Looking at Bates Motel - Thoughts From a Purist

I was a teenager when I first saw Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror film, Psycho.  It was the third Hitchcock film I had seen, behind The Birds and North By Northwest.  While I was really engaged with those two films and enjoyed them immensely, it was my experience with the Norman Bates classic that left a mark.

It wasn't just that I thought it was a phenomenal movie, it was a revelation to me in story telling as a whole.  It thew convention out the window.  The leading lady, the person who the camera fixates on and who the story revolves around, is killed off deep into the movie.  Hitchcock shows the audience that he is willing to rip out from under us the things which he portrayed as the most important.  By doing this, nobody in the film is safe.  If he will spend that much time and energy investing in someone who gets killed off, then not another single character in the movie is indispensable.  It was a brilliant move by Hitchcock, and it showed me that there really are no rules to story telling.  You can do absolutely anything you want.  It doesn't mean that it will lead to a good story, but it can create an experience that catches the audience off guard and leads them down a path which they have never before travelled.

This is what made Psycho a groundbreaking film for me.  On top of its lessons in story telling, it was a compelling movie that was driven by powerful performances by Janet Leigh (whose daughter would do on to star in classic horror film Halloween) as Marion Crane, and Anthony Perkins in an eternally haunting portrayal of Norman Bates.  The casting of these two characters was a thing of brilliance, and it pays off in my favourite scene in the film with the two leads having an interesting conversation while surrounded by the hollow eyes of dead, taxidermied animals, birds of prey looming over Norman.  The directing in that scene is a work of art, topped of by the foreshadowing comment from Bates that "we all go a little mad sometimes."

My love for this movie is what kept me from seeing the Gus Van Sant remake for twenty years.  I finally watched it, and my verdict is that it was pointless.  It may have been judged as art by Van Sant, but its shot for shot nature was just mere imitation.  I like it when amazing movies stay as stand alone films and resist the urge to turn into a franchise.  The subsequent movies have a chance to cheapen the majesty of the original.  With a film like Psycho, I felt there should have been nothing to follow after it, and most certainly nothing to be set before it.

The Star Wars prequels seemed to spark this idea that properties could be mined in new ways, with many prequels and origin stories popping up in the years afterwards.  I wasn't surprised when I heard that there was going to be a television show, Bates Motel, about the Bates family set before the incidents in the first movie.  I decided that I would never have anything to do with it, but curiosity killed the cat.  Vera Farmiga, an exceptionally talented actress, was cast as mother Norma Bates.  Freddie Highmore, who I got to know through The Good Doctor (a show that I'm not really into, but I enjoy Highmore's skills), was cast as a teenage Norman.  Time to give it a whirl, I thought.

I need to eat my words and admit that, in this case, an origin story worked.  Highmore has an appearance that works with Perkins and sets up a believable younger version of Bates.  He is shy and naive, but there is something that Highmore is able to say through his eyes that indicates that we may not quite know what is happening in Norman's head.  His mother, Norma, is a truly complex and complicated character.  Farmiga, an Oscar nominated talent, is able to hit all of the many sides and intonations of Norma.  It is a pure joy to see her, delivering a character that is absolutely unpredictable.  The supporting cast of Max Thieriot, Olivia Cooke, and Nestor Carbonell create a rich and deep viewing experience.

The location is perfection as well.  The iconic house set behind the motel on a hill was chilling to see.  The first shot of Norma and her teenage son Norman entering the house is set up the stairs, a shot that calls back to the killing of private investigator Arbogast from the movie.  Nothing in the visuals is delivered bluntly, but in ways that fans of the film will be sure to appreciate.

The story develops in interesting ways, and the real tale to be told here is the relationship between mother and son.  They are bound to each other, explosive with each other, and obsessed with each other.  Norma's maternal manipulation starts subtly, and grows as the story progresses.  As the episodes pass by, Highmore's performance more and more mimics the Bates that we know.

An interesting move in the show is that it is not a period piece.  I quite liked that.  Why feel the need to have to fit perfectly in with what was established prior?  I like when people take licence with properties and use the base idea as inspiration.  It is exactly why I disliked the Van Sant version.  With the story happening in the present time, it allows for an updated character that is more an interpretation than a duplication.

The creators of the show also took liberty with where it takes place.  Instead of a small town in California, it takes place in the fictional White Pine Bay in Oregon.  The town is given its own unique nature, which at first feels like a Steven King style of small town.  However, as the shows move on, the mystery no longer carries any weight and felt to me as though it was unneeded.  It was as though there wasn't complete faith in Norma and Norman carrying the story.  The stories of the town add definite entertainment, but I think it dilutes the power of the actions of the mother and son.  It leads to some things feeling a little over the top at times.

With that criticism aside, this is a surprisingly good affair.  The development of the characters is dark yet delightful, and it is done in a way that I do not think will offend purists.  Highmore is unnervingly placid at times, and a raging animal at others, often with not much separating the two states.  Farmiga got an Emmy nomination for her efforts, and it is easy to see why.  Our possible idea of what Norma Bates would be like from the movie Psycho is not what we are given, but Farmiga shows shades of what will happen to the relationship.  Bates Motel offers up a well built story that hangs splendidly on the talents of its cast.