(image from: www.cinemastrikesback.com/.../psycho19984.jpg)After watching Gus Van Sant's 1998 version of Psycho I have to say I feel ambivalent. Going into the experience I had already made up my mind that I was going to hate the remake but it actually didn’t turn out as bad I as expected which really annoyed me because I’m super stubborn so I wanted to hate it. Midway through, however, I found myself able to appreciate certain aspects of the film and the different ways that Van Sant interpreted scenes or details as well as the ways that the actors interpreted their roles. The “shower scene” in particular was a positive. Still, in the end I have to go with my old friend, Alfred Hitchcock.
I definitely have a love/hate relationship with the casting of the film and by that I mean I hated the casting of Viggo Mortensen as Sam (sorry Gracie). The original Sam (John Gavin) had that suave, sexy, and somewhat of a dog persona that fit the role perfectly. It seems like a role for Matthew McConaughey not Viggo Mortensen. I thought Anne Hache was a clever choice for a modernized Marion Crane. Her hairstyle and wardrobe captured Marion’s dual personality. Then we have Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, a strange choice for the role. It almost seems like they intentionally chose someone completely different from Anthony Perkins in order to discourage comparisons. Or perhaps Van Sant thought modern audiences would expect the villain to be more overtly threatening or creepy. At times the clash between Vaughn's manly appearance and boyish behavior worked well. Overall however, his lack of subtlety gives him away prematurely. He pulled off the role but doesn’t have look to master it. I half expected him to tell Marion that she’s “so money baby” (Swingers, 1996).
While I feel slightly disloyal to Hitchcock, I liked the remake version of the "shower scene" better than the original. Although I will qualify that by saying that had I been alive to see Psycho in 1960, I’m sure my response would be very different. The original is masterfully done but by the time I was old enough to see Psycho, I had seen it parodied so often that it unfortunately couldn’t have as profound an effect. What I liked about the 1998 shower scene is that Van Sant didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water (no pun intended). That is, he kept the details that make the shower scene so iconic while toning down the parts that have been tainted by years of parody. I was also impressed that Van Sant didn’t go over the top with the blood and gore even though he could have.
With the exception of the "shower scene," my overall reaction to Psycho (1998) couldn’t go beyong appreciation for the aspects of the film that Van Sant got right. Even though he kept the original screenplay and style of the film the two still feel completely different. Part of me wants to say hands down that I love the 1960 version over the remake and I do. But then again it’s like comparing apples and oranges. I guess if I had to compare the two the best way to explain it is that I love Hitchcock’s Psycho and I find Van Sant’s, tolerable. One thing is clear; Hitchcock’s Psycho is a work of art that can be appreciated by connoisseurs and novices alike. I don’t believe that the same could not be said of the remake. Also, a huge part of the reason I’m so impressed by the original is due to Anthony Perkin’s performance. It’s one of the best performances I’ve seen period. Norman Bates just isn’t Norman Bates without Perkins and Psycho isn’t Psycho without Norman Bates.
9 comments:
So right about Viggo Mortonson and Matth(eew) McConaughy. McConaghy is a dog even WHEN playing a good guy. And Viggo,even if he plays a villan, he still gives you the impression he wants to be good. As far as 'Psycho' is concerned, Perkins played the character so well, that I actually felt sorry for Norman Bates all the way to the end; it seemed as if he was the true victim in the story. Not so for Marion Crane, she should've listened to HER mommy, Crime doesn't pay.
Love reading your blog; you're so smart baby.
Lessons about men I learned from watching Psycho:
1. When a man says he wants to see you even if it means that he must do it legitimately, he only wants in your pants.
2. If you have to commit grand theft in order for your man to marry you, he wont marry you once you do commit grand theft.
3. When a man complains to you about his ex-wife taking all his money in alimony, he a) is not over her enough to be thinking about marriage; b) is too much of a whiner to marry any way since he cant suck it up and deal with his obligations no matter how annoying; c) was probably divorced for the same reasons you will soon divorce him for if you marry him.
4. When you mention marriage and the man immediatly begins to lament over payments to his ex-wife and his "father's" debts, you need to do an immediate background check and interview his neighbors, friends and relatives before the relationship goes any further.
5. If your man flies in from out of town in order to see you, but will not marry you, he has a wife and 5 children he uses you to escape from.
6. If your man is in debt, owes alimony, and asks you to call your boss and ask off for the day so you can stay in his hotel room to service him until he flies back home, you can bet your last dollar he is not interested in marrying you and that you are one of several.
6. When an old man sits on your desk and tells you he buys off unhappiness, slaps down $40k, then asks you if you are unhappy, just after he comes inside complaining about how sweaty he is: he wants a hooker, if you are one you should jump at this opportunity, if you are not one, this is not the opportunity to become one.
7. When a police officer meets you on the side of the road, says you have not broken any laws, but that you are NOT free to go, you should definatly leave fast regardless of what he says!
8. Car sales men, when questioned by the police, will aparently give any and all information they gain about you, even though it is illegal to do so without a valid warrant/court order for such private information.
9. Taxidermists are creepy no matter how nice.
10. When a man compares you to a dead animal he enjoys stuffing, do not have dinner with him.
11. When a grown man, when asked about his friends, replies with "a man's mother is his best friend" he is a 'mama's boy' and you should not waste your time trying to change him, or get him to put his mother into a mental institution, he will only turn on you.
