It is also contemporary, in terms of Pablo’s involvement, so it was an interesting dynamic when you look at it with the movie being remade that way. She was very comfortable with your presence, especially in terms of it being an homage. Saul’s passing was still fresh for her and Jennifer. As we would say in the ‘60s: good vibes!Īllen: She felt comfortable with your presence on the project. It’s work – you have to spend so many hours doing it – but it’s easy hours. Title designer Pablo Ferro at Title House in Los Angeles, California, 1997Īnd what was it like working with Elaine Bass? It only made sense to take that direction. It was just a treat to see! It was already done, so this was almost like a sideshow at the circus.Īllen: Ultimately it was an homage to Saul because they both had great respect for each other…Īllen: Yeah, it was really out of deep respect and love for that work. I didn’t change any of his bars, I just used it, repeated it here and there, but that’s the only change I made. Pablo: That’s what I mean, I didn’t touch a hair of it. Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998) side-by-side title sequence comparisons. This was with Gus Van Sant, but it was a bit of an unusual project, right? Let’s talk a little bit about the Psycho remake you worked on in 1998. If only the same could be said of the rest of the film.Ī discussion with Title Designers PABLO FERROand ALLEN FERRO. The Psycho opening title sequence remains as effective as when it first gripped audiences back in September 1960. However, while the film laid bare some of the shortcomings of the horror classic, it also demonstrated the enduring power of Bernard Herrmann’s music and Saul Bass’s title design. Van Sant’s Psycho was both a critical and commercial failure, proving to be a pale imitation of Hitchcock’s original. When viewed against the black, the green bars leave a crisscrossed afterimage, an imperceptible trail burned into one’s vision. In place of the original white, the lines are filled in with a particularly bright shade of green. Put another set of clues together and you know something else.” Ferro’s primary contribution to the 1998 iteration (aside from fitting in all the new credits) was giving the sequence its colour. “Put these together and now you know something. Bass originally imagined the lines as information, clues to the unfolding mystery that never quite reveal themselves. Simple lines charge across the screen in parallel, delivering pieces of type, forming credits in time to the score, and then carrying them away again in pieces.
The Psycho title sequence is an exercise in tension and contrast, made all the more potent by Hermann’s frenzied main title theme. The two were frequent competitors in the worlds of advertising and film and both had worked closely with director Stanley Kubrick. Ferro, who had worked with Van Sant previously on films like To Die For and Good Will Hunting, was hired for Psycho in part because of the mutual respect that existed between he and Bass. The latter, executed by Pablo Ferro – a contemporary of Bass and title design legend in his own right – was meticulously recreated under the watchful eye of title designer Elaine Bass, Saul’s wife and collaborator of more than 40 years.Įlaine retired from the business after Saul’s passing in 1996, but returned in 1998 to ensure that one of her husband’s most revered works would be protected and preserved. Shot for shot, angle by angle, the film matches nearly every element of the original, right down to the iconic Bernard Herrmann score and Saul Bass-designed opening title sequence. The cast and crew of Van Sant’s Psycho may be completely different, but the movie remains Hitchcock’s film to its core. When asked why he would even attempt to remake Psycho, Van Sant simply replied “So no one else would have to.” In an era when remakes feel increasingly inevitable, that sort of pragmatism is almost admirable.
Other filmmakers, such as Brian De Palma and David Fincher, have built careers on emulating or paying homage to Hitch, but Van Sant was the first director to so blatantly – and purposefully – copy the master filmmaker note for note. Less of a remake and more a duplicate of the original Alfred Hitchcock classic, Van Sant’s Psycho is both an experiment in form and a provocation of sorts.
Psycho 1998 full movie free cracked#
Get a troubling window into the mind of a killer, cracked and split, in the opening of director Gus Van Sant's much-derided 1998 reimagining of Psycho.
0 kommentar(er)
