Robert Forster as Dr. Simon Richmond

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

[Spoilers throughout. Even if this is Psycho, one of cinema's most iconic films twice over, doesn't mean I still need to add this.

So Gus Van Sant tried remaking Alfred Hitchcock's most famous film shot-by-shot? Well, that's in itself a fallacy, something of an illusion as upon rewatching Psycho from 1960 in the morning, revisiting Psycho from 1998 in the evening the same day. There's a strange déjà-vu but so much between them which is different; to shoot an exact shot-by-shot film would have meant dialogue and concepts of the past were left in¹, the film shot in the past fully transferred into the nineties (money not changed to a higher value, no Rob Zombie heard in the scene when Marion Crane changes her transport at a used car showroom). It would mean the dialogue was not changed (the "transvestite" line from the psychoanalysis's speech about Norman Bates' back-story not being removed), but also the pace and tone would be kept, which would be strange to experience as over thirty years of influences changed nineties Hollywood cinema considerably.

Its stranger to compare the two's origins. Psycho was a risk for Hitchcock and we forget that, ignored that he had to make the film with his TV crew from his television work, in monochrome rather than the rich Technicolor of his fifties masterpieces, because the sordidness of the material he was adapting was controversial. In an alternative world, he would've fell into the fate Michael Powell did when he made Peeping Tom, also released in 1960, a transgressive film that appalled people and kneecapped his career. Hitchcock, with his promotional ballyhoo, managed to have an incredible hit from a risk in his career. Psycho in 1998 is created by a director, Gus Van Sant, who after a beginning in American indie cinema of the eighties managed to have a huge Oscar winning hit Good Will Hunting the year before; when given the chance to, he decided to spent his metaphorical success coins on that infamous concept I yet love, of artistic follies. The kind where Steven Spielberg makes 1941 (1979), a WWII comedy epic, or Richard Kelly made Southland Tales (2006), the bugnuts zeitgeist of mid 2000s culture, the absolutely divisive production usually hated when first release that get their little cults as time passes.

From http://www.thedoublenegative.co.uk/blog/
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Here, given the keys to make whatever he wants, Van Sant had a thought experiment knowing what films Universal owned the rights to, tried to remake Psycho but almost exactly. It's actually insulting to call his film "Psycho (but in colour)", as colour drastically alters the mood. This is nineties cinema colour, bright and layered, in a time when people wore chartreuse coloured clothing, shot by Christopher Doyle; Doyle, who made his name working with Wong Kar-Wai, is cinematography's Keith Richards, in lifestyle and look, as good with a camera as Richards is with a guitar. The colours are something to cherish in a film full of questions, quirks and misfires; a vibrant and almost plastic at times that, when the original Psycho credits are recreated in green, its an appropriate introduction to how colour itself changes so much of this world before you get to any other adaptation detail.

I'll be blasphemous and say aspects of the 1998 version are superior to the original even though it's ultimately an utter failure. Psycho, whilst a classic worth of praise and canonisation, is not remotely Hitchcock's best work for me, falling a little too in pace when the characters of Sam Loomis and Lila Crane search for her sister, dragging somewhat for a brief bit in the middle and just a series of exposition scenes. The opening skyline shot is awkwardly edited to transition to Marion Crane and Loomis in a motel, reflected that Hitchcock would have appreciated the panorama shot done in the 1998 version. (Whilst not better than the original, I like the 1998 version ending from the car being dragged out of the swamp to linger over the police and the countryside under the end credits, all done with a surf-like guitar piece). And knowing how the exposition dump of the psychoanalysis in the finale is infamous in how long it, to clarify material rarely covered in thrillers at that time, casting Robert Forrester in the role was perfect. In fact, both films can claim to having a pair of Milton Arbogast figures, the detective hired to find Marion, that no person should have to argue about in terms of the best; when one is Martin Balsam, famous for 12 Angry Men (1957), and the other William H. Macy, both are as good.

From https://thejar.hitchcock.zone/files/misc/Psycho1998/py98_005.jpg

Let's talk about the casting. This for me is where remaking Psycho is a poisoned ideal in that an actor who can be great is unfairly forced to compare to someone else, emphasis on why with a story that is repeated a lot (let's say Shakespeare for an example) an actor returning to King Lear or Lady Macbeth must be allowed to breathe in the role even if they say the exact lines as everyone else. Here, the attempt to remake the film of before almost exactly is a trap, where in fact you need an actor to bring their own personality even if the canon is the same as before. Viggo Mortensen I'd argue, honestly, is more interesting than John Gavin as Sam Loomis, an issue in Hollywood's past that they forced many actors into bland white bread figures², whilst Mortensen comes from the period onwards where you could be both a pin up icon but also a serious character actor.