12. A man who does not treat his mother kindly, will not treat you kindly.
Well Niamh, I agree with you, especially regarding numbers 10 and 11. Thanks for the Psycho Life Lessons.
Joy I think you are forgetting the whole bottom line of the plot that wasnt captured at all in Van Sant's version of this horrible movie: that Sam was in debt because he paid Norman to kill Marion because she was pregnant with his child and in addition to alimony and "father's debts" he didn't need to be paying child support as well. In the end of Hitchcock's version Norman captures this plainly with the fly, he explains that he, as mother, is so innocent he wouldnt hurt a fly.
I understand that this is a subtle but it is nonetheless the main part of the plot, which was definatly not caught as well by Van Sant.
Hitchcock used the boy image of Norman Bates to capture this, but Van Sant seemed to have missed this ever-so central part of the plot.
I think modern audiences just dont understand subtlety, take Gone with the Wind par example. (By the way, have you ever noticed how they never remake the better classics a la Gone with the Wind and Star Wars?) Ashley Wilkes and Wisker-face Kennedy: members of the KKK. Also, no one seems to realize that the movie is not about Scarlet getting together with Rhett, the movie is about Scarlet realizing how important her father's land is to her...Lets consider the "sequel" Scarlet: first, Scarlet isnt supposed to be beautiful, but she sure isnt supposed to look like Joanne Whaley either. However, Joanne may have been willing to do things that the pretty actresses wouldnt, like kiss Timothy Dalton. The "sequel" completly misses the points raised in Gone with the Wind: that Scarlet and Rhett are too messed up to raise children! In the same way, Van Sant completly misses the point made in the original Hitchcock version. At any rate, this movie should never be made again nor still seen by anyone. I find that people who enjoy such horror flicks are just as easily amused by paper blowing in the wind (watch American Beauty). What horror movies lack is suspense and drama...what if the ending wasnt so cliche and obvious? what if the blood wasn't so over used? It wouldnt be Carrie, but it might be good! Psycho is like watching a romance novel: opening scene-half naked girl in clandestine relationship with cant-be-tied-down male; girl meets guy at a motel and regardless of the obvious hole in the wall opposite the bathroom, refuses to lock the door while she showers after enticing said motel man over dinner; first male becomes acquainted with female's sister and in the end rescues sister and forgetting first female. You know the bad girl will die, and as if its some sort of unexpected twist: the murderer has dillusional thoughts...as if murderers usually kill in sanity.
As I have commented before, the whole killing the girl scenario is WAY over done. Whether the movie is in color or not, the only suspense is when my bootlegged internet version needs to take time to buffer before I can watch the next 13 minutes of the movie.
The good news is though, that I just recieved my copies of Little House on the Prairie, so next time you review an over-watched, overrated movie, I can review Laura Ingalls.
Subtle subplots aside [ahem], It is curious that "Niamh" believes she has to return to Laura Ingalls' pioneer tales to encounter suspense. For most members of a modern audience, the only suspense would be wondering what sod hut Charles Ingalls' wanderlust would take his long suffering wife and children to next (along with how much of Rose Wilder's writings and polish went into her mother's books :-))
The key to accessing Hitchcock's Psycho (and its later remake) is an understanding of what a contemporary audience expects vs. what the Hitchcock's intended audience would have looked for. The build up and (by today's standards, somewhat cheesy)dialogue is part of the dramatic element that a 1960s audience might have sought from a motion picture, as compared today where exposition reaches story-killing levels because the average filmgoer is too dim follow the plot otherwise.
So to respond to "Niamh," subtlety is indeed a lost art in much of contemporary film, yet audiences still flock to suspense and horror films. I think that part of this lies in or innate desire to encounter monsters we can see and categorize, as opposed life forces beyond our total understanding and control. A film can never be overwatched or overrated when it speaks to an element of the human psyche (or dare I say, soul.)
Dude, c'mon! You cannot seriously believe that what the Little House series lacks is actually achieved in Psycho. Little House depicts all kinds of suspense and even more monsters we have encountered. Take the Ingall's bear grease, while trying to figure out what to put on your toast is quite the conundrum when your butter is frozen in a cow's udders, today we have margarine; and consider the sod floor, today we have linoleum. Talk about horror, what do you do when you must grow your own groceries? Who knows today - because we have obliterated that monster. Modern audiences now have the ability to ask a South American for the answer to that question because Katy Couric sure wouldnt be able to tell us.
The monsters in horror flicks, are not forseeable or categorizable to modern audiences, otherwise horror flicks wouldnt so wrongly be accused of being suspenseful. That's not even to start with the modern audience's inability to tame or otherwise obliterate the monsters in horror flicks - the Brady bill and other democratic inventions see to it that modern audiences, though growing more immoral with the women in horror flicks, are unable to fend off their assailants with the use of simple modern technologies..why? because instead of teaching little Johnny the importance of gun safety and gun respect, modern audiences would rather see a horror flick than raise their offspring to know better than to play with daddy's guns while the parents neglect him for hours a day. We must understand that under your theory that modern audiences would rather view a monster they can see and categorize (a la horror films) the simple act of widespread good parenting would forever decimate the appeal of horror flicks to modern audiences.
I think you cannot disagree with me there.
Sorry about the mangled html in the last post, don't know what happened.
Um, all I wanted to say was that I like the Matthew McConaughey suggestion. But after skimming those other posts, I feel a little intimidated, so I won't say anything. Goodbye.
Post a Comment