Double Dare

There are a handful of films that resonate with the American cinemerati, if even such a word exists. These are films that critics come back to once and again. Some are considered masterpieces, and some nearly so. Psycho fits into the nearly masterpiece. Beloved films are like beloved friends. It's not easy to substitute them for someone else. Despite your friend's flaws, improving upon them wouldn't seem quite right.

Gus Van Sant had an idea that most directors would consider preposterous, and that's in an age where remakes occur with startling frequency. Most remakes are of films that are either foreign, so American audiences are unaware of the original. I can thnk of several films. Sommersby was a remake of the French film, The Return of Martin Guerre, and reset as a Western. Point of No Return was a remake of La Femme Nikita. Little Indian, Big City was remade from the French film of approximately the same title.

There have been talks about remaking John Woo's The Killer. And of course, Peter Jackson is remaking King Kong.

Gus Van Sant intended to use the original script, and the original shots to remake Psycho. He made a few changes. Clearly, he had to have new actors. So, he conceded that these actors could act the way they felt was appropriate, rather than do a faithful mimicry of the originals. That would have been challenging. As it was, Van Sant got several name actors to play key roles, including Anne Heche, Viggo Mortensen, William Macy, Julianne Moore, and Vincent Vaughn.

Second, he filmed it in color. Given that the movie was going to be in theaters, making it in black and white would have been a hard sell. As it is, remaking Psycho would be a hard sell.

To be honest, up until about the halfway point in the film, it was pretty tense. Sure, the acting's a bit mannered, the clothing a little out of style, the Herrmann score is wondrous even as it dominates the film. Viggo Mortensen does a reasonably good job of playing the dull yoakam that helps find out what happened to Marion Crane, the main character.

Hitchcock did something in Psycho that surprising for its time, and really, has almost not been done since then. He made people believe that the movie was about the woman who steals the money, believing it will change her life, when a rainstorm forces her to stay at the now infamous Bates Motel. About halfway through the film, her character is killed off, and the story becomes that of Norman Bates.

Despite this well-known twist, people continue to enjoy the film to this day.

There were many who questioned whether a remake of such a classic could ever hope to match the original. I have no idea. I wanted to see the remake first, and then compare. At the very least, I would get to see differences in acting style, choices of what to shoot, even differences in available technology. For example, the opening shot of Van Sant's version is a long shot over a city, which then closes in on a skyscraper, to an open window, and just inside, where we're introduced to Marion and her lover, having an afternoon tryst. In the original, this shot was not possible, so they did the best they could, which involved cuts.

Personally, despite the widespread criticism of remaking such a classic, I'd like to see more of it happen, because I think there's value in trying to see what makes great films great. Is it really great, or is it our intimate familiarity, just like seeing our pet dog, where any replacement could hardly ever qualify as an improvement.