Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Alex]

I must not be explaining myself well, €, because to the way I am thinking you just made connection between a remake and the original as I think is similar to how many people think about gay marriage affecting straight marriage.

If someone decided to have the exact same marriage as you, fine you'd find that odd an inexplicable. But would you feel it devalued your marriage?

As for the discussion that is happening, it is not objective. If you feel that the Tom Hanks movie somehow ruins the Alec Guinness one (or if the Queen Latifah movie somehow ruins the Alec Guinness one) then that is the same subjective evaluation as determined whether a movie was liked in the first place.

Let me ask this: is Die Hard less worthy because Die Hard 3 sucks? Is Braveheart less of a movie because Mel Gibson is an antisemite (assuming he is)? Does The Maltese Falcon diminish or is diminished by the two earlier versions of that movie that were made? In the following duos, are any of them worse because of the existence of the others: Janet Gaynor/Fredric March; Judy Garland/James Mason; Barbara Streisand/Kris Kristofferson?

Are Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer undone by Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr?

Robin Hood has been filmed almost a dozen times. Does that make the Errol Flynn version any less fun?

To me, saying it is bad for movie A because movie B exists/sucks is like saying John Travolta is worse in Pulp Fiction because he really sucked in Look Who's Talking.

[mousepod]

Alex, what did you think of the Alec Guiness version of The Ladykillers? Did you enjoy it more than the Tom Hanks version? How long after remake did you see the original?

[innerSpaceman]

Am I the only one who is grokking Alex?

The imaginary devaluement of films that have been remade is completely imaginary, and a knee-jerk reaction without any validity ... in theory.

In practice, however, I think people have been burned by too many vapid remakes, and thus have learned to fear and loathe the concept of remake.


I can't deny feeling this way myself. I am one who feels that sequels devalue the original. I can't help that emotional reaction, but I realize how baseless it is.



But we needn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, most remakes and covers are lame. So are most movies and most songs, period. There are plenty of good covers and good remakes. The movie tracilicious mistakenly mentioned a while back, Heaven Can Wait, is - imo - a very good remake of a far earlier film called, if I remember correctly, Waiting for Mr. Jordan.

You just can never tell, and it's proably best not to prejudge. But I can hardly blame anyone for getting the willies when they learn that a fave film is going to be shoddily remade.

[mousepod]

Actually, Heaven Can Wait was a remake of a film called Here Comes Mr. Jordan starring Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains.

This, and many of the examples that Alex cites are fine and wonderful remakes. The people involved in Heaven Can Wait (which, by the way, came 37 years after the original) boasted such talent as Buck Henry, Elaine May, Julie Christie, Warren Beatty etc. In 1978, this was clearly a bunch of talented people with a long history in film, unlike the director, writer and cast of The Hitcher remake, that started my whole series of complaints.

There are plenty of great remakes. I could cite dozens of them. Hell, I prefer many of the Hammer horror remakes to the Universal originals. I think the source of my frustration comes from what appears to be a dearth of original ideas lately from our friends in Hollywood.

By the way - I'll bet that most people who know that Heaven Can Wait was a remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan didn't bother to seek out the original, as they'd already seen a version of the movie. And that's a shame - because as good as the remake was, the original was absolutely worthwhile. What did you think of Here Comes Mr Jordan?

[Alex]

I don't particularly care for either of them. Though when I watched Mr. Jordan I did get a great anecdote from a coworker who was a personal friend of Rains (but one that isn't worth sharing because its funniness was mostly in my coworker's ability to tell a story).

I saw the Guinness version of The Ladykillers about two months after the Hanks version. I liked it overall though it wasn't a super effort from Guinness.

I saw it because of the Hanks remake, before then I don't know if I had heard of it and certainly hadn't been given any reason to give it priority.

Personally I love remakes and different films from the same source material. Even if the remake (or the original sucks). I view pretty much any movie as a learning opportunity as well as a chance to be entertained. Even if I'm not entertained I can think about why I wasn't. What works, what doesn't.

