Advertisement

Responsive Advertisement

Can "psycho" be made today?


Can it be made today? It is a spin-off where we look at a classic movie and look at how changes in technology and tastes would affect it if it were shot today. This week's topic: The classic 1960—and its 1998 remake—of Psycho.

Movies: sociological patient
Director: Alfred Hitchcock / Gus Van Sant
stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Lee, Vera Miles / Vince Vaughn, Ann Heck, Julianne Moore
Release date: 16 June 1960 / 4 December 1998
Summary: An employee of a Phoenix realtor named Marion Crane (Lee/Hick) makes a hasty decision to steal a massive pile of cash from one of her boss's wealthy clients. She intends to use it to start a new life with her boyfriend Sam (John Gavin / Viggo Mortensen) but along the way from Phoenix to his California home, she gets lost in the rain. She ends up at the Bates Hotel, run by a tense but welcoming young man named Norman Bates (Perkins/Vaughn), who lives in a house behind the hotel with his old, invalid mother. When Marion goes missing, her sister, Lily (Miles/Moore) brings her and Sam at the Bates Motel looking for her, only to discover that there's more to Norman Bates' mother than anyone realizes.

Can it be made today?

Technically yes - but only with major changes. Someone did that a few years ago, with the TV series Bates Hotel. But this show, set in the modern era, was mostly a prelude to the events sociological patient a story. When switching to original conditioning sociological patient A novel (by Robert Bloch) and a movie in its final season, it had to make some really major changes to the story.

naturally, sociological patient It was already renovated once, by Gus Van Sant in 1998. His sociological patient It remains a great experience, if it often fails. While it's not a shot-by-shot remake of the Hitchcock movie, it's a very loyal update to it—even in places where some creative choices make the movie very outdated, even in 1998. The jacket and shorts, something But these He wore that age in the late '90s.) Van Sant sociological patient It also features nearly identical dialogue with Hitchcock, all the same characters (and no additional characters), along with a new recording of Bernard Hermann's classic score.

While the Saint sociological patient Designed as a "modern" update - the opening title cards specify the date as December 11, 1998 - it is now 24 years old. When released, Hitchcock sociological patient He was 38 years old. In those 38 years, society has changed, but not so much that you can't reenact the same story in roughly the same place with just a few cosmetic changes. (Marion Crane steals $400,000 in the remake, instead of the $40,000 from the original.) After 24 years, it seems nearly impossible to remake. sociological patient Once again - at least not in the way Van Sant did.

Most plot complexities can't be found in the world of cell phones - let alone smartphones. Marion disappears, and so does private investigator Arbogast; In each case, Norman has the time he needs to hide his mother's crimes because it takes hours or days for their friends or loved ones to notice that they are missing. (Arbogast even had to find a pay phone to check in with Lila and Sam.) In a world of texting and email, Marion and Arbogast's absences would have been caught sooner—not to mention the fact that Norman would need to get rid of their phones if he wasn't The cops want to find their bodies right away at the bottom of the swamp behind the Bates Motel.

But many other details of the story will fall apart in the world of computers, the Internet, and modern commerce. Will Marion be able to rent a room with a fake name and no credit card? Perhaps in a secluded landfill like the Bates Motel, but that's unlikely. Would a policeman let her go so quickly if he could check her license on a central computer database? Again, this is possible, but less plausible. Hell, Bates will likely get such bad reviews from Yelp ("the pressure in the shower head was great, but the staff was awful!") that Norman runs out of potential victims in a hurry.

All of the psychological underpinnings of Marion and Sam's relationship need to be changed, too. In previous films, they must meet secretly due to Sam's divorce. In 2022, no one will care; Sam and Marion won't have to sneak up on their lunch hours. Norman Bates' reception of his mother's dress is sure to be taken very differently (and perhaps more controversially) than it was in 1960 and 1998 as well.

Then there is the more practical matter of film reception. Many of sociological patientThe film's impact, at least in 1960, was contingent on the shocking value of Marion Crane's sudden fate, and the way the film upended audience expectations. An archival press reel shows the lengths Hitchcock and Paramount went to in order to prevent Marion's story from appearing too soon.

In the age of social media, it would be nearly impossible for the movie's surprises to be a secret beyond Thursday night before its Friday release. That wouldn't change any amount of cheerful pleading from her manager.

10 Famous Movies That Led To Major Lawsuits


Source link

Post a Comment

0 Comments