February 1st

1. Van Sant does not attempt to update the original, but simply pays homage by doing almost everything exactly the same way Hitchcock did. The shock of Marion dying in the shower was lost since audiences knew what to expect. As a remake, it is incredibly close to the original text. Van Sant put himself and his crew under the same pressures Hitchcock was under, as far as budgeting and scheduling went.
The first "yawning fallacy" is the fact that Van Sant, as an artist, did nothing to add to Hitchcock's work. If art students copy Rembrandt paintings stroke for stroke, it does not make them Rembrandt. The second is that the more he tried to stay faithful to the source, the more he called attention to himself.

2. The shower scene is not a shock in the remake.

3. Naremore criticizes Vince Vaughn's impersonation of Anthony Perkins and Heche's direction for Marion. The Royal Cook illustrates how it is impossible to recreate something exactly because changes appear in everything over time.

4. Rothman claims that Van Sant's use of the camera is no match for Hitchcock (Hollywood's first auteur filmmaker) and his sense of storytelling with careful cinematography and movement.
Leitch says Van Sant is saying with his own voice the same thing Hitchcock did.

5. Hitchcock is considered Hollywood's first auteur filmmaker. Naremore's viewing showed the lack of originality of Van Sant's remaker, Leitch argues that venue is everything and that a film seen in a classroom is likely to be thought of as academic.

6. Because Van Sant plays on the audience's expectations of the film and allows suspense to build around it. He highlights what is easily accessible or recognizable in Hitchcock.

7. Dysfunctional youth, sexuality, and the romanticized view of escaping to the road. He manages to work it into Psycho with the characters' sexual repression and Marion's escaping by car.

8. Inserts of blue skies and clouds at moments of emotional release. In Psycho, it relates to Marion and Aborgast's stabbings.

9. The heterosexual and macho Vince Vaughn playing Norman Bates contrasts the homosexual Anthony Perkins' portrayal. Marion is played by the openly gay Anne Heche, changing the femininity of the character. Julianne Moore's Lila is a much stronger, more independent woman than Vera Miles.