tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219214733140697041.post3697354166919160737..comments2023-05-30T05:51:00.400-07:00Comments on Alfred Hitchcock Geek: Why I’m okay with remakes of Hitchcock movies.Joel Gunzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597499250122165168noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219214733140697041.post-32161672349409492662009-02-28T18:48:00.000-08:002009-02-28T18:48:00.000-08:00I tweeted a little about this (as @feedmeshow), bu...I tweeted a little about this (as @feedmeshow), but it's been on my mind, so here I go at greater length.<BR/><BR/>When I first heard about Van Sant's "Psycho," I was horrified. Why remake something that was as good as it could have been, in an attempt to please an audience? The answer, I think, was that its purpose wasn't to please an audience. GVS made it so that he could learn, shot by shot, what it was like to shoot a Hitchcock movie. It was an act of poetic imitation, such as writers have undertaken for hundreds of years, writing in the style of their idols, or typing out page after page of their prose, to learn it by hand. <BR/><BR/>For Van Sant, the payoff was in "Milk," a deeply affecting, beautifully made movie, built on the bones of Rob Epstein's 1984 documentary, "The Times of Harvey Milk." Van Sant's dramatization naturally uses some of the same locations as Epstein's film, and includes some of the same footage. More remarkably, it uses some of the same shots: the establishing shot of the Castro, with the large vertical marquee for example. It is a form of tribute, calling to mind a younger saxophonist quoting Charlie Parker. This habit was developed in the full-on imitation of the "Psycho" remake. And it goes deeper. In "Milk," Gus Van Sant realizes a mode that is both self-effacing and fully controlled. I don't think about the director while watching "Milk;" I think about Harvey Milk, as conveyed through Sean Penn. It's the same way in which I didn't think about Alfred Hitchcock while watching "Lifeboat" this afternoon; I thought about Connie Porter, conveyed through Tallulah Bankhead. This was a habit cultivated in Van Sant's imitation of Hitchcock. It's the way of a master artist, and, through imitation, it got into his bones.<BR/><BR/>It would be foolish to damn a remake of "The Birds" before seeing it. Moreover, I could happily watch George Clooney eat lunch. But the effort strikes me as wrongheaded, as something entirely different than Gus Van Sant's homage. Rather, it reminds me of the story Hitchcock tells about the selling of "Notorious" in his interviews with Francois Truffaut. The original producers of the film got so hung up on the perceived implausibility of the uranium in the winebottles that they sold the unmade film to another studio, ignoring the director's protest that the MacGuffin on which the plot hinged was, in itself, nothing. This is the problem with most self-conscious remakes of Hitchcock's movies. Thinking that it's all about the what, they lose the how, and end up with a broken bottle, instead of Ingrid Bergman conveying Alicia Huberman. It's what Gus Van Sant learned in his attempt (whether successful or not) to recreate "Psycho" shot-for-shot -- and it's where so many others miss the boat.adamdoesithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16397851057582875365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219214733140697041.post-61805406788288413422009-02-13T13:15:00.000-08:002009-02-13T13:15:00.000-08:00Wonderfully written post. and I agree especially w...Wonderfully written post. and I agree especially with this: <B>This is one reason why I believe Hitchcock is the Shakespeare of the Twentieth Century.</B>Classic Maidenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06452165665779363139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219214733140697041.post-1771823602064203782009-02-13T13:14:00.000-08:002009-02-13T13:14:00.000-08:00Wonderfully written post. and I agree especially w...Wonderfully written post. and I agree especially with this: <B>This is one reason why I believe Hitchcock is the Shakespeare of the Twentieth Century.</B>Classic Maidenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06452165665779363139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219214733140697041.post-84598347446666052702009-02-10T11:41:00.000-08:002009-02-10T11:41:00.000-08:00Fantastic post. I read with great interest, and I ...Fantastic post. I read with great interest, and I quite agree with you! I think all of us Hitchcock-fans can rely on the fact that no one, ever, will do a re-make that will beat the original. It's just to lay back, be amused and, as you say, be happy that the interest for the originals extends when a new, shitty re-make make it to the screen.Lolita of the Classicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03596876234508882958noreply@blogger.com