You have to wonder if Gus Van Sant either garners an enormous amount of hubris, or just has a masochistic streak in him. Why else would he dive head first in to a remake of a hallowed horror and cinematic classic? And why else would he deliver a remake that’s exactly shot for shot? And “Psycho 1998” isn’t a remake that’s shot for shot with some liberties taken. It’s shot for shot to where director Van Sant copies every single shot of the original film, except with new actors. Van Sant fills the remake with a surreal tone in the vein of David Lynch to where the movie is adrift in a time period blurred between the fifties and contemporary time.
Tag Archives: Gus Van Sant
Last Days (2005)
Van Sant’s third foray in to the indie film of this sort of substance this time centers around a young man named “Blake”, who is basically living out his last days before he commits suicide which is an inevitable. Van Sant doesn’t manage to, or even bother to tell any sort of story here, and his method that usually works so well is wasted. The film consists of the character walking around and mumbling to himself, then he goes to church, then he walks around mumbling to himself, then he makes breakfast, then he walks around mumbling to himself, then we take a view in to his friends who basically party and come home to have sex. Everything about “Last Days” is melodramatic even with the title sequence comprised of a stark black with bold large white letters. There’s no real narrative to this as well, with Van Sant’s other themed indies there was a story, but in this there’s just nothing.