Mother and Son; or, That Obscure Object of Desire (Scenes from an Anamorphic Double Feature) 2006

Cast: Aleksei Ananishnov, Gudrun Geyer

My experience of collaborating in an untimely manner with Gus Van Sant was not a happy one. Had he heeded my suggestions, he would not have tried to do a remake of Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) in which he reproduced each frame of the original largely in the manner of Hitchcock, but would instead have done a "Psycho" in the manner of Sokurov, so that the resultant film would have been: "Psycho," School of Sokurov (as "The Betrothal," circa 1640-50, is by the School of Rembrandt). Such a programmatic film would have proved all the more appropriate when Sokurov went on to do a seemingly programmatic cinematic work, "Russian Arc" (2002), a 96-minute film videotaped in one continuous shot. Since Van Sant did not heed my suggestions for his remake of "Psycho" (1998), I did "Mother and Son; or, That Obscure Object of Desire (Scenes from an Anamorphic Double Feature)," 2006, in lieu of the failed untimely collaboration.