Okay, here's the deal. Today, folks, I offer you a Christmas story. You probably know it, but, hey, allow me to update. Y'all ever heard about the little boy who wanted a pony for Christmas? All year long, he begged and begged his mom and dad for a pony. He wrote letter after letter to Santa, begging for a pony. Christmas Eve, he looked out the window, saying, "Bring me a pony, Santa," over and over until he fell asleep at the windowsill.
The first rays of the Christmas Morning sun fell on his hopeful face, and he woke up, realizing that it was time for him to see his pony. He ran down the stairs to the Christmas tree, but there was no pony. He sighed, and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. As he drank, he glanced out the window. There, in the back yard, he saw a huge pile of manure that his father had had delivered to use as compost for their garden next spring.
His mother and father heard screams and shouts coming from outside. They ran downstairs to the back yard, and found the little boy, happily digging through the manure. He was throwing it all over the yard in double handfuls, laughing and smiling as he did so. His father shouted out, "What in the world are you doing, boy?"
The boy looked up and saw his puzzled mother and father. He smiled and said, "Are you kidding? With this much crap, there's got to be a pony underneath!"
I just got back from the much-ballyhooed remake of Psycho, starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche. I was so excited I could hardly wait for the night it opened. There were so many wonderful possibilities here. Gus Van Sant directing a shot-by-shot remake of the Hitchcock masterpiece with a hype-friendly cast. Vaughn, a hot up-and-comer, playing the infamous role. Julianne Moore playing the Vera Miles part of the amateur detective sister of the victim. Anne Heche bringing Janet Leigh's famous shower to the screen again. A laundry list of hip supporting actors -- Viggo Mortensen, Robert Forster, and William H. Macy. Oh, man, I thought I was in heaven.
Well, I found the pile, and, oh yes, I dug until I could dig no more, and, folks, there ain't nary a pony to be found here. Not even a horseshoe. Just a hollow feeling that this was an unnecessary gesture of admiration, or, worse, a sadly blatant attempt by Universal Studios to swipe a moneymaker this year.
I forego the plot summary here, mainly 'cause you probably know the plot better than I do. Embezzler Marian Crane (Heche) swipes a bunch of money. She stops for the night at a little hotel. Norman Bates (Vaughn), the hotel operator, gives her a room. A special room. Marian ends up sliced and diced in the shower. Marian's sister comes looking for her missing sister. She finds the real murderer instead.
Evasive, yes, but, for the sake of Sir Alfred, I'll allow those of you that haven't seen the original the blessing of not knowing how it ends.
I wish there were some way I could point my finger to exactly what's so wrong with this movie, but I really can't. It seems trite to say, "The original was better," and leave it at that, but really, that's exactly what's wrong. Gus Van Sant wanted to make this a shot-by-shot remake of the classic, and for that I admire him. He wanted, I hope, to pay tribute to a movie that literally scared the bejesus out of a generation of people, one of the best-known thrillers in the world. But by doing so, he invited a host of problems down on his head.
Vaughn and Heche are good actors, but they don't measure up to Perkins and Leigh. Anthony Perkins played the very heart out of the character Norman Bates, so much so that he never broke out of the stereotype. Every twitch, every nervous giggle and half-smile, every glance towards the Bates house, and that shadow in the window, they were all part of the legend that became Norman Bates. Vaughn tries to do that same thing, but he only looks like he's aping Perkins. The nervous laugh seems forced, the twitching looks choreographed, and the character just doesn't feel the same. Granted, it's not like any film fanatic is not virtually reading Bates' mind every minute. Vaughn has the unlucky blessing of playing a person we've all grown to know better than the character knew himself. Norman Bates has become a part of our culture. His name is synonymous with any odd-behaving character. How is Vince supposed to play the character? If he changes the mannerisms and the style of Norman, he incurs the wrath of millions of Psycho fans. He does his best to copy Perkins, he incurs the wrath of millions of Psycho fans. It just never comes across as being as true as Perkins. Miss Heche falls into the same trap, but not quite as hard, because her character is not onscreen for as long.
I found myself noticing something else, though, that bothered me even more than the false feelings in the acting. About thirty minutes into this movie, it dawned on me, for the first time, that I was seeing Psycho in color. And, honestly, I didn't like it worth a tinkers' dang. When Sir Alfred made his original, he could have easily chosen to make it in color. He chose not to. Instead, he made a movie full of shadows and substances, shades of black and grey that blended to heighten our fear of the dark. Here, though, I honestly felt like I felt the first time that I saw the horrible colonized version of Casablanca. Nothing looked right. Color only distracts from the growing fear. You can't be as scared if your senses are being bombarded with reds and blues and greens, not in this film. Too much lies in the growing intensity of the script. Too much hangs on the audience's ability to get lost in the story, in the question of sanity.
It's not a horrible movie, people, and don't think I'm saying it is. But it is not, despite all evidence to the contrary, a remake of the original. Van Sant did an admirable job in duplicating most of the scenes and camera shots, but the inevitable decisions to "add" little stuff here and there were as unneeded as an extra thumb on your left hand. Didn't really need to know exactly what Norman was doing at the peephole, there, Gus. Nor did we need to see Marion glance at her lover's bare tush as he got dressed (this scene, by the way, got a big laugh in the theatre I was in...guess Miss Anne's bedroom reputation proceeds her, if you know what I mean.) I also have to wonder about the lack of focus in some other scenes, scenes that, when posted in the original, made spooky sense later on. Most notably, there's a scene in the original movie with Norman and Marian sitting in a room that's decorated with various forms of stuffed birds. All of them are aimed downward, almost as if attacking. These birds were very symbolic later on. They show Norman's gift for taxidermy, for one. They also made the room look as if everything in it was aiming at Marian, an aura shown more as Leigh's eyes flit around. I also think the scene is a very funny "in joke" as it were. Norman likes playing with dead birds, and right in front of him is a crane (as in Marian Crane.) This new effort, though, only slides the bird decor in as an afterthought, barely drawing any focus at all, and trashing a nice piece of foreshadowing.
Don't get all worked up about this new version of Psycho. It'll come and go quickly, and flash through home video before finding a home on pay TV for a couple of months. At best it's a novel experiment. At worst it's a shallow imitation. You may see the best production of A Streetcar Named Desire your community theatre has ever been able to put on, but it'll never compare with Brando and Vivien Leigh. The same feeling is true here. Well, I'd better gallop on outta here.
Image copyright Universal Studios.
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under the knife (nice coincidence, eh?)