Filmmaking is collaborative and no matter how much you buy into auteur theory it is the result of dozens of people making hundreds of decisions. More than anything else, remakes and the like highlight those things.

I would love to see four directors (who somehow hadn't seen the original) each take separate stabs at The Godfather starting with the same script. How would they be different. Is the material foolproof or almost impossible. Did Coppola do it as well as it could be done or was it actually a pedestrian effort. What camera angles detract or augment. Different actors. All of it.

So while a remake isn't necessarily an addition to entertainment I think they're boons to film buffs.

[mousepod]

Alex, based on your most recent posts, I strongly urge you to check out the Lower Depths DVD set from Criterion. It includes Jean Renoir's 1936 adaptation of the Gorky play and Akira Kurosawa's 1957 take on the same source material.

If remakes always attracted the same caliber of talent as the orginal (as in iSm's example), I'd be delighted when a remake is announced.

With all the talk of George Lucas in the "if he'd died after..." thread, I think I might rewatch The Hidden Fortress again tonight.

[Alex]

Probably my favorite pairing is Wages of Fear/Sorcerer.

I can't say either entertained me, but they are both quality efforts and in the comparison of approaches demonstrate a lot.

I'll put that on the list (assuming it is available at Netflix). I've passed on the Kurosawa version several times (wasn't aware of the Renoir) version simply because I can't stand Gorky (what little of it I've read, translated or in Russian).

[innerSpaceman]

Actually, I didn't much care for Here Comes Mr. Jordan, though I can't say if I wouldn't have liked it more if I weren't comparing it to a film I'd already liked.

Sure, there's no inherent devaluation in remakes, covers, revivals .... but the human analytical element of comparison almost always brought to bear cannot be disrergarded out of hand.

It happens all the times with books adapted to film. I usually loathe any movie where I've read the book first. The stereotype exists for a reason: the book's always better than the movie. Often - if I know there's a movie coming out based on a good book - I'll wait till the movie opens so's I can watch it first and then read the book. That way, I'm likely to enjoy both. The other way, I'll only enjoy one.


That value system of comparisons doesn't exist outside the human foible-ridden nature of man, but there it is. Knowing better doesn't seem to help much either, 'leastways not with me.



And N.A. was right earlier .... it's easy to be lax about cover songs: who cares about 3 minutes? But movies take up a couple of hours. And books! What if we had to deal with lousy book remakes?? What a waste of time that would be!


(and why is it that books aren't remade? Why only songs and movies and plays? I don't think I've come across too many re-written novels.)

[Alex]

Movies are corporately owned. Books, for the most part are individually owned. Most remakes are either remade by the same studio (because they already own it) or are adaptations from another medium (where the copyright holder can make serial deals for adaptation). Must multiple books have been written offering takes on the same source material (particularly public domain plays) and complaints are not the same.

Frequently, with remakes, I find that people will like better whichever they saw first. But again, that means it is a personal foible and I don't blame the movie for it. The same things happens with Disneyland vs. Magic Kingdom. Most people prefer whichever one they saw first.

I don't know. Maybe I have some super human ability to take movies on their own terms but I don't find it that hard. And if someone thinks they have a unique take on something (and despite whatever base monetary reasons a project has for getting off the ground in the first place, the people involved almost always believe they have something artistic to contribute) then they're welcome to take a stab at it as far as I'm concerned.

[Ghoulish Delight]

In theory, I agree with you Alex, but the seeming flood of bad remakes is just making the thought of another one and another one and another one more and more painful. I wouldn't wat to abolish all remakes, but I just wish the volume would decrease significantly because I also agree with iSm that, as much as I might be able to separate a remake from its source, movies don't exist in a vacuum. I still feel that public perception of a movie is part and parcel to its value and a bad remake, even if it is only due to people's stupidity, does alter that .