Abstract

This essay examines the concepts of originality and experientiality in film and compares Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Gus Van Sant’s homonymous shot-for-shot remake (1998) to argue for a change of paradigms from post-modernism to experientism. I seek to deconstruct the attributed importance of originality as an operational concept in film evaluation. Departing from the many meanings held by the concept of originality, I argue that the prevailing post-modern idea that all is a citation and there is nothing new because everything has already been created is no longer valid in the context of the current paradigm of filmic creation, a paradigm I call experientiality, or experientism–reflecting, the idea that everything has at least a minimum amount of originality based on experience. I build my case around a discussion of theoretical and historical groundings and an analysis of Gus Van Sant’s film Psycho (1998), a shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). My purpose is to call for an end to the post-modern paradigm to invite readers to understand film creation not primarily in terms of the object but in terms of the audience experience.