The Remake Debate: A Consideration

The last couple of weeks have brought news of upcoming remakes. Nothing new you may think, and that is true, every week we seem to get more news of upcoming remakes.

The two that are on my mind though are particularly disturbing to me, partly for the reason it’s hard to say why!

Blood Simple, the Coen brothers’ superb noir debut, is to be remade by Zhang Yimou. I love Blood Simple and the Coens and the idea of any film of theirs being remade would obviously bother me. But then I like Zhang. He made Raise The Red Lantern, Hero and House Of Flying Daggers. He has a style that would suggest bringing something very different to Blood Simple no doubt. So should I give it a chance? Probably. But I don’t want to.

Maybe it is because I have been impressed enough by Zhang to wonder why he need remake Blood Simple. Why not create a similar but new story, simply using Blood Simple’s basic premise as a jumping off point? But then perhaps that is exactly what he IS doing and it is reporting or press releasing that is at fault – going for the easy angle rather than telling the true story. So maybe I have to wait and see, gather more info.

The second is Harvey, to be remade by no less a film-maker than Steven Spielberg. I love the James Stewart original film and why anyone would want to remake such a perfect film is beyond me, especially Spielberg. Now Spielberg’s a great filmmaker (although he’s been running sub-par for a while now) but he’s hit the remake trail before recently with his poorly conceived War Of The Worlds, which pales next to the vastly superior story of the 50s original. Sure the effects now allow for a more real edge but the emotional core of the story and easy enjoyment of the characters were gone. And it is single-handedly to blame for the following glut of 50s sci-fi remakes such as the recent The Day The Earth Stood Still and the upcoming Fantastic Voyage, When Worlds Collide and Forbidden Planet.

I would argue for instance that Joe Dante had the right idea when he clearly took Fantastic Voyage (and his love of 50s sci-fi) as the jumping off point for InnerSpace. A brilliant film that in is in no way a remake but owes everything it is to Fantastic Voyage and the genre of that decade. The same could be argued for Tarantino’s about-to-be-released (and brilliant, review coming soon) Inglourious Basterds. He may have used the title and elements from Enzo Castellari’s 1978 film Inglorious Bastards (as well as a lot of structural and character archetypes from Leone) but it is not a remake. The geeks automatically give him the benefit of the doubt of course but should we do that for everyone?

So then all this probably once again raises the question of is a remake ever justified? And as a side question what constitutes a remake?

To tackle the second question first, this is a funny issue. For instance if a film is quite different from its original blue-print film is it a remake? The recent, and perfectly passable and entertaining in my opinion, Taking Of Pelham 123 is very different while contradictorily set-up quite similarly to the 70s original. They have the same title. The central characters serve the same purposes although both are significantly different to there 70s counterparts (the casting alone shows that) and others characters (the mayor most obviously) couldn’t possibly be more different. Yet it is dismissed as a remake. True it is not anywhere near as good a film as the original film, much like the remake of Assault On Precinct 13, but also like Precinct 13 it is different enough and entertaining enough to justify its existence in my opinion.

And what’s more the original Pelham was based on a book. New films of Alice In Wonderland, Clash Of The Titans, Robin Hood and Conan are in the works. Some call them remakes but are they. If you make a new Hamlet (and one is in the works from Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke) no one would dream of calling it a remake. Nor, I feel sure, would anyone call Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland a remake. And yet they did call Burton’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory a remake! Why? Both are based on beloved children’s books. Burton’s Factory bore little in common with the Gene Wilder film, and arguably far more in common with the book.

Myth and legend like Robin Hood and Clash Of The Titans clearly belong in the same category and yet while no one would throw the R word at Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s new telling of the legendary outlaw, the new Clash Of The Titans is always accompanied by the dreaded word.

Recently I read a talk back on Aint It Cool News when someone got bent out of shape with people calling the upcoming American version of Swedish vampire masterpiece Let The Right One In a remake. He argued that it wasn’t a remake because the original was based on a book. Would he, I wonder, have made that case for Taking Of Pelham? I argued on that occasion that it was a remake as director Matt Reeves had only ever referenced the Swedish film when talking about his new version, and never the book, making it clear he was not doing an American adaptation of the book, he was using the film as his jumping off point. So I guess with something like Clash Of The Titans the true question is has the intention of the filmmakers been to remake the film, bringing new effects to bare where Ray Harryhausen so perfectly delivered his stop-motion genius before, or are they going back to Greek mythology directly?

I haven’t seen anyone say the upcoming Marvel film of Captain America is a remake, but I distinctly remember an 80s version with Scott Paulin playing The Red Skull. And yet the new Karate Kid is considered a remake despite being called Kung Fu Kid, having different central characters of different ages and races, etc. So which is which? Or are both both?!

