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Nothing seems to raise the hackles like the news that a film is being remade, with the idea more likely to be scorned if it is a remake of an old American classic or a rushed reboot of a modern gem of foreign cinema.The Thing, the second remake, after John Carpenter's The Thing, of The Thing From Another World from 1951, has just been released and David Fincher's remake/adaptation of the Swedish film/book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo followed a few weeks ago. There are plenty more in the pipeline too, such as South Korean Park Chan Wook's Oldboy in the hands of Spike Lee and Japanese manga/anime staple Akira given over to Jaume Collet-Serra. Soon we will discover who will walk in the footsteps of Paul Muni and Al Pacino to play Scarface.
Why might films be remade?
Perhaps the original has a formula proven to be successful. A good idea is a good idea. Take something strong and economically viable and repeat. Take something cult and roll it out. A name, a brand could represent the closest to a sure thing.
Films might be remade for love of the original - to be part, in retrospect, of the process of the object of one's affection, to be responsible for the extension and curation of its life. On the other hand it could be dissatisfaction with the original that drives the project - the ideas were sound but the execution could be improved upon.
Although we tend to poo-poo the idea, different countries do have different sensibilities. Remaking a film in your own language whilst paying attention to cultural nuances will engage more people. Either way, with a new director, actors, director of photography, landscape, language etc nothing could possibly remain the same.
Likewise, we adapt ourselves as receivers of signals depending on who we know is sending it. Would Exorcist II, feverish and outlandish as it is, be beloved if it were an Italian horror film? Would its oddness, borderline amateurishness, be more easily enjoyed and admired? I hazard to guess 'yes'.
Subtitles, which distract attention from the image and which turn the aural into visual, change the nature of the film more than we might acknowledge. What is written, even with an aural and acted accompaniment, is experienced quite apart to the same thing heard, responding uniquely to their unique forms and the conventional ways of interacting that appear to govern them.
Was Wong Kar Wai's first English language film, My Blueberry Nights, his least successful critically because his poeticism doesn't work in quite the same way coming out of people's mouths (frankly artificial) as opposed to written and underscoring the action with gobbets of charming romanticism? Does the brilliance in his chinese-language films become soppy and inauthentic in the simple step from those white letters (accompanied by a musical, purely emotion-infused vocal murmuring) to the aural plane? What is said tends to have more responsibility to realism and functionality.
Furthermore, and paying no heed to the snobs, there are those who find it hard to watch subtitled films and it is obvious why.
Remakes (or adaptations from one media to another for that matter) offer fascinating insights into story making and story telling. They make you think about how something is put together, about structure, about characterisation, about technique, cause and effect. These are vital educational tools for the young and old - how has Martin Scorsese transposed
The Invention of Hugo Cabret to the screen in Hugo? How has Middle Earth changed through Peter Jackson's lens? What is happening to the frameworks of Rio Bravo as it transmogrifies through Assault on Precinct 13 and the French film Nid de Guepes? How has Therese Raquin, in tone and pungent odour, been transformed into 21st Century South Korean vampire story Thirst?
Remakes, comparisons, allow us to think about the soul of the thing. To think about the craft of art. Riffs and versions on the same idea - Infernal Affairs and The Departed. [Rec] and Quarantine. Not dispiriting. An exciting opportunity.
[Rec] and Quarantine
Once a film has been remade and we have two passes over basically the same material, a HYPOTHETICAL ORIGINAL is born - a ghost but with a form. The hypothetical original exists in our mind even without a remake but a remake brings it into focus. What it is is not so much what the versions share but what they appear to be responding and commenting on. The two films are in fact both versions of this hypothetical original.
The original isn't the be all and end all, its own mausoleum. It is living. Why do Directors remake their own films? Hideo Nakata remade The Ring in America. Likewise Takashi Shimizu and The Grudge. Yasujiro Ozu remade the black and white A Story of Floating Weeds as the technicolour Floating Weeds, Michael Haneke, Funny Games. Leo McCarey's Love Affair was indeed An Affair to Remember. Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much knew it twice, and Cecil B DeMille adapted the play The Squaw Man on three occasions, in 1914, 1918 and 1931.
They want to get closer to the perfection in their heads. They want to take advantage of new technologies. The original is not the original. It is in the mind and out there like a mist. They want another opportunity to revisit the same people and places and make right. Art lets you come back and remould, albeit with new clay.
Even though Alfred Hitchcock himself remade his own films and adapted a vast amount of short stories and novels, Gus Van Sant's remake of Hitchcock's Psycho was greeted by outrage. Is Van Sant's film redundant because it is almost a carbon copy? Far from it. It is redundant because it is not a carbon copy (in terms of shots). If it were it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experiment in which variables could be studied and where the magic of film would be shown to reside between the shots and without their confines.
