2. In Van Sant's Psycho, Marion is not killed in the shower, she is only spied on. This is different Hitchcock's because the audience expects the shower scene murder, many people know about that without having seen the movie, so they are expecting it, which is why Van Sant snubs those expectations.
3. Naremore thought that Robert Forster's performance gave the psychiatrist more authority, that the Bates house looked too modernized, and that Van Sant ruined one of the "most famous dissolves in film history". He uses the story of the royal cook to say that even if Van Sant made a film identical to Hitchcock's, it would not be good because it was not part of the contexts of the original, just like how the king's mulberry omelette wasn't as good because it did not have all the meaning that it did when the king was a child.
4. Rothman says that since the shots copy Hitchcock so closely, but are not HItchcock's, they don't work. His authorship is so unique, and Hitchcockian shots cannot mean all the things that his do. Leitch questions Rothman's assumptions that Hitchcock is an author and Van Sant is not, saying that he bases his arguments on five of Hitchcock's films, but undermines Van Sant saying that his shots aren't even gestures. Timothy Gould objects to Rothman, saying that Rothman has no authority to decide whether Hitchcock or Van Sant is an author.
5. Because he was the last author. Psycho was terrifying for 1960s audiences, and Leitch says that if he showed his students this film back then, they would ask to leave because they were afraid. Now, they say "is that it?" because it was so influential because of the shock of it, and then the shock sets new standards, so old films are not as scary anymore because scarier things have come after.
6. Because in assuming that everyone had seen Hitchcock's Psycho, he he could "regulate the interpretation of his homage because its classic status and the reactions of its original audience could be universally stipulated".
7. He has an interest in "rendering the subjective experience of troubled, disaffected youths and young adults". Other thematic concerns that he mentions are the idea of leaving home to escape controlling norms and ideals, and searching for intimate relationships. In relation to Psycho, it involves troubled youths, Marion leaving home to escape her troubles, and the use of inserted subjective shots (such as Arbogast's vision of falling down the stairs).
8. He uses subjective shots and voice-over narration to bond the audience to the protagonists' inner thoughts. He compares being murdered to an orgasm, a drug high, and a narcoleptic seizure, which are all moments in Van Sant's other films that contain similar subjective shots of visions.
9. How does Van Sant’s typical strategy of casting against expectation suggest new or different meanings in Van Sant’s Psycho? (Specifically the casting of Marion, Norman, and Lila?)
The casting of Marion was interesting because she is a woman living in a man's world, and is unfulfilled, and he chose to cast Anne Heche, who was known to be a lesbian. Norman was originally cast as Anthony Perkins who was suspected to be gay, and is portrayed as effeminate in Hitchcock's Psycho, and Van Sant cast against this expectation by choosing Vince Vaughn who is known for his heterosexuality. He also included a scene where Bates masturbates while watching Marion enter the shower, which contrasts with Hitchcock's Bates who looks at her with no emotion. This suggests that Bates kills her because she is indifferent to his heterosexual advances. Also, Julianne Moore's portrayal of Lila is that of a powerful, liberated woman who helps capture Bates, which contrasts to Hitchcock's meek, helpless Lila.
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