“Well I ain't about to kiss off forty thousand dollars! I'll get it back, and if any of it's missing I'll replace it with her fine, soft flesh!”

Mention even the concept of Van Sant’s Psycho to people and the reaction is near universal revulsion—many of those who have seen it consider it to be an inexplicable oddity, a cinematic waste of time, a bizarre waste of Gus Van Sant’s considerable talent. After Van Sant’s success with Good Will Hunting, a more mainstream effort than his previous work, he was allowed to progress with a project that had been declined him before, a remake of Hitchcock’s iconic Psycho. However, what Van Sant produced was unlike any remake ever attempted previously: the film was near-replicated, shot-for-shot, with Bernard Hermann’s score and Joseph Stefano’s screenplay, yet starring a different cast, set in the present day, and filmed in full-blown color. Although the abysmal reception to the film is perhaps understandable, to me the impact was instant and unique: through his approach Van Sant creates a kind of hybrid universe, a story that lives in the past but exists in the present, where even the most subtle changes speak volumes.

Van Sant announces his intentions in the opening credits: replicated exactly, with Bernard Hermann’s score, yet in brilliant green and with his name proudly displayed under “directed by”, sliced into three pieces exactly as Hitchcock’s was. He has the same knowing humor of his predecessor: Van Sant reprises Hitch’s original cameo, the sign on the Bates Motel says “newly renovated”, and Norman Bates points out the shower to Marion in an overt wink to the audience. Van Sant takes Hitchcock’s lead on other points too; he achieves tracking shots that were impossible in 1960. It’s surprising how many common interests the two directors seem to share. Following the shower scene, much is made of Norman’s obsessive cleaning after the act; the psychological implications about Norman’s repression are obvious, but the audience is also being allowed to draw a breath after the shocking abruptness of the murder. There’s a kind of ironic humor to all this—undoubtedly everyone who saw the 1998 version knew how and when Marion would die (indeed, I remember the ad campaign with the arch tagline “relax, unpack, take a shower”)—and yet Van Sant still memorializes her death, allows the audience to come to terms with the loss of a character they all knew was doomed from the start. There is a sparse, haunting quality to this scene that is quite removed from the pace and tension of the film—something I had totally forgotten about the original film. By playing to his own strengths in this way (I was reminded of his later ‘death trilogy’ of Gerry, Elephant and Last Days), Van Sant helps you rediscover the myriad of subtleties in the original that are so easy to overlook.

As there is little that has not already been said about the 1960 version, it is best to concentrate on the deviations from the original when reviewing a film like this. Christopher Doyle employs a take-no-prisoners approach in his tremendous use of color: particularly green, the “color of evil” according to Van Sant, which is especially associated with Marion. We first meet her clad in a luminous orange bra, a sort of postmodern scarlet woman. After she steals the money and goes on the run, she is again clad in orange, but her dress is covered in green splotches. Much of the production design and cinematography uses such simple, obvious motifs: the pastel colors, the vintage feel of the sets and costumes, the garishly red blood sprayed around the bathroom. These differences are how Van Sant sets out the ‘hybrid universe’ previously mentioned—although the opening titles assure us we’re in the present, the script mostly retains its original chintzy dialogue and the supporting cast (dotted with cameos of well-known character actors seemingly eager to take even the most meager role) are over-the-top to the point of pastiche. On first glance, the film doesn’t particularly succeed at straddling the two decades, but Van Sant highlights some interesting disparities, especially in the character of Marion Crane. Janet Leigh’s original portrayal sees her as a strong-willed woman taking the initiative in controlling her destiny by stealing the money. But in the neurotic 90s, Marion doesn’t have to resort to petty theft to be independent: her decision to take the money seems much more whimsical and ditzy, especially since it will only serve to unite her with the sketchy (if good-natured) Sam Loomis (played by Viggo Mortensen with a seedy kind of charm, a much more convincing lothario than the staid original). Heche brilliantly reflects this in her performance, mixing her God-given wiles with a deer-in-the-headlights stare used most effectively in the extended voice-over scenes that focus on her face as she imagines her downfall. Van Sant makes these scenes, a prelude to her final hours at the Bates Motel, much more explicitly nightmarish than Hitchcock did.

Easily the vastest difference in the newer film is Vince Vaughn’s Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins' original performance is precisely calculated and unapproachably good, and Vaughn does well to distance himself from it. Here, Norman is much calmer and more self-assured—his tight shirt, erect poise and pointed jaw give him an almost sexually threatening vibe. He shouts at his ‘mother’ with much more authority and giggles with gleeful mania. Even though this Norman seems more instantly approachable, he’s also more obviously disturbed. Yet there’s an odd charm to him, even though Vaughn often errs too far on the fey side. Marion half-flirts with him as they eat, and seems persuaded by his speech about “private traps”—sure, he’s kooky, but that’s nothing a little therapy couldn’t set right. Wherever Hitch hinted at sexual charge in the original, Van Sant brings it out and makes it explicit: never more noticeably than the masturbation scene—blind or deaf people could watch it and know what was going on. Most critics of the film revile how Van Sant has made the subtle obvious, but would Hitchcock himself have left sex to the imagination were he working in the present? Gus Van Sant clearly doesn’t think so.

It takes a balls-out attitude and a good sense of self-awareness to make a film like this, and that’s why the calculation of the film can easily leave one cold. There’s nothing to be gained and no fun to be had if you approach Psycho thinking that it was a pointless endeavor from the start. Sure, Van Sant gave himself enough rope to hang himself by attempting such an incredible task. But one has to give him at least a modicum of respect for setting the bar so inhumanly high, especially at the apex of his popular/studio appeal. Psycho is one of the most bizarre, different and instantly memorable films I’ve ever seen. Van Sant takes something that is not just a film, but one of the staples of popular culture, and both copies and inverts it – making its most lurid elements even more extreme and meditating on some of its softest, most delicate touches. It’s neither ‘success’ nor ‘failure’, simply a true oddity: a unique piece of work that belongs to a separate class of its own.

Directed by Gus Van Sant; written by Joseph Stefano, based on the novel by Robert Bloch; cinematography by Christopher Doyle; editing by Amy E. Duddleston; original score by Bernard Herrmann; production design by Tom Foden; costume design by Beatrix Anna Pasztor; produced by Brian Grazer and Gus Van Sant; released by Universal Pictures. Rated R. Runtime 105 mins.

WITH: Vince Vaughn (Norman Bates), Anne Heche (Marion Crane), Julianne Moore (Lila Crane), Viggo Mortensen (Samuel Loomis), William H. Macy (Milton Arbogast), Robert Forster (Dr. Fred Simon), Philip Baker Hall (Sheriff Al Chambers), James Remar (Patrolman), James LeGros (Charlie the Car Dealer).