Psycho (1998)
Originally published at Angle On:
Considering the limitations of imitation in Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
“What is Psycho when divorced from its context as the notorious star-killing shocker that broke open the 1960s, and reduced to its screenplay, its score, and its iconic close-ups and metaphors and scenes? Good, but not great. Even if I could ignore the original entirely, something would still be missing from this. At its core, Psycho is a story about a lonely, perverted, unrelenting world, a woman who can’t escape it, and a man who is both product and representative of it. Why, in 1998, does the Bates Motel now feel an apparition, no longer just isolated and creepy? Somehow still off 'the old highway,' it’s also completely outside time and space. At the old Bates place, the new Psycho becomes a specter haunting Hitchcock’s."
Read my essay and more movie writing over at Angle On:.
—October 18, 2023