Hitchcocktober Episode 2: Why Are So Many Hitchcock Adaptations So Bad? (Part 2 of 2)

By Philip Tallon

Following up on my (sketchy) thesis in Part One that the closer the Hitchcock adaptation the worse the movie, I want to offer a few (sketchy) suggestions for why adapting/remaking Hitchcock for today is so much trouble.

Here are three: 

1. Many of Hitchcock's key elements do not modernize well. 

Hitchcock's movies, with few exceptions (Jamaica Inn, Under Capricorn), were set in the modern day and reflected the style and custom of the time. The men wear suits and hats, the phrase, "If it doesn't gel it ain't aspic" makes sense, and the fine for drunk driving is $2. But now, 35 years after his last film, none of his 40+ films are set in the modern day. They are all period pieces. And so many things have changed that key plot elements in Hitch films just wouldn't make practical sense. 

Rear Window, for instance, relies on the assumption that Jeffries is stuck in his wheelchair and his contact with the outside world is limited to his apartment's rear window and circular dial telephone. At the climax of the film, he struggles to get in touch with anyone because his police chief friend is out for the evening and he can only get ahold of the babysitter. The cell phone problem, then, presents itself to anyone remaking the idea now, i.e. "Why isn't he just calling the policeman's cell phone?" Here's where Disturbia correctly solved the problem by making the main character a slight delinquent, put on house arrest and robbed of all his digital privileges - hence solving the cell phone problem.

Plus, so many of Hitch's film tropes have been so absorbed by the film world that remaking Hitchcock is destined to result in dozens of unintentional cliches. (E.g. one of the most striking things about Van Sant's Psycho remake is, of course, how unbelievable it is that any woman would check into a hotel run by a guy named Norman Bates.)  

2. Hitchcock made films before the advent of intensified continuity.

Hitchcock's film style, iconic though it is, is radically out of step with contemporary Hollywood style: intensified continuity. This style, as detailed by David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It, is defined by quick cuts, intermixing lens lengths, and near-constant camera movement. Hitchcock is certainly not an Ozu-like zen filmmaker. His cuts can be quick, his lens lengths are often changing (even in the same shot, a la Vertigo), and his camera moves in interesting ways. But Hitchcock's arty effects were often seen and understood in contrast to classical Hollywood continuity. His cinematic pops and whizzes required some degree of cinematic stillness surrounding them. And thus, mixed into the age of intensified continuity, these stand-out scenes no longer make the same kind of cinematic sense - or what once made them special has now been absorbed into everyday filmmaking. The fast editing of Psycho's shower scene and the push-pull effect of Vertigo, for instance, were "special" effects that marked key moments of the film. Now that Hitchcock's film innovations have been absorbed and the entire film language surrounding them has been intensified, they are no longer useful for contemporary filmmakers.

Now, filmmakers are called "Hitchcockian" if they make intense but deliberately-paced (read as, "slow") movies. The oft-reviled M. Night Shyamalan's first four major movies (Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village) reject the principles of intensified continuity in order to get back to a much simpler, more classical film style which Shyamalan can then occasionally puncture for cinematic effect. In a sense, he must erase the last thirty years of film history to get a similar tone to Hitchcock in his movies. 

SIDENOTE: The most Hitchcockian contemporary filmmaker, Christopher Nolan, only resembles the British master in his fusing of art and popular filmmaking. Nolan uses little of Hitchcock's film style but accomplishes the same blend of popcorn entertainment and thoughtfulness. 

3. Hitchcock's movies are noir fairy tales. 

After much bloviating, I finally come to what I really see as the key element of Hitchcock's films that is lost in translation. Hitchcock's best movies have the elevated and slightly surreal quality of fairy tales. 

His films are noir fairy tales in that they almost always deal with the darker side of life. With the exception of The Birds, all the movies I've discussed involve crime. But the more important element is the heightened and nightmarish dream feeling you find in fairy tales. Though Psycho begins in the sad world of Phoenix, Arizona, with its rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms and headaches, it quickly moves into the world of myth. Midway through Marion's flight to Fairvale, we leave the real world and enter some sideways universe - like our own but stranger and more fantastic. Because of Hitchcock's art, it can be a bit hard to see exactly when we cross over into Hitch-land, but it happens every time. 

In North by Northwest it happens almost immediately, when Roger Thornhill raises his hand and the criminal agents think he is Mr. Townsend. In The Birds it happens between San Francisco and Bodega Bay. In Rear Window we slip across on that sweaty night at the moment of the murder. I'll leave it as homework for others to identify where it happens in The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Sabateur, Strangers on a Train, Sabotage, and Vertigo. Believe me, though, it always does.

And this is what all adaptations seem to miss (except, perhaps, in a few, fleeting moments in dePalma). All the adaptations fail to tingle the spine (which Nabokov saw as the telltale place for detecting enchantment). They all fail to capture that exact proportion which Hitchcock knew and sought, the precise ratio of distance between the average person and that which is just slightly beyond his grasp. 

Hitchcock's films are not about philosophical themes, but they play on the exact same disjunctures and disruptions that give rise to philosophy. They are not about humanity's relationship to the world, but they deal with particular humans struggling with mystery, injustice, horror, and bad luck. They embody - or more accurately - they play with these ideas in ways that are more resonant and more fun than any deconstruction of Hitchcock's ideas ever could be.  

This is why Hitchcock's movies will still be watched fifty years from now. And why filmmakers will continue to butcher his movies.

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Philip Tallon (Twitter: @philiptallon) wrote an essay on Psycho for the book Hitchcock and Philosophy.