The question that nags about Gus Van Sant's shot-for- shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller is Why? Why remake it? Why remake it shot-for-shot? Van Sant might have us believe it is to make this classic accessible to younger audiences, presumably those who refuse to watch a black and white film. My answer to that is, Fuck 'em. When they get older and learn the beauty of black and white cinematography, then they will be even more the happy to discover Hitch's masterpiece. No, the only truly genuine reason Van Sant can have to remake the film is that it is an exercise. A test, if you will. Why? Because no one else has ever done it really. In this, and only this way, is "Psycho" a redeemable film. It sparked conversation and interest and debate among filmgoers. That is it's true genius. Like Warhol's films of the 60's, Van Sant fashions a film that is ever moreso interesting to discuss than it is to view. The classic is 100-fold better.

So - what's different about the remake. Well, for one, it's in color. Big whoop. The original is much more frightening and terse because it is in gloomy black-and- white. It can go a little further sexually. Why bother? The shower scene in the original "Psycho" works because it shows only glints of naked flesh. Van Sant, wisely, does not get more graphic in his version anyway. He does allow a little more sexuality in the opening segment which finds Marion Crane (Anne Heche) in a seedy hotel with her boyfriend. He also has Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn) masturbate as he spies on Marion Crane. A friend told me this only evoked teenage giggling at the showing he attended. Hitch would probably spin at that. For all the ground Van Sant might have gained with the more "relaxed" sexual sensibilities in the 90's, he losses in the manner in which the script does not work in this context. The supposed sexual repression Vaughn represents seems out of date. The whole plot involving Marion and her married boyfriend does not work by today's morality. It all seems so dated.

Worse yet is some of the dialogue that is so dated but which Van Sant refuses to update. When the client who drops the load of cash at Marion's work (Chad Everett) mentions that the office has no air conditioning, it seems unbelievable to us. What kind of creep is Marion working for who doesn't have A/C in Phoenix in 1998? That's crazy! It only detracts from the film. Which leads to the biggest question of all: Why didn't Van Sant completely rework the film for 90's audiences and give it his own style. Maybe it's because he isn't the man for the job, (and no, neither is DePalma). Someone like Ridley Scott or David Lynch could do wonders with it, however. Still, Van Sant's interpretation of "Psycho," I feel, would be imminently more interesting than this reshoot.

One of the things that truly ruins the film is the casting. The most obvious is Heche as Marion Crane. She has none of the smoldering sensuality or melancholia that Leigh brought to the character. She seems nervous and antsy. She's quirky. It simply does not work. Even worse is William H. Macy in the role of Arbogast. Martin Balsam has a sly coolness about him that made his private detective much more dangerous and crafty than Macy's neurotic hiccup could ever be. Van Sant substitutes cool with quirky in the casting and it does not work. And while Vaughn is an inspired choice to play Norman Bates, ultimately he fails - and for the opposite reason. He is not fragile enough, not neurotic enough. I'll give him this, as usual, Vaughn works his ass off. It's just that, ultimately, he disappoints, weighed down much to much by the material. As for the others, Viggo Mortenson does nothing, Julianna Moore plays Lila Crane as a lesbian, Rita Wilson is no Pat Hitchcock, and the rest don't do much at all. Robert Forstner as the psychologist who explains it all at the film's epilogue comes across as silly because he explains things that are in our American Lexicon of knowledge now (multiple personality disorder) which were not in 1960. In fact, it is the original which put those concepts in popular culture's Encyclopedia to begin with. Forstner's performance is more subdued than the original but still needs to be updated for modern audiences. (I saw the film with a teenager who had not seen the original and knew it was MPD at the shower scene). The only characters which truly work are the ones who almost precisely recall their predecessors: James Remar as the cop who finds Marion asleep on the side of the road and Anne Haney as the Sheriff's wife are perfect because they perfectly encapsulate even more than just the essence of their originators, they imitate they originators and that's what Van Sant is supposedly attempting here. Phillip Baker Hall as the sheriff would be included in this ideal but he does not enunciate the name "Ar-Bo-Gast" as was done in the original and this, more than anything else in the film, is the apex of disappointment.

The only truly interesting thing about the remake is the title sequence. Again, exactly in the style of the original, Van Sant chooses the color green to permeate the sequence. It looks awesome. Better yet, the director hires Danny Elfman to "re-make" Bernard Herrmann's original score in wonderfully crisp digital quality sound. It's the best part of the film. When watching it, one actually becomes eager with the anticipation of the film which is to come. The score is, surprisingly, beautiful. And it's familiarity makes it seem both classic and suspenseful all at the same time. Unlike film, which should obviously not be copied frame for frame, music is often much more interesting and delightful when it is "re-made" note-for-note.

I remember when I was a child and an art teacher told me that in the East (she probably said in China) an artist who can precisely duplicate the original masters are considered great. This seemed like a ridiculous notion to me. If being a great artist meant copying the work that came before you, no new art would ever be produced. What a ludicrous concept. We in the West pride ourselves on our great versatility and originality. We cannot even begin to fathom why someone would copy a classic film shot-for-shot. Van Sant's "Psycho" does not begin to hint at an answer. Like the proverbial mountain- climber, Van Sant's response to the question "Why?" seems to be, "Because it was there."

The best thing one can say about this film is that like his film "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," Van Sant's "Psycho" is an interesting failure. It is an important film because it is a first, in it's own perverse way, an original. Let's just pray it does not start a trend. I'm not interested in seeing Tamara Davis' "Citizen Kane" starring James Earl Jones.

Note: Also with Rance Howard, James LeGros. Based on the novel by Robert Bloch.

Heche claimed in interviews that Hitch's daughter, Pat, who had a minor role in the original, visited the set and proclaimed that the project was something her father would have done. She is thanked in the film's end credits.

Major differences: Color photography, Bates masturbates, Van Sant uses a technique during the film's two murders of cutting away briefly to strange shots. When Bates kills Marion, a couple of seconds of rolling clouds are cut into the shower scene (ruining any tension Van Sant might have established) and when he kills the Private Detective, a shot of a woman and a cow are cut into the sequence. This does not work. Also, Bates stabs Arbogast twice instead of once, causing a bloody X to appear on his face. Moore works at a hard core metal record shop and wears headphones throughout the film. When Moore tours Norman's room, in addition to all the toys, she finds a nudie magazine. When Moore gets in the cellar and locates the mother, there are live birds in front of her (the one truly interesting and creepy thing Van Sant does here). One wonders how much of this was in the "original shooting script" by Joseph Stefano which Van Sant claimed to use.

If I could have produced Psycho

Director: David Lynch

Norman Bates: Giovanni Ribisi

Marion Crane: Jodie Foster

Arbogast: Robert DuVall

Lila Crane: Kathy Baker

Sam Loomis (the boyfriend): Brad Pitt (gotta be someone you'd steal $400,000 for)

Dr. Simon: Robert Forstner (but I would have made him do it with the exact same inflections as the original)

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