What is a sequel if not a species of remake?
Do remakes hold back American cinema? Are they made to bury the originality of non-hollywood cinema? Are they supermarkets stocking products you can purchase in delicatessens and selling them cheaper?
The Thing (2011)Is it vandalism?
Does it do the original works a disservice? Does it alter the brand even if the original remains untouched? Does it replace the original in the public's mind and if so, would people only be aware of the original because of the remake?
Why are commerce and money dirty words? Art has always revolved, and needed to revolve, around money as a facilitator and a spur. All artists should be penniless, destitute martyrs (warming their hands over their authentic inner voice) in their lifetimes and enjoy fame and fortune from the grave.
When we think 'remake' do we actually think that the films are re-made as if something that was sacred is now sinned against and reanimated as a zombie, abhorrent to behold? No two films could ever be the same. Swapping Peter Lorre for James Stewart, or Tony Leung for Leonardo Di Caprio, brings an entirely different colour to a character. A remake will always be worthwhile. The present doesn't change the past. A remake does no trampling and means no disrespect.
We accept countless incarnations of plays because there is no original performance, and endless repetitions of classical music written before the era of recorded sound.
Film is obviously a special case, but perhaps we could try to forget what remakes might mean and enjoy them for what they are - to use something of the approach we take when it comes to the fertile cross-germination of high art when we think of film, an art that, although it may give us pleasure, we are awfully quick to bring low.
While reading, I kept thinking of the theatre: not only is each performance of one production of a play a remake, but then there are all the different productions. Hamlet to the infinite! Or "standards" in jazz music. For whatever reason, we don't think in quite the same way about film (or literature?)
ReplyDeleteAnd money is of course important, but it's just as important to the original as it is to the remake. The people making the remake are just taking a lesser risk. Yet it's the remake, and especially if it's an American remake of a non-American film, that usually gets called the money-grubber...
Pacze,
DeleteTheatre is different, as I said, as the original is the screenplay not the first performance. We can though see remakes as closer to these theatrical versions than we do.
"Or "standards" in jazz music."
Yes. Very true.
"For whatever reason, we don't think in quite the same way about film (or literature?)"
It could also be snobbery - that film is generally (still) not seen as high art. We think the worst of those who remake works.
"...he people making the remake are just taking a lesser risk...Yet it's the remake, and especially if it's an American remake of a non-American film, that usually gets called the money-grubber"
Indeed!
I'm not sure what happened to my first comment, but here's another go on something a little different:
ReplyDeleteI read through the post again and this time I was thinking about history. Films remake history (so do historians—and revisionist historians even more) without any "remake" penalty. There have been dozens of cinematic D-Days and Cleopatras.
One of the difference is that these films also have other stories that happen in the context of a historical event, and these stories change, but the event itself does not. It's even one of the fun things about historical films that you get to see a new interpretation or visualization of an event you've already seen or read about. True, some periods and figures are overused and become stale, but objections are then to the particulars, not to the idea of remaking a historical event.
True stories and documentaries escape remake scorn, too (if you can call them remakes). Examples that come to mind: José Padilha's Bus 147, which "remade" a real-life event that played out very much on Brazilian television. And Asif Kapadia's Senna (2010), which uses existing footage. So we have one film that tells a story that many people already saw, a second that combines footage from other cameras, yet neither of these is a "remake".
Using new images to tell a familiar fictional story is frowned upon. Using existing images to tell a familiar true story is OK.
As for wanting money: historical events and true stories have ready-made audiences, as well. I don't see why remaking a Japanese horror movie is any more "greedy" than making another movie about, say, the Holocaust. In Poland, for example, the historical film is a tested and true fall-back position. It's risk management. Even if viewers ultimately dislike the film, they have to see it first. Money is made. The remake, on the other hand, may turn people off by definition.
I've heard, "Oh, I'm not going to go see Let the Right One In. I'd rather see the original." I've never heard, "Oh, I'm not going to see The Longest Day. I'd rather stay home and read about Operation Overlord."
Remakes create ultimatums for some reason: it's either the original or the remake, but not both. One almost has to be bad (or in bad faith) and the other good.
I finally found your first comment hiding under 'Spam' for some reason.
Delete"Films remake history (so do historians—and revisionist historians even more) without any "remake" penalty."
Yes, but there is a penalty in some people's minds for remaking an original film because it is the equivalent (in this comparison) of remaking/changing history. In other words, the representation of history is a recounting while the remake of an original film could be seen, literally, as a recreation on the same level (film-film as opposed to history-film).
