"Psycho" A Film Review by Linda Lopez McAlister on "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL December 5, 1998 This may seem a weird choice of a film to review for this segment on Women and Film, so let me explain first of all why I chose to see "Psycho" last night. The original Hitchcock version of this film is one I've had a love/hate relationship with for many years. When it first came out in 1960 I refused to go see it because I hate scary movies and don't understand how scaring yourself half to death can be a pleasurable experience, though I realize that for many people it is. Later on, however, when I was studying film theory, "Psycho" was a film that just could not be ignored as an example of extraordinary filmmaking on the part of the director and cinematographer. From the opening shot of Phoenix by air where the camera zeros in on a distant hotel building and then gets closer and closer until it takes you right through one of its windows, to its famous shower scene montage, it's a piece of cinematic art that has to be reckoned with. On the other hand, from a woman's perspective it's one of the most misogynistic of films--an absolute textbook case of a film totally built around voyeurism and one woman, Marion Crane, subjected to every possible kind of demeaning male gaze from that of a lecherous, rich old man, to the menacing police officer behind his huge, impenatrable shades, to the beady staring eyes of Norman Bates' stuffed birds, to the literal voyeruism of Norman getting aroused by peering through a hole in the wall as Marion disrobes. (To do so he has to remove from the wall a scene of Biblical voyeurism Susanna at her bath being spied on by the Elders). And to cap off the misogyny, in the end Norman doesn't eve get the blame for the carnage he commits, it's his Mother who has to take the rap. So this film has always been fraught with problems for me. Then why, with all that baggage, would I go to see a remake of this film. And why, indeed, is there a remake of this film? I fully expected it to be inferior as a film to the original, yet, from what I'd heard, it followed the original very closely. After seeing Gus Van Sant's 1998 version of "Psycho" my conclusion is that there are some aspects in which it is a better film than the Hitchcock original. What Van Sant has done is an update that keeps all that is good about the original (speaking with my cinema hat on now)--the Bernard Herrman score, the shots and camera angles of the original, much of the same dialogue but improves upon at least some of the things in the original that were less than wonderful, first and foremost the acting. I thought, in the original, that Anthony Perkins was wonderful as Norman Bates but that the two women's parts and the boyfriend were pretty weakly acted by Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, and John Gavin. The new cast, with the exception of Vince Vaughn who plays Norman, is clearly superior to the old one. Anne Heche's Marion Crane is much more alive and animated than Janet Leigh was and she suggests a kind of small bird-like quality that makes her the perfect prey for Norman. You can see the subtle changes in her emotions throughout her flight from Phoenix where she has stolen $400,000 in cash and her decision to return it seems completely motivated as it did not in the earlier version. Vigo Mortensen's Sam Loomis, the boyfriend, is far more interesting than John (the Stick) Gavin could ever be. And most importantly of all is the difference between Vera Miles as Marion's sister Lila and Julianne Moore's Lila. The final proof of Hitchcock's misogyny has always been for me the way Lila not only acted, but the way she looked--pretty terrible on both counts. It was hard to imagine who this woman was in her real life. Although she did some courageous things her whole demeanor cried out "victim". Here is where Van Sant deviates furthest from the original. Moore's Lila is a strong, no nonsense, nineties woman who is no shrinking violet and who looks terrific. She doesn't need Sam to buck her up, in fact he's rather passive and she takes the lead in pursuing the search for Marion and the missing private detective (William H. Macy). So you can't hang a misogynist label here on Van Sant, he's actually improved things a bit here by the changes made in this female character. So on the whole I enjoyed seeing this movie. Like every movie buff I'd like to be able to sit down with the two films side by side and compare them shot by shot. They're pretty darn close, in order to be able to use the same musical score. The places where I thought the film we less effective were the shower scene--somehow the black and while photography made it more horrific than the technicolor with lots of blood--and in that scene where Lila's searching Norman's mother's bedroom. But maybe it's just because I can no longer be taken by surprise by this film. I know it too well. However I didn't sense the audience being as horrified as a 1960s audience would have been. This film was pushing the envelope of horror 3 years ago, but is pretty tame by today's standards. Nonetheless, I can understand why a film lover like Van Sant wanted to make this film the way he did, and I'm rather glad he did it. For the WMNF Women's Show, this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film. Copyright 1998. All rights reserved. Please do not copy or reproduce this review without permission.