I refer to the great little short story, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote", by Jorge Luis Borges. The gist of it is the author has cribbed Don Quixote, word for word, and passed it off as his own. But because his context is totally different from that of the original author of the work -- well, it's a completely new way of reading the same words. In this instance, Gus Van Sant is taking an extremely familiar text, Psycho, and re-crafting it knowing not only that everybody has already seen the original, but that the last forty years have seen imitation after imitation that diluted the original shock so that re-viewing the original Psycho is practically quaint. Re-casting, even for a shot by shot remake (which this isn't, quite), inevitably changes the dynamic, the same way a new production of "Hamlet" with the same old words but with new actors and a new director will put a new spin on the old bard's blue prose. You can't tell me that William Macy in the Martin Balsam detective role, or the skinny and sexually controversial Anne Heche in the place of Janet Leigh's vivacious and busty Maron Crane doesn't change how you understand the characters. Vince Vaughn's Norman is definitely a different physical take -- especially if you saw him in 'Clay Pigeons' and remember him. That's the kind of re-interpretation the viewer has to do, and I strongly suspect that's the kind of playing-with-context Van Sant had in mind, all the while working tightly within the confines of Hitchock's original scenario.
It's also worth noting the Hitchcock original was not perfect; the pithy, sew-it-up ending, the shallow psychological explanation of Norman Bates' motives, the unresolved characters of Sam and Lila. Van Sant doesn't try to "fix" these problems, much, but the better performances (vis a vis the original actors' performances) in the roles of Lila, Sam, and Arbogast definitely add a little dimension without monkeying with the script.
Would I recommend this instead of the original? No. If you haven't seen the original, see it first, then see the re-make. That's the point!
This is by no means a totally successful experiment, but it's a brave one, and a chuckle for true fans of the original. If you don't take it too seriously, and you don't take the original like it was some sort of biblically-infallible master text, you might well get something out of it.
It's also worth noting the Hitchcock original was not perfect; the pithy, sew-it-up ending, the shallow psychological explanation of Norman Bates' motives, the unresolved characters of Sam and Lila. Van Sant doesn't try to "fix" these problems, much, but the better performances (vis a vis the original actors' performances) in the roles of Lila, Sam, and Arbogast definitely add a little dimension without monkeying with the script.
Would I recommend this instead of the original? No. If you haven't seen the original, see it first, then see the re-make. That's the point!
This is by no means a totally successful experiment, but it's a brave one, and a chuckle for true fans of the original. If you don't take it too seriously, and you don't take the original like it was some sort of biblically-infallible master text, you might well get something out of it.