Okay I’m freely admitting this time from the start that I’m writing this as the movie is playing (I don’t want to miss any of my thoughts, and I’ve watched it plenty of times before so I can safely divide my attention). When it first came out, I was one of the few people who had no problems with this shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s best known work. I don’t know if I’d read the brilliant and revelatory Truffaut interviews with him at that point in time, but something inside me still was certain even then that Hitchcock would’ve kinda loved this type of experiment, being as he was an experimenter himself – I mean, that is what this movie is, an experiment. I don’t think you can truly dismiss something so unique as this movie as swiftly as some did. I immediately thrilled at the first big screen viewing as Danny Elfman’s new recording of Bernard Herrmann’s score started blaring out of the 5.1 cinema system, over imitation Saul Bass credits that were now a lovely garish green. You have to wonder … what would Hitch’s Psycho have looked like in colour? What would he have chosen, how gaudy, how gritty, or would it have been glossy? How would the blood have looked (he famously used chocolate sauce, and is even alleged to not even have been present at the shooting of the great shower scene)? What might he have shown today, perhaps, that he couldn’t show then (he thrilled at having a toilet flush onscreen in his version – and towards the end of his career, his movies did get seedier and seedier)? And conversely … what if Van Sant had gone all the way, beyond shot-for-shot? What if he’d made it black and white, made it cheap, maybe even tracked down the exact film stock and lenses and cameras, sound equipment (really, some other film makers would do this), instead of bringing it – at least technically – up-to-date? Would it have been received better?

It’s a long, long time since I saw this remake, and a long time since I saw the original. Psycho was only ever a true Hitchcock favourite of mine when I was first getting into movies, in fact probably only a couple of years before this one. It certainly blew my mind the first time I saw it, even on my under-the-covers school-time 3” television, lol – but then I saw other things. Better things. Way better things, to be honest. These days, for me, Psycho still has its great moments (I never fail to jump out of my skin when Arbogast meets Norman on the stairs, eg. – but the same can be said for either version), but overall it’s fairly cheap and simple compared to, say, Vertigo or The Wrong Man, or my favourite, Marnie. Of course, this is what was intended, and I don’t intend what I just said as a criticism, just an observation: it’s a cheap movie. Hitchcock wanted to see what he could do with a television budget on a feature movie, hence the black and white stock, etc. This movie was always meant to be, basically, a “B” movie, and yet it was elevated to classic status. Really, the reception Van Sant’s version received could easily have been given to the original. Hitch was no stranger to criticism in his time – it was the French New Wave people who finally realised just how good he was.

I found it funny that the announcer before this version screened tonight on BBC1 said it was an “homage to Hitchcock”. I think a lot of people back in 1998 would’ve more quickly called it an insult to Hitchcock. I don’t know, I’ve said my piece on that, even 7 years later having seen more of Hitchcock’s work and read more about him, I still believe he would have loved the idea. He remade his own The Man Who Knew Too Much and often recycled themes. He was never in the business of art and originality, he didn’t pretend to that, he just wanted to make people crap themselves in suspense like any successful film maker. But I guess we’ll never know what he would’ve thought. But I’d say, if there’s any homage paid here in Van Sant’s version, it’s more to Joseph Stefano’s screenplay, which is pretty much played verbatim, and Bernard Herrmann’s score, “adapted” here by Danny Elfman (though you wouldn’t know the difference except the higher fidelity recording) which drove the original so brilliantly, from the opening string jabs to the look Marion’s boss gives her in the car, to The Shower Scene (capital letters please), the reprise of that theme on Arbogast’s little ‘accident’ on the staircase, it’s always there, dragging you along, almost triggering your synapses to go, “OMG! what next!? what?! tell me!!”

Aside from Vince Vaughn (who does a decent Norman, but you simply can’t replace Anthony Perkins in the same way you can’t replace Hitchcock), I think the movie is decently cast. Like I was saying about the movie in general, the acting in the original was never groundbreaking stuff, it was mostly straight shepherding by Hitchcock, screaming on cue and saying the lines clearly (random idea – David Mamet would make a good modern-day Hitchcock – this is basically the advice he gives in his book on acting). The cast here (Julianne Moore and William H. Macy excluded – but then Moore and Macy can do anything, including retro-wooden*), this idea considered, are pretty perfect (no offence intended).

A note about Moore, actually (sorry, awkward insert, I wrote the previous paragraph before she appeared) – she’s kind of amazing in this movie. My memory was telling me she was as toned down as everyone else, but within her first couple of lines she’s her usual must-see self. She really lights up the movie just when it’s needed – I guess much like Vera Miles in the original, only more … ginger

I think some people viewed this movie the wrong way, basically. It was maybe marketed wrong, marketed too much perhaps. Maybe people expected this to be the kind of remake we’re used to more recently, “bringing it to the kids of today”, etc. If you try to view this movie that way, try to think of it as something entertaining, something you can slip into and be thrilled and shocked by, by today’s standards, it’s not gonna work so well. I’m sure Van Sant always intended it as an experiment (just look at his most recent work – he’s simply that kind of film maker). And as an experiment, I continue to find it pretty fascinating. And if for nothing else, it’s at least a chance to hear Herrmann’s score in a brilliant recording and flawless format. Some days, and I cower in anticipation of someone hitting me at this lol, but some days I’d almost watch this one more readily than Hitch’s own.

*On further reflection at the end of the movie, I guess I have to add Philip Baker Hall and Robert Forster (who almost makes that cheesy epilogue – which I really thought they’d skip in the remake – interesting) to that list of those that hold their own here. It’s a damn impressive cast, what can I say.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2005 at 1:04 am in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.