Psycho (possible spoilers)

"I went to see Psycho on Saturday afternoon - Gus Van Sant's remake. It was the same movie. Seriously. Identical script, same score (re-recorded by Danny 'Batman' Elfman) - even the same costumes. The camera angles were shot-for-shot the same, and they used the same studio and even held seances to contact Hitchcock for technical advice (he did, coincidentally, offer his complete spiritual approval for the project). The only differences were the fact that it was shot in colour and that the cast differed….Vince Vaughan makes a great Norman Bates although Anne Heche wasn't particularly brilliant.

They only took one major liberty - the scene where Norman is peeping through the keyhole as Marion puts on the robe. As we watch her getting undressed, you could hear a noise - a clicking noise? - faint, but audible. I had an idea what it was, but put it out of my mind. They wouldn't have put that in, surely? Cut back to Norman, still watching, but bobbing vigorously up and down in this remake, jerking his arm back and forth and breathing heavily…..dear God, I can't bring myself to say it. Most of the audience was in hysterics; I sat there thinking no……please…he can't be doing that, surely! But of course, he was. Yeuch. Have you ever noticed that it's not something that's talked about much in movies? Or at least not with any real sense of equality. When women are doing it it's a sensual, erotic experience (cf. 9 ½ Weeks….it certainly felt like that long). But when you see men do it the whole thing is used either as a source of amusement (look, they're going to get interrupted!) or a degrading, base activity. Something not right here.

The cinema was full of kids who had obviously not seen the original and who weren't particularly interested. I counted three mobile phones ringing - why won't people turn them off? I always do - and people were out of their seats constantly, moving about and going out and coming in again. They even admitted latecomers - something Hitchcock would never have done (Psycho rewrote the rule book by being the first movie not to allow anyone in after the opening credits had rolled). But by the final act, as Lila and Sam explore the motel, and Lila makes her way up into the Gothic mansion, screaming at her own reflection in the bedroom and marvelling at the indent in the king-size bed, before walking down to the fruit cellar…..the girls behind me were saying "That's it. She's dead. The mother's going to kill her."
And I sat there thinking You don't know what's coming next, do you…? Oh, a good reason to be smug!

The problem, essentially, is this - it's the same film with a different cast, so you have to wonder just why Van Sant did it. In interview he states that he wants to bring it up to date for a nineties audience who haven't seen it. Fine. So you colourise the original and infuriate the critics but you save a hell of a lot of cash. If he'd done a completely up-to-date version with hand-held cameras and a Trent Reznor-produced soundtrack I could have understood. But this….I don't know if it's wrong to like it, and if you do like it do you like it as a remake or as a film in its own right? I'm not against remakes. I would like nothing better than to rewrite Brief Encounter, with Kristin Scott Thomas and one of the McGann brothers. It's not that I don't like the original, it's just - well, I hate it."

(From a letter, Monday 11th January 1999)