Once, Twice, Three Times A Psycho

Title: Psycho

Continuing my way through the AFI film list, a couple of days ago I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. I’ve seen it many times before. As I was half watching the opening credits, for the first time ever, I noticed that it was based upon a novel by Robert Bloch.

I was like, what? How did I not know this? Psycho seems like such an inherently visual horror experience that I just assumed that it was a straight to film screenplay. Not only that but Hitchcock must have immediately fastened upon it as a project. The novel was written in 1959 and the film was released in 1960.

Having just watched the film, I knew that I immediately needed to read the novel.

But why stop there? For those that remember, in 1998, Gus Van Sant made the audacious decision to create a virtual shot-by-shot remake of Psycho. It’s kind of a crazy story. Van Sant had recently received an Oscar nomination for Good Will Hunting. Big name actors wanted to work with him. He was hot.

Studio executives pursued him. Being the 90s, all they wanted him to do was to remake previous hits. That seemed to be the limit of their creativity. As a kind of fuck you to them, he agreed to remake Psycho, but only if it was a literal shot for shot remake. They thought he was kidding and just laughed. He continued to push it. His message was basically, if you want me to work at your studio, then that is the price that you must pay.

He was so hot that Universal said yes. He made a sixty million dollar picture that was virtually an exact remake of a film that cost less than one million.

Not exactly shocking, it was a critical and financial flop. I remember seeing it in the theater when it came out (I was probably one of less than five people in the showing). I actually enjoyed it.

So, this week, I decided to watch the 1960 film, the 1998 remake, and to read the novel.

My first thought was how close Hitchcock (and by implication, Van Sant) stayed to the source material. Whenever a film is adapted from a novel, the implication always is that the adaptation will be loose. Since the written word and visual imagery are so different, it’s not that surprising. I was expecting something like World War Z. I enjoyed both the novel and the film but pretty much the only connection between the two is a shared title.

In the novel, Mary (Marion in the film) is carrying on a relationship with Sam Loomis, a hardware store owner that can’t marry her because of his heavy debts. A wealthy, slightly obnoxious man comes into the real estate office in which Mary works and pays a large amount of cash to buy property. Her boss asks Mary to deposit the cash at the bank. Instead, Mary sees this as an opportunity for her to disappear with the cash and pay off Sam’s debt. She gets lost late on a stormy night and ends up at Bates’ motel. After having an awkward conversation with Norman Bates about his mother, she takes a shower and is killed by his mother. Later, Mary’s sister Lila shows up at Sam’s store looking for Mary, shortly followed by Arbogast, the man hired to find Mary and to return the money. Arbogast talks to Norman and gets a bit suspicious. He decides that he needs to talk to Norman’s mother. Arbogast is murdered by the mother. All evidence of murder is buried by Norman out in the swamp out back. Lila and Sam are now suspicious and visit the motel to talk to Norman’s mother. Sam distracts Norman while Lila pokes around the house, getting increasingly scared. She walks down to the root cellar where she sees Norman’s mother in a chair. She tries to talk to her and the mother turns out to be mummified remains. She screams as Norman, in women’s clothes, attempts to kill her. Sam disables Norman. The novel concludes with a psychological discussion about how Norman actually killed his mother many years earlier and, to assuage his guilt, would occasionally take on her personality. Norman has now been fully and exclusively been taken over by his mother. Her last thoughts are, as a fly buzzes near her, that the authorities will realize that she’s harmless because she literally wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Does any of that sound familiar? It is exactly the plot of the film Psycho. I don’t think that I’ve seen a film that was quite so literally adapted from the book.

There are a few differences. Because it is a novel, you do get to see a lot more of Norman’s interior thoughts. You learn about his interests in subjects like psychology and voodoo. He’s in his forties and is short and pudgy. It’s his drinking that causes him to black out while he’s in his mother’s persona.

Like the film, the novel hides its cards well. It still achieves a shocking moment of horror when Norman attacks Lila, but all along the way it gives hints. Norman has conversations with mother that, in hindsight, point to the fact that they are taking place in his mind.

Since it’s nearly a shot for shot remake, there’s not a lot of directorial differences between the two films. Since the later film was not made under Hayes morality code, nudity was shown. Sam and Mary are clearly naked in bed, having just had sex, during their opening tryst. There are some camera pans performed that just technically weren’t possible in 1960. The later film is in color. Since Van Sant used a VCR tape of the original while he was directing, that did not give him much directorial space to be innovative.

It boils down to the acting. I’ve seen three different stagings of Hamlet. In each, the actor playing Hamlet made bold choices that claimed the role for himself.

There’s no comparison between Anthony Perkins and Vince Vaughn as Norman. Although it undoubtedly ruined his movie career, Perkins gives an absolutely brilliant performance. Perkins’ Norman is boyish, edgy, nervous, frail, repressed, angry, and dangerous in a performance that changes from minute to minute. I’ve seen the scene where Norman attacks Lila in the root cellar many, many times. Even so, seeing it within the flow of the film is still scary as fuck.

Nothing against Vince Vaughn. He gives it his all. I think that his physicality works against him. He just doesn’t project the normal creepy that Perkins can. Apparently, Joaquin Phoenix was also considered for the role. That might have been a more interesting choice.

The two Arbogast’s, Martin Balsam and William H Macy, are a draw. They are both talented character actors doing what character actors do.

Here’s my hot take. I think Anne Heche is a better Marion than Janet Leigh. I realize that Leigh’s performance is nearly as iconic as Perkins. I just think that Heche does more with it. I don’t know if it’s related to the fact that method acting has become ubiquitous by 1998, but I see more thought and emotion in Heche’s performance than I do with Leigh’s.

Julianne Moore, playing Lila in the later film, is decidedly better than Vera Miles. Miles plays it pretty straight in the Hitchcock film while Moore took more chances and created a much richer character.

Even with some better performances, did the Van Sant film really need to be made? Probably not.

Given that, I think that it does make an interesting statement regarding the lack of creativity, the lack of risk taking, and rise of the culture of remakes, sequels, prequels, and existing universe films (ie Marvel, DC, and Star Wars) that still permeates the movie industry.