The Audience Who Knew Too Much
Psycho (1998)
Seen on 5 December 1998 by myself at the Cineplex First Ave and 62nd Street for $8.75
Earlier this year Roger Ebert declared that the one movie that did not need to be remade was Alfred Hitchcock's *Psycho*. So of course they went out and remade it
The ad campaign was very slick, leading you to believe that you might be seeing something something new and different. Well, with very few exceptions, you are seeing director Gus Van Sant refilm the Hitchcock classic shot-for-shot, with all the same dialogue, and even Bernard Herrmann's original score.
Now mind you, I am a bit of an expert on this film. It was my term paper for my Hitchcock class at college, and I saw the movie four times in one week while studying the shot-by-shot analysis in a book--appropriately entitled *Psycho*.
So it was actually disappointing to see nothing new. The few additions made by van Sant are distracting at best--like the cutaways to fuzzy video images during Crane's and Arbogast's murders. Why? It simply ruins the two best scenes in the movie.
While refilming the movie shot-for-shot "brings it to a new audience"--and in color--it becomes dated. Elements from the original that placed it in 1960, like detectives wearing hats, having the operator "put the call through" and a motel that suffers because "they moved the highway" are misplaced here. Meanwhile, references to her Walkman make Lila Crane (Julianne Moore) a commercial for Sony.
Oh, and adding slapping noises as a Norman masturbates while peeping at a disrobing Marion is completely unnecessary. Subtlety, Gus, subtlety, please. Hitchcock's audiences knew how to fill in the blanks quite nicely on their own. Contrasted to the dullness of telling the story moment-for-moment as the original, the audience's derisive laughter is well deserved.
Because the new version is in color, there is some room for new movement, but the only option played is to give Marion (Anne Heche) an orange motif. The reasons for this are not clear, or necessary.
While younger audiences (late teens/early twenties) might never have seen the original, it's hard to see how it can stand up to the far more sophisticated thrillers they surely have come expect, like *Scream*. In it's day, killing off the star in the first third of the film and leaving the rest of the cast to play out a new storyline (embezzlement story turns into a murder mystery of psychotic proportions) was new, innovative. Today, the story seems quite boring, and Viggo Mortensen (as Marion's lover Sam) and Moore (as her sister) are the twin definitions of uncompelling as they look into Marion's disappearance.
Only Vince Vaughn's crack at the Norman Bates role made famous by Anthony Perkins keeps the story moving. He is much taller than Heche, and more menacing than Perkins.
In the end, the most interesting performance is Heche's. The most interesting part of *Psycho* (here and in the original) is the unsung first reel in which Marion has decided to make off with her boss's cash, and is imagining the hot pursuit she must be fleeing. In both movies, the cop with the sunglasses is possibly the *most* menacing figure, practically rivaling "Mother" (whose rants were better in the original).
Chad Everett is hilarious as the lecherous Texan businessman.
Based on the novel by Robert Bloch.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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