The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[cine]

I just want to leap in here and say that the Psycho remake should be burned to a crisp and ultimately cease to exist. Each and every copy of the film should be destroyed. The only things added were different actors (obviously), colour, and Norman Bates masturbating. Pitiful, useless, and absolute garbage. Its a shame to think people aged and lost time in their lives over the making and viewing of the film.

[budgie]

I want to get back to the Pyscho discussion though, because I do still believe I am right in it. I just want your opinion again, with what you know of my arguments, to why it is a good film, so we can continue it. I think the imitation of the work in Pyscho, though, is a much more revelant one for written study or dabbling with the original itself instead of remaking an entire new one due to the distraction that it is of watching new actors remaking an entire film shot by shot, when things could have been done to answer your questions without making the film or bringing ideas up on paper.

GT, I appreciate you still have questions here but I don't know whether I really have any more answers than those I've given between here and the other thread. The only thing I have to say is that I don't think I'm trying to convince you that FFH or Psycho are 'good', or that they are better than other films. I am only talking in terms of why they give me pleasure, not trying to establish, as I think you are, a standard and hierarchy of value. The way I see Van Sant's project, as I said before, is that he is questioning, as I do, that whole idea that filmmaking/watching is a competition, with one movie judged and labelled forever as better than another.

Now, as I also said before, you think that could be written down, and I say yes, it could, but not everyone reads books and certainly not everyone writes. Van Sant is a filmmaker, he makes films. Does that necessarily restrict his subject matter or references? Can't he make movies about watching movies and what they mean? Why should that properly belong in the realm of written criticism? Surely that is to assume that movies are never critical? I don't see the difference in the functions of films and film criticism or in overlap between the two. What makes Psycho remade pleasurable for me (and therefore a good movie for me) is that it is that intelligent and questions these divisions. The fact that people will miss the point and still try to read Van Sant's project in a way that segregates movies from other forms of discussion and therefore be disappointed is just part of his point. It's ironic.  

And as much as you want to believe that I think I know all I can know, I really don't at all and have said before that I know very little. I think my cockiness just makes me seem that way. Even though that may be snobbish to say and all, it is much more truthful than what a lot of other people here are willing to admit about themselves.

I don't think that about you at all. I like cockiness. I don't think you are a snob, either.

[cine]

I know I'm jumping in again but I think any shot-by-shot colour remake of a classic B&W film with the exception of more blood in scenes that don't need more blood and masturbation where its not needed, is insulting. Utterly insulting. It personally didn't give me pleasure to watch a talented director degrade a classic such as Hitchcock's "Psycho". IMO, naturally, but I fully believe I speak for the vast majority here.

[Gold Trumpet]

Budgie,
Yes, Gus Van Sant is a filmmaker, and is asking questions with Psycho, but also (imo) found out that the question he was asking was wrong. The movie is a near shot by shot recreation of the new one that articulates in bad fashion what the director could have been told, and that is when you go for a recreated movie in such a way that is very limited in difference from the original, you get the reaction from the people who are fans iof the original (and there are lots of people, not just critics) that the film is a cheap imitation that can never go to anything near suspence or horror because the meticulous planning and thought goes for the students of trivia in how much is recreated. The distraction in this excercise is enormous and intruding on the impact of the film. Instead of the film being an act of asking a question, it becomes an annoyance of someone hopelessly trying to recreate a classic movie that is seeming to add up to an inferior movie in every way. This movie knows the notes the original played, but not the music. I think before you mentioned something about how the addition of music does in the new film in bringing a new experience. Well, if you really wanted to find that out, wouldn't you assign the music to the original instead of the hackneyed remake that is a distraction anyways? Why not colorize the original and bring up the tone of blood in large ways from the original? See, questions can be asked but the way Van Sant's Psycho goes about in doing no real good questions can be asked anyways because the true experience of watching Pyscho with all the effect is not even there.

~rougerum

[children with angels]

I think the only level on which one can appreciate the remake of Psycho is on this level of "an interesting experiment" and always, always in relation to the original. It becomes more like a conceptual art piece referencing a cornerstone of popular culture, or a visual essay on a theme. In no way can one judge it as a thriller in its own right, a story about some girl called Marion who steals some money then goes to a motel and - OH MY GOD - she gets murdered in the shower... It's just not possible. In this respect, one could call the film pointless (it doesn't entertain on the level on which movies are expected to entertain: story, and surprise), but on another level it could be considered an extremely valuable filmic experiment.

