The film instigated new ideas about cinema, artistic re-appropriation, and the allegedly untouchable status of canonized classics. The perceived failure of Psycho 1998 in critical circles is beautiful in a way, however, like a scientific experiment yielding unexpected results. The film was doomed before anybody watched it it was a spectacular failure by simply existing. The film was an experiment unparalleled in film history, proving to Roger Ebert that a shot-for-shot remake is “pointless” and that “genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted.” Film critic and Hitchcock expert William Rothman went so far as saying “the more I dwell on van Sant’s Psycho, the more it can seem that cinema … has run its course, that the art of film is declaring bankruptcy.” Everything, including direction, the previously described changes, and performances were scrutinized mercilessly there was no way in hell Anne Heche or Vince Vaughn, especially, could ever live up to the performances of Janet Leigh or Anthony Perkins. But once you see Psycho 1998, it’s also kind of impossible not to. Outside of Freudian analysis, why should a morality play that alludes to illicit sex lead to something as horrific of a demise as Marion’s murder and then become so popular as to turn into a sub-genre itself (slasher films)?įew people are willing to openly reconsider Psycho 1960 in relation to Psycho 1998, which is a bit of a shame. But its wonky translation also shed light into how Psycho ’60 might also have been more problematic than we once thought. To screw a lover in a cheap motel during lunch break in the 1990s is what jaded adult characters do now in films about mid-life crises, and it doesn’t typically propel them into a downward spiral of immorality or horror-film doom. Deviancy seals her fate it’s part of the narrative’s thematic essence. Marion’s love affair with Sam–premarital and illicit in the 1950s–is the inception of her continued bout of aberrant behavior, what changes her bra from white to black, what lures her into the trap of a twisted individual. Modernizing Psycho 1998 reveals just how poorly the story translates into a 1990s setting. These include an additional, extended shot of Norman Bates after the point-of-view shot through the wall-hole, during which he can be heard masturbating, and another of Sam’s bare ass (followed by a reverse shot of Marion looking approvingly in its direction). There are also two significant additions in Van Sant’s version, which reflect our contemporary comfort with onscreen sexuality. The psychologist’s ending speech removes all the (outdated) references to Norman Bates being a transvestite. The film is not only in color, but vividly so Anne Heche’s Marion Crane sports tacky orange, pink and green-colored outfits, nail polish and brassieres as if she recently escaped the repressed hysteria of Pleasantville. There are a few noticeable differences, particularly the script, which mostly reflects Van Sant’s narrative modernization in the 1990s. Van Sant’s Psycho retains so much of the original that it can be a challenge to find more minor alterations. The logic behind these intentions–and the ways in which Universal marketed the film as aiming for a platonic, but infallibly impossible level of fidelity–seem counterintuitive and misguided, given that Hitchcock’s Psycho remains embedded so deeply in Western culture’s psyche, as to render the necessity or usefulness of an exact remake obsolete. Perhaps one is tempted to do the same with the remake itself, a critical and financial flop that baffled and angered many critics and viewers, not merely because an artist was remaking one of film history’s most beloved works, but because Van Sant did not so much remake the film as he did reshoot it, virtually shot for shot, line for line, in a self-proclaimed desire to retell the story for younger audiences. It is perhaps wise to simply erase all memories of Van Sant’s interviews, explanations, intentions and ideas about his 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. This version holds up a mirror to the original film: it’s sort of its schizophrenic twin.” ( Gus Van Sant) Reflections are a major theme in the original, with mirrors everywhere, characters who reflect each other. “ Psycho is perfect to refashion as a modern piece.
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