Okay, a tricky issue and perhaps impossible to resolve, so what of the idea of a remake in general? Is it ever justified? Can we say yes when so few remakes live up to the original? But can we say no when some (Cronenberg’s The Fly, Don Siegel’s The Killers, or Phillip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Siegel’s own Invasion Of The Body Snatchers for instance) prove that a great remake can be made to stand in its own right.

The Siegel example is an interesting example. To take a modern director look at John Carpenter. His Assault On Precinct 13 was remade as a slick Hollywood thriller, but was perfectly entertaining in its own right. As good? No, but good? Yes. But then Carpenter’s Halloween and The Fog have seen hideous remakes and rumours persist of new versions of both They Live and Escape From New York on the books. Fans call for a moratorium on Carpenter remakes, but then didn’t Carpenter himself give us perhaps the greatest example of how good a remake can be with his 1982 version of The Thing – a remake of Howard Hawks’ 50s sci-fi The Thing From Another World? (Carpenter’s version is also now on the remake slates!)

Is there a cut off date? Is Harvey okay, or the 50s sci-fi based on the arguments of many people that “most modern audiences haven’t sent he original anyway”? But if we accept that then knowing that studios primarily drive films for the teen market can we complain that we 30-somethings complain about the preponderance of 80s remakes? Arguably, no! We want our cake even though we’ve eaten it.

Are foreign language remakes more acceptable? A lot of people seem to think so. The talk-backers on geek websites often seem to have no issue (or at least less issue) with remakes of films like Ringu (The Ring), Infernal Affairs (The Departed), Le Diner De Cons (Dinner For Schmucks), 13 Tzameti (13) etc than remakes of US films, despite the fact that the US films being remade are far older than the foreign ones (which are often very recent – which goes back to the Let The Right One In remake). Again the “bringing to a broader audience” argument is made. This is an appalling argument because a) it is the same yet is usual made by people who ignore the argument made for remakes of old US films above, and b) it basically a way of saying “we have to cater to the lowest common denominator or lazy and/or ignorant people”! Which is probably why studios make them, since they is generally the approach!

And in fact where would those that are anti a remake or Harvey but fine with a remake of Infernal Affairs stand on the proposed remake of Kurosawa’s Rashomon? It is a superb, classic film. But then both A Fistful Of Dollars (Yojimbo) and The Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai) are US remakes of Kurosawa films that are great in there own right. Again, Precinct and Pelham, they are not as good as the originals (especially Magnificent Seven which isn’t close to Kurosawa’s masterpiece) but they stand on their own merits (and no I’m not saying Tony Scott’s Pelham is as good as Leone’s Dollars but there is a parallel here too many people seem happy to ignore).

And there in lies the rub. When this argument rages most participants pick and choose the parts that fit there case while conveniently ignoring those that don’t. Happy with foreign remakes but not US! Hamlet not a remake because based on a play originally but Pelham is a remake despite being based on a book originally (Hamlet vs Pelham my Uni film profs would be so proud!) Fine with old movies I haven’t seen but not ones from my lifetime that others younger than me may not have seen! Against all remakes but can’t admit there are some genuinely excellent films that are directly or technically remakes!

Even the argument for only remaking films that could be improved, not excellent films – which always rears its head in these debates – ignores the fact that many of the strongest remakes that make the case for the existence of their kind (Magnificent Seven, 3:10 To Yuma, The Thing, Insomnia) are all remakes of excellent films themselves (hell, Abel Ferrara’s 90s remake of Body Snatchers is pretty good too!)

You can’t rely on past history either. John McTiernan made the very entertaining and some (including myself) would argue better-than-the-original remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. He followed this up with the horrendous remake of Rollerball!

So this an argument that will rage for the ages, and no doubt in 20 years the current crop of teenagers lapping up all those 80s remakes we whine about will raise all the same issues again over remakes of 2012, GI Joe and Avatar (and probably their generations versions of Friday The 13th, My Bloody Valentine, etc), but I have to conclude if there are occasions when a remake can be justified (and there are many more good examples of why we can’t than I’ve thrown in here) then we can’t dismiss all remakes out of hand. Each has to be taken on its own merits, not least because when you get down to it it be hardly even be a remake!

Other remakes coming up include Fame, Red Dawn, Footloose, Hellraiser, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Crazies, The Wolfman, Piranha, Straw Dogs, Arthur, Romancing The Stone, Highlander, Total Recall and Cliffhanger – where will these fall?