Once upon a time, after announcing aretirement from filmmaking,Steven Soderberghcontinued pursuing the medium of cinema in a different, albeit still creative form:he spliced together a heady fan editthat weddedHitchcock’s horror classicPsychoandGus Van Sant’s fascinating but controversial shot-for-shot remake. By editing the two films together in the way that he does, Soderbergh creates a surrealistic movie of doppelgängers (very Hitchcockian, veryVertigo) that not only compares the two versions back-to-back but also examines what makes Hitch’s version undoubtedly superior.
Soderbergh’sPsychosbuilds upon the artistic premise set upon by Van Sant just over a decade earlier. Van Sant’s film, while maligned by most critics, takes a genuinely interesting approach to remaking one of the mostbeloved and untouchable movie classics. By shooting the remake as a shot-for-shot clone that takes little to no creative liberties to distinguish itself from its source, Van Sant questioned the plausibility of remakes as a whole. WithPsychos, Soderbergh only ups the ante. Splicing the two films into one, and editing back and forth between the two versions while maintaining a singular black-and-white aesthetic to soothe the differences between them, Soderbergh makes the differences thatdoexist all the more apparent. The result is an odd, often dream-like work that wavers somewhere between an art piece and an inspired fan edit.
With ‘Psychos,’ Steven Soderbergh Examines the Nature of Remakes
Van Sant’sPsychoremake has always been more of a sociological and artistic experiment than an adequate film. On paper, it sounds sacrilegious: taking one of the most influential and universally adored horror flicks of all time and remaking it in almostexactlythe same way? On a deeper level, though, the creation itself of the film forms an interesting concept. Van Sant has since talked about his 1998 remake of the Hitch classic,noting on Marc Maron’s podcastthat the entire film was an “experiment” meant to see whether a direct remake can copy the critical or commercial success of the original. He mused on the subject,citing that Hollywood executives"would rather make a sequel than they would an original piece because there was less risk. They would rather continue a story that’s already known in the public, and they were really searching for some way to do that."
While remakes can oftensurpass their predecessors in quality, Van Sant’sPsychoonly paled in comparison to Hitch’s, even if by design. Even considering the artistic point Van Sant was making with his dire remake, the film offers little value to its audience. Nearly everything is but a crude mockery of the original. But why? One would think that, at least to an unbiased party, two nearly identical films would be of nearly identical quality. Except theyaren’t,and it’s something that Soderbergh’s bizarre edit of the two helps prove. Editing back and forth between the two, blurring the differences as much as possible,Psychosdissects Van Sant’s crude remake in a curious-minded autopsy.
Soderbergh’s Edit Highlights the Differences Between ‘Psycho’ and the Remake
While merged into a comparable black-and-white aesthetic, there’s still the undeniable difference between the two halves of the cut: decades of cinematic technology draw a sharp line between the early ’60s and late ’90s, with distinct differences in sound and picture quality nevertheless making themselves apparent. There’s also the obvious alternation between the two casts — all of whom are credited in Soderbergh’s edit — with the obvious changes in appearance, cadence, and mannerisms becoming even moreblatantly clear as the cut sporadically switches from one to the other between scenes.
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Psychostends to rub the viewer’s nose in the vast differences between the ’60s and ’90s casts. That Van Sant utilizedJospeh Stefano’s original script from 1960 only aids in making the editing inPsychosuncanny.Anne Hecheplays an entirely differentMarion CranethanJanet Leighdid over 30 years prior.Vince Vaughn’s Norman Bates, while speaking the same lines, is a far cry fromAnthony Perkins. If Van Sant’s intention was to make a very un-PsychoPsycho, he succeeded. Only, it wasn’t particularly interesting until Soderbergh mashed the two together.
A scene where Vince Vaughn’s Bates masturbates while watching Anne Heche’s Crane showers feels comically exploitative to the point of camp. It feels all the more out-of-place inPsychosalongside the skillful psychological subtext of Hitch’s original.Psychosis filled with these moments in which awkward choices from the ‘98 film are put into the context of the original film, calling into question why the differences, whyanydifferences, were made, to begin with.
‘Psychos’ Creates A Bizarre, Singular Viewing Experience
The clear overlap of aesthetic is occasionally forgone in the film’s moments of violence. Instead, when one of the characters is attacked or killed, Soderbergh creates a hallucinatory experience by putting ‘98’s color back into the mix, overlapping the scores, and alternating back and forth between the two versions with an unrestrained type of hyperactivity. It’s dizzying and nightmarish, conjuring an odd and unsettling experience that neither film can necessarily do on its own. These two separate casts of characters, previously seeming to belong in some sort of Lynchian alternate universe, are suddenly brought to the surface at once and cast overlapping into a single world of brutal violence.
The final scene in which Bates sits in a cell, staring devilishly at the camera, overlaps Perkins and Vaughn in a way that feels hellish. These jarring edits toy with the psychological horror elements of both films. InPsychos, Vaughn’s Bates feels like a demonic extension of Perkins. Sure, Perkins’s performance isuntouchable, but Vaughn’s is definitely made more eerie by comparison.
Janet Leigh transforms into Anne Heche and back again…or is it, according to cinematic language, simply two stories happening concurrently, overlapping only in moments of barbaric violence?Psychosdoesn’t say. It works as a comparison point between each film, of course, but it also works as a third film altogether, one with convoluted, metaphysical overtones. The 1960 classic is an undisputed masterpiece thatmade something exceptional out of a micro-budget.Van Sant’s remake failed as a movie but succeeded as a cinematic experiment. Soderbergh blended the two and injected the mix with a dreamlike surreality that created a novel viewing experience that drastically differs from either “original” film.
Soderbergh’s ‘Psycho’ Edit Helps Lend Credibility to Fan Edits
The internet is loaded with a wide array of fan edits that vary from relatively straightforwardto entirely reconstructed. A group of dedicatedStar Warsfans made an essential (but technically illegal) version of the original trilogy thatremoved the countless editsimposed by George Lucas over the past few decades.The Phantom Editcut asignificant amount of runtimefromEpisode Ito make a better, cleaner story (at the cost of losing Jar-Jar, whom I will defend until death).Marshall AllmantrimmedEyes Wide Shutin accordance with Kubrick’s tendency to drastically edit his moviesfurther after their premiere (the prolific filmmaker died only six days afterEyes Wide Shutpremiered, so no cuts could be made).
Soderbergh toying with fan edits proves him to be a dedicated cinephile passionate enough about the craft to spend who-knows-how-many hours of his free time to make an inherently unprofitable product. In the hands of one of the most prolific filmmakers of the 2000s (and an Oscar winner to boot!), fan edits are leant a credibility that previously would have been dismissed as the work ofnon-filmmakers. Fan edits are themselves works of filmmaking thatdohappen to use preexisting content but still craft something new. Soderbergh’sPsychosis a dizzying trip into the world of insipid Hollywood remakes, doppelgangers, psychotic killers, bombshell blondes, and shady detectives. It’s an odyssey into a multidimensional world where things, even if uncannily similar, are never quite equal.
