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TIME (07/Sep/1998) - Cinema: His Own Private Psycho

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His Own Private Psycho

Same script, different shower -- Will Gus Van Sant's take on Hitchcock still be cutting edge?

Who gave Gus Van Sant the bloody right to remake Psycho? That's the question outraged cinephiles have been asking since the risk-loving director of Good Will Hunting said he would "re-create" Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic, using the original script updated with color camera work and hip young actors. But according to Van Sant, the master of suspense himself -- or at least his spirit -- seems to favor the project. "We had some ghostly messages before we started," Van Sant says, describing an impromptu seance with Hitchcock at a Los Angeles restaurant. "We just happened to be with a medium who channeled him at the wrong, or the right, time." And the dead auteur's response? "As I remember, the messages were very... giddy."

The stout one's specter continued to pervade the set of the "new" Psycho, which wrapped production last week. Prior to each scene, Van Sant and his crew huddled around a video monitor to watch similar bits of the 1960 version, making sure every moment was rendered with respect, if not calibrated precision. "The word remake is a fallacy," says cinematographer Christopher Doyle. "What we're trying to do is revoke and evoke." Besides running the older movie on a DVD player, Van Sant tacked photos of various freeze-frames on a nearby bulletin board as guides. "The concept was to use the same camera angles and storyboards," he says. "It's probably 95% true to the original."

It's that other 5% people are most curious about. Arguably the shock genre's best-known title, Psycho earned its place in pop culture for Anthony Perkins' iconic portrayal of Oedipal maniac Norman Bates as well as the art-gore montage of the winsome Janet Leigh being stabbed to death in a shower. For some, the thought of Gen X stars Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche replaying those parts seems like heresy. Not for Van Sant. "[Psycho] is perfect to refashion as a modern piece," he insists. "Reflections are a major theme in the original, with mirrors everywhere, characters who reflect each other. This version holds up a mirror to that film; it's sort of its schizophrenic twin."

Van Sant has wanted to redo the film for nearly a decade. "Psycho is like an existential play," he says. "It's very simple, done on a very simple budget, and that was part of it -- to make a simple film." But Universal Pictures, which held the rights, always laughed him off. Good Will Hunting's grosses and the clout of producer Brian Grazer (Liar Liar and Apollo 13) helped bring the studio around.

The new film won't be simply a colorized version of the old one. Costumes and sets have been given a '90s touch. The famed Bates Motel, made more Martha Stewart gothic than Herman Munster Victorian, now accepts the Discover card. In one hardware-store scene a Gulf War poster hangs on a wall not far from a sign advertising knife-sharpening services. Grazer asked that the film be "scarier and sexier." While some nudity and language that Hitchcock ditched due to the censorship restrictions of his day were restored, Van Sant has struggled to resist sheer exploitation. "I never thought this was a film that needed beefing up," he says. "The subtleties are its strengths."

So is the shower sequence. In the black-and-white version, Hitchcock used chocolate syrup as fake blood; this time around, the porcelain is drenched with gallons of dark-cherry goo. "It was fun but tedious," laughs Heche, who refused a body double. "I mean, three days of going in the shower, drying off, then going back in. It was dry, wet, dry, wet, wet, wet, dry. 'O.K., scream.'"

Vaughn faced the most difficult task: reprising an infamous character so strongly identified with another actor. "There were some things I did as a tribute to Anthony," says Vaughn, whose larger frame gives him some physical distance from the gaunt Perkins. "I liked what he did with stuttering and body language, but I didn't mimic him completely. It would have been insulting." Van Sant says he chose Vaughn for his ordinary yet edgy demeanor -- "that ability to snap."

It's too soon to tell if cinema traditionalists will snap as well. Perhaps they'll find some solace in the nod to the usual cameo appearance that Hitchcock made in his films. But perhaps not. This time, thanks to the wonders of movie magic, he's glimpsed chatting with Van Sant

Jeffrey Ressner

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