However, I personally still think it sucks balls. This is for the simple reason that - as far as I'm concerned - it didn't make any interesting comments on the themes of the original or on the idea of watching, as it could have done. This is just my opinion, but I got a hell of a lot more interested watching the art piece 24 Hour Psycho (the film - the original, of course - slowed down so it projects once in 24 hours, for anyone who doesn't know) than by watching Van Sant's remake.

I think the idea of the remake wasn't necessarily a bad idea (as many believe it to be), but the method of execution was. Still interesting in a way, sure, but only by default.

So.
Yeah, anyway: Wes Anderson...

[cine]

Yeah, anyway: Wes Anderson...

Who?

[Derek]

I think Psycho was an experiment.Like the end result or not, like the intention or not. It was an experiment to see that if you make a relative carbon copy of the original, does the original hold the same power as we have all given it. Assuming, the re-make hits all the same beats as the original, of course.

I won't try and answer those questions, because I'm lazy, I liked in a way the intention and the result of Van Sant's Psycho. I think it deserves at least a cult following, but I don't want to see it happen to anymore films in the future. It's a paradox with me.

Oh, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou is a great title.

[Sleuth]

Oh, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou is a great title.

I know, right?

[cine]

Yeah, because in your mind you're thinking, "hey, this sounds like Aquaman" and then: Steve Zissou. All of a sudden your life flashes before your eyes and your mind goes blank. "Steve Zissou isn't Aquaman".. and then you're thinking to yourself, "fuck, I gotta see that Aqua Steve movie!!"

.. Yeah.

[Sleuth]

I especially like how it's Life Aquatic instead of Aquatic Life

[cine]

Yeah and it sounds like a weekend TV special on The Discovery Channel.

[Derek]

Totally, totally. See, it's that kind of thinking that makes Wes great.

[cine]

Yeah.. I'd go into deep depression if that was a cheap working title and the end film title was "The Aquatic Life of Steve Zissou"

[budgie]

GT, I can see I'm not gonna convince you that there are other ways of watching movies than for entertainment or answers or in order to form a judgment based on aesthetic values that are treated as separate from other aspects of culture. Let's just say I'm happy to be distracted by the dialogue and the questions raised by, say, constantly being reminded of the original by, say, the soundtrack, but having my responses and ideas about both movies unsettled and challenged because of that reminder. I like that, like watching two movies at once, the repetitions and likenesses seeming the same but actually never. You're watching the relationship between the two, not the movie as something caught in a vacuum - it is the essence of watching, of what happens between the audience and the film. Being aware of yourself watching as well as submitting to escapism. Frankly that turns me on, and as I said, it's political.

It's in the way we're trained to watch movies, though, that we all expect to get sucked in and come to crave that. I guess if you can't let go of that and open up to the fact that Van Sant is pointing out how trained we are, and find a different kind of pleasure (one that makes you watch yourself, in effect) then you will miss the beauty of it. Maybe it's just because of my background and interests that I enjoy it.  

it didn't make any interesting comments on the themes of the original or on the idea of watching, as it could have done.

See above, but also I think it asks the questions and leaves it up to you to make the comments, as all good art does (in my opinion).

I got a hell of a lot more interested watching the art piece 24 Hour Psycho (the film - the original, of course - slowed down so it projects once in 24 hours, for anyone who doesn't know) than by watching Van Sant's remake.

I love that piece. But on this theme, did you see Douglas Gordon's back to back projections of The Story of Bernadette (?) and The Exorcist?

Sorry, Wes.

[Him]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere (maybe even the beginning of this thread. i don't know, i'm lazy.) but i'm sure i heard somewhere that gus van sant was planning on doing another remake of psycho. maybe with diferent camera angles, even.

but, you know, i was never too fussed about it. hitchcock's dead, van sant probably made some money (and i think he was counting it in jay and silent bob strikes back) and anyone who claims to have been horrified by his 'butchering' of a classic, well, nobody got het up about the remake of mutiny on the bounty with marlon brando, you know?

ok, so it wasn't great, but it was better than freddy got fingered.