I GO PSYCHO!

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Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock–Psycho (1998) Gus Van Sant

Anthony Perkins                         Vincent Vaughn
Janet Leigh                                  Anne Heche
Vera Miles                                    Julianne Moore

Original

A few weeks ago, I was watching a movie channel that had an interview by Dick Cavett of Alfred Hitchcock. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q-QAsi7Ge0

In the interview, Hitchcock took scene by scene and discussed its making and the problems that needed to be solved to create this amazingly interesting movie.

Remake

Having not seen the movie, I decided to go to the library and rent it, and as I was about to, I noticed the movie was re-created by another director, Gus Van Sant, scene for scene. Since it was such a widely acclaimed movie by those who saw the original by Hitchcock movie, (which by the way because the critics had to see it like everyone else without a screening, they panned it), I thought I’d watch that first then the original to see which I liked best.

The original is done in Black and White while the remake is modernized for 1998 and made in color. Having studied filmmaking in college, I was very interested in viewing the two techniques and seeing if indeed Hitchcock was the genius everyone said he was. Both films are adapted from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, which was in turn inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.

In some respects, I liked the remake better, particularly the opening pan of the city of Phoenix and the camera as it entered the apartment through the window of the hotel. (Mel Brooks did a spoof in his movie with Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman) High Anxiety in its opening scene) However, those moments were few and far between, since all the thinking in terms of camera angle, flavor (black and white vs. color) and the dialogue and mood were done before hand by Hitchcock. The remake was entertaining and very well done, but I realized soon into the original, that it was better overall because Hitchcock had a method to his filming that Van Sant picked up on to remake it. Without the black and white aspect of the movie, the theme, which was the Norman Bates mother complex, would never have come across as strong as it did in the original.

Never try to put any director next to Hitchcock for comparisons, because both may be equal, but I think Hitchcock from his other movies seems to have a master plan, that takes cinema to art.

If you’d like, watch the YouTube link and watch an enjoyable interview.