DeNiro's version is kind of a hammy over-the-top hillbilly-boy sort of character; whereas Robert Mitchum in the original was much more laid back, sexual(DeNiro was buff here, but not very sexual), and cool about his danger.
But they are both great performances with different interpretations of the charcater. Rather like comparing John Wayne to Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, you've got two competing versions by two great actors, and each can be enjoyed on its own terms.
This doesn't always work , though. In the Psycho remake, super-tall, beefy, wiseguy Vince Vaughn did nothing competitive with his Norman Bates versus Anthony Perkins. I think that's because Vaughn was around the 20th choice for the role, many other young actors turned it down.
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[deleted]
6 years ago
The Psycho remake was meant to be a shot-for-shot remake only in colour.
At least that's what I read at the time after seeing it.
I think the colour and soundtrack let it down, as well as it being a shot-for-shot remake.
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ecarle (14979)
6 years ago
None of it helped, but I think the real failure came in the inability to cast very good replacements for Perkins and Janet Leigh. They are screen icons now because of Psycho; neither Anne Heche or Vince Vaughn evinced the same vibes, at all.
Though I think that Vince Vaughn's performance as Norman Bates evaporates while you watch it(he NEVER seems like even a Norman Bates type), the Psycho remake as a whole is something I call "the experiment that succeeded by failing."
Van Sant cashed in some powerful Hollywood chips(given him by the success of Good Will Hunting and a contract with Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard's big Universal-based company) to remake a favorite movie. But it was an experiment: Could you use the script and shots of a 1960 movie and get exactly the same result in 1998?
No, you couldn't. And thus the experiment was a success. We SAW what happens when you try to remake a 1960 shocker in 1998..
And isn't this wild? Its 2018 as I post this. 20 years after the release of Van Sant's Psycho.
The "new" Psycho is now 20 years old!
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[deleted]
6 years ago
Wow!
I feel even older now 😊
Yeah the remake shot-for-shot angle was an experiment which succeeded at failing.
The acting was far from Hitchcock standards and even the shot-for-shot part failed on a few occasions (From memory, I only saw it the once and that was prior to knowing it was shot-for-shot).
Still, it proved something. It proved that a film has a time and place and that can't be reproduced effectively and so I suppose that's something worth knowing.
If only they could tell it to all the reboots and remakes that are coming out these days!
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