Hitchcocktober 2011 Episode 2: Why are So Many Hitchcock Adaptations So Bad? (Part 1 of 2)

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From Emily: Our second installment of Hitchcocktober comes from the talented and clever Philip Tallon, who, unfortunate sot that he is, joins us today having overcome the cruel fate of looking like Hugh Grant, marrying a model, and siring three of the most hideous children I've ever seen.

Gargoyles, really.

Also, he writes books and has a PhD and stuff. Poor, poor Philip. Thank you for taking a break from your daily weeping to contribute to our month-long celebration of the Master of Suspense.

Why are So Many Hitchcock Adaptations So Bad?

by Philip Tallon

I’m sure every wannabe filmmaker has had this moment: sitting watching Rear Window or Vertigo or The 39 Steps, he thinks, “I should make a movie exactly like this!” I assume this must be the case because

 a) I’ve had this thought again and again, and I’m not even a filmmaker.

And

b) there are a fair number of lousy Hitchcock adaptations or remakes out there.

A) and b) coincide in my life when someone actually makes a Hitchcock adaptation that gets released to theaters. Which means that

c) I always want to see these movies and then I am almost always disappointed.  

The prime examples of this would be Jodi Foster’s Flightplan, a riff on a Hitchcock movie I love (called The Lady Vanishes) and Gus van Sant’s Psycho. 


Both of these movies are terrible, but I was super excited to see both of them. And if someone had asked me if making such a movie was a good idea or a bad one, I would have always said, “good.”


There’s something about Hitchcock’s style that makes you want to remake his movies. This is partly because Hitchcock is a filmmaker’s filmmaker. He manipulates his audience like puppets but he lets the puppets catch glimpses of the puppet master pulling the strings. Behind many of Hitch’s great scenes, we can hear him asking, “See how I did that?” Many, many people speak to this quality in Hitchcock. David Thomson devoted a whole book to it: The Moment of Psycho.


So why then does such an inspirational filmmaker inspire so many bad homages? Why are Hitchcock adaptations so bad? And seemingly worse the closer they get to resembling the films that inspired them? 


Specifically here I’m thinking about Flightplan and Psycho. But also many of Brian DePalma’s earlier movies (e.g. Body Double and Dressed to Kill).


In fact, you can chart this out.


My thesis: the closer the adaptation, the worse the movie.

• Psycho (near identical remake) = Terrible.
• Body Double, Dressed to Kill (steals major plot ideas/themes/editing style, uses the same composer) = Pretty Bad.
• Flightplan (uses same idea, many key plot points) = Dull as dishwater.
• Mission Impossible 2 (lifts the concept, uses little else) = Semi-interesting.

Now, there are some potential outliers here.


1. Disturbia, which fits in the Flightplan category (it’s a riff on Rear Window), was actually pretty fun to watch. Perhaps we could file this as a case of exception proving the rule.


2. And many people think that Mission Impossible 2 is utterly terrible. But all this would mean for my thesis is that there’s no significant uptick at the end of my chart, and all recent Hitchcock adaptations are pretty bad.


However, one additional film that will no doubt support my case will be the forthcoming Michael Bay-produced remake of The Birds, which in all likelihood will be so bad it will bring about the second coming of Christ.


Okay, so, I have some theories about why Hitchcock is so hard to adapt these days. But I’ll save them for a second post.

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Philip Tallon (Twitter: @philiptallon) wrote an essay about Psycho a long time ago for Hitchcock and Philosophy.