It's like building on top of what came before. I don't see it in that crude way but there is a difference. People do not think that you are literally 'remaking' history (I'm not talking about academic revision here).
Of course, if we are talking simply in terms of story and narrative then the comparison does apply.
The same, I think, goes for the documentaries. They aren't intruding in quite the same way - there is no battle to decide which is the truest representation because reality always wins.
"I don't see why remaking a Japanese horror movie is any more "greedy" than making another movie about, say, the Holocaust. In Poland, for example, the historical film is a tested and true fall-back position."
You're right. Once there are so many versions of an event or period it is like a stream of remakes. There is a free pass for certain subjects - great Kings and Queens, Joan of Arc (some of the best films I've seen have been about her)
"I've never heard, "Oh, I'm not going to see The Longest Day. I'd rather stay home and read about Operation Overlord.""
Haha!
"Remakes create ultimatums for some reason: it's either the original or the remake, but not both. One almost has to be bad (or in bad faith) and the other good."
That does seem to be the case. I welcome remakes and different viewpoints on history. The documentary on Senna and a simple remake are similar - they are both looking for the perfect angle on the material.
Fascinating essay here which in large measure argues for the artistic validity of the re-make, which is a concept that has been abused for the longest time in the name of the almighty dollar. Some remakes like the 1978 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" are quite good, some like the American re-make of the Swedish LET THE RIGHT ONE IN are pointless, which in some instances, like your own citing of the John Carpenter THE THING, the re-make eclipses the original (1951 Hawks) Anyway, all your angles here into film, theatre, literature, are beautifully posed.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Sam.
DeleteI wanted to offer a corrective of sorts, or at least another way of looking at things. Of course there are bad remakes and perhaps ones made with little creativity but that does not invalidate the idea of remakes and its potential.
I don't think I've seen the original of THE THING.
Looking at something and then looking at it again seldom, if ever, yields a duplicate result. I hold strongly to the Observer Effect theorem: the very act of observation alters that which is being observed – a fascinating possibility amidst the realm of quantum mechanics, but equally fascinating in the world of cinema, concerning both filmmakers who revisit and films that are revisited.
ReplyDeleteIn a perfect vacuum of space remakes would never be an issue. If someone remade an inferior version of Jaws or Casablanca then so what? It’s easy enough to simply dispense the film altogether and stick with the original. For most people, however, films do not exist in a vacuum, but are instead heavily saddled with culture, nostalgia and by way of personal association i.e., expressing one’s self by liking this film or that. When a remake comes along these elements are seemingly corrupted and some degree of compensation must be made.
That great movie from that great time in our lives – or from some underdog, and therefore noble, foreign country – must now reconcile this abhorrent mimic, this (often) big industry intruder. People are forced to adjust. Personally, I don’t have a problem with it because, honestly, once I’m inside that theater and the lights go down and the massive screen before me is the only source in a sea of darkness ...It really is vacuum. The only thing that matters is the movie right then and there, standing on its own.
By the way, 2011’s The Thing is not a remake, but a prequel. People have argued cynically that it is simply a remake in sheep’s clothing, but the events depicted are technically backstory to that which is referenced in the first film. And though the similarities are many, they’re also perfectly logical, considering the basic premise coupled with the setting and circumstances. There’s also plenty there, in the details, that gives the film its unique signature. I for one really enjoyed it; not as well as Carpenter’s, mind you, but it still ranked amidst my favorites of 2011.
"I hold strongly to the Observer Effect theorem: the very act of observation alters that which is being observed"
DeleteOr it's Schrodinger's Cat. You could say the film has no base reality then to be altered. Instinctively I don't put too much stock or thought into these things though(!)
"For most people, however, films do not exist in a vacuum, but are instead heavily saddled with culture, nostalgia and by way of personal association i.e., expressing one’s self by liking this film or that. When a remake comes along these elements are seemingly corrupted and some degree of compensation must be made."
I can understand that. The original film may well change in your mind; simply on the good-bad scale through comparison, or by, as you say, corrupting/overwriting/ otherwise altering the context.
I don't think that it affects me in a particularly strong way, though it's different to what you say about entering into a vacuum. For me I am not that interested in how I feel about a film years after I have seen it or when I might re-watch it. For me the first viewing experience and the memory of that (which is pretty much incorruptible) is paramount.
I am aware of thinking (not very loudly) of styles of film-making and similar films to the one I am watching. I take it on its own terms - or try to - but to me it seems unlikely for these things not to be triggered somewhere.
I didn't know the new The Thing was not a remake. A few reviews I read suggested it was. I haven't seen it, nor the two Things that came before.