Julianne Moore's Lila Crane however raises a modern concern that, to make you for the marginalisation and sexism of the past, you still need to keep a balance between a credible character as well as a strong one. Even if she's allowed to even kick Norman Bates in the face at one point, the role comes off as patronising than what Vera Miles did in a more sedate version. Also, what was the deal with the headphones? That was an odd decision - she even says she has to go get them even though they are going to Bates Motel in an unintentionally hilarious line of dialogue - and feels like a merchandise tie-in gone wrong; her entire look and attitude, brash in casual clothing listening to her canary yellow Walkman everywhere, would make more sense if the character was a teenager, not Julianne Moore.

From http://cinemajam.com/mag/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/325140756.jpg

Then there is Marion Crane and Norman Bates. Amy Heche tried, though on revisiting the original I realise Janet Leigh's performance is incredible. There is a nuisance when Crane is on the run with the money which Leigh gets perfectly, balancing hesitance and suppressed panic, a stress to her voice when confronted with a police officer when found sleeping in her car that sadly flees out of Heche's hands in the same scene. Psycho is built on the gimmick that Marion is killed halfway through, to the point that Hitchcock had marquees in cinemas saying not to spoil the ending, to even bar people from the cinema if they missed the beginning; but Leigh is as vital as Anthony Perkins is, to the point its part of the reason the original Psycho flags for me, as whilst Perkins as I will get to is exceptionable, once Leigh is gone the film is following actors for the most part who aren't as compelling.

Then there is Norman. Vince Vaughn cannot play nervous - he is like a school jock, not just because of his height but his natural charisma, the nervous laughter more sarcastic. He is good when his Bates gets angry or sad talking about mental asylums or his mother's illness, an actor who was mainly known for comedy who could have untapped potential in this, something to bear in mind as he is clearly S. Craig Zahler's muse in films like Dragged Across Concrete (2018). He has unfortunately been forced to try to recreate Anthony Perkins' role, when his Norman Bates is arguably one of the best horror film performances in American cinema, arguably of all horror cinema. It is tragic he was typecast as a result of this film's iconic nature, unfortunately horror having a narrowness surrounding it when actors capable of potentially more great performances, like Perkins, really don't get a lot of choice after they create an iconic character in horror cinema. His Bates is nervous but charming, a gentleman at first only to slowly unravel so much neurosis and untreated psychological damage to cause a person to worry. The entire speech leading to "we all go a little mad sometimes", despite having seen this film many times before, scared me this time due to his performance. As a horror fan who would argue scaring a viewing is not the most important thing for the genre, when it does frighten me it's something of a mercurial success to experience, next to Brad Dourif's performance scaring me even in the theatrical cut of The Exorcist III (1990) in terms of both being about subdued, nuanced roles; also trust me, whilst the exposition scenes do drag, when Joseph Stefano's script, adapted for the 1998, is allowed to add flavour to itself, its full of many sparks of whit.

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Neither helping Vince Vaughn are the really bad decisions Gus Van Sant made, the moments where Psycho 1998's reputation is understandable due to them. He flubs the shower stabbing, but considering how intricate and difficult the original was to put together, recreating it would be a challenge for anyone. Even intersecting odd details in subliminal images in the murder scenes - clouds, masked nude women, the strangest a sheep on the road - just come off as playful. Bates masturbating to Marion through the peephole and Lila Crane finding a porn mag in his childhood bedroom however are dreadful. They remind me that, controversially, I hated Bloch's original source novel when I read it, thinking Hitchcock's film is superior because he gutted out all the contrived clichés about Norman Bates, who was original balding and overweight, studying occult texts and every unnecessary detail that is an annoying aspect of horror storytelling, something evoked as the sexual undertones Van Sant adds fell like these same heavy handed mistakes.

So Gus Van Sant's Psycho failed but I prefer we would talk of it more even as a curiosity one. I am becoming more intrigued by Sant as, whilst he has made "conventional" dramas, this is a man who jumped genres and types of film regularly. Starting in LGBT low budget cinema with Mala Noche (1985), he has done black comedy in To Die For (1995), oddball premises like Restless (2011), the entire Bela Tarr inspired "Death Trilogy" which absorbed slow cinema aesthetic, or reteaming with Christopher Doyle again with Paranoia Park (2007), a hybrid of the Death Trilogy and his roots in a skate mystery drama. His Psycho is infamous, but its admirable in the way, whilst very different, very comparable to Luca Guadagnino's idiosyncratic remake of Suspiria (1977) from 2018, two art house directors taking a risk touching sacred cows in horror cinema but at least making something memorable between them. It is also ironic knowing Hitchcock took a huge risk with Psycho himself anyway; the remake itself neither forgets the fact where it came from, offering a sincere nod to the maestro in its end credits, and even if he might've found the challenge absurd, a part of me would consider Hitchcock himself, famous for his experiments over the years, to find this entire project of interest.

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1) According to an LA Weekly retrospective, the original screenwriter Joseph Stefano was hired to modify his original script, which is an admirable decision from Van Sant's part.

2) John Gavin to his credit worked with Douglas Sirk twice, such as in A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), so I won't dismiss his acting skill in the slightest.