Why I Adore... Gus Van Sant's Psycho

One of the best new blogs to show up lately has been Why I Adore, a new project from Mr Paul Anthony Nelson that aims to be a negativity free zone and to allow writers to express true feelings of adoration about movies, actors or anything related to film and TV that they love without threat or worry of Internet trolls whose sole mission it is to criticise people for their opinions.

This week, the sixth edition, was my turn and I decided to discuss my adoration for one of the most maligned films I could think of from the last 20 years, Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. A movie so fascinating that I've watched it many times - not as many as the 1960 original, but it's probably closer than you think - and consider it a stroke of experimental brilliance.

A good 38 years had gone by between Hitchcock’s original and Van Sant’s take, and I think this remake acts as the most glowing and praiseworthy critical assessment of Hitchcock’s film that has, can and will ever be. People have spent decades studying this film and yet no piece of film criticism can come quite to the level of outright lust for Psycho that this remake presents. Gus Van Sant loves Psycho. There is a reason he remade it "shot for shot" and it’s because he thought it couldn’t be improved upon. Van Sant even set the movie in the modern times to prove how timeless Hitchcock’s Psycho is. ... The remake is love

I considered using one of Norman Bates' famous quotes, "We all go a little mad sometimes" to describe it, but then I realised that was being a self-loathing. I don't think there's anything mad at all about liking Psycho '98. And, hey, if it's good enough for Nick Davis then at least I know I am in good company.

You can read the entire thing by clicking over to Why I Adore and if you would like to leave a comment please do so, but know that all comments are moderated and anything negative gets promptly deleted. That blog is a negative free zone! What do you think though? Do you think I'm mad like Norman or rational like... umm... are there any rational characters in that movie? None of them seem to think clearly at all, do they? Hmmm.