Certainly not. To remake a film means to disrespect the original. It also means to take the credit for someone else’s creativity.
Orson Welles is by my side and he decided, with my help, to remake Citizen Kane, “adding a lot of special effects and casting Robert Pattinson as Kane”, says he.
Well, I wouldn’t.
For one thing, just about evrything that makes me love it is probably impossible to replicate. The acrors are dead, or at least older, for one thing.
I’d be more likely to remake my least favorite film.
Nah, though I’ve always considered remaking a film that I thought had potential but blew it, like another version of AI that cuts the stupid alien ending off.
Sorry to deviate the topic just a little, but I am really very curious about the following question:
Would you adapt your favorite book?
I am going back and forth on this because frankly, I only want to make movies I come up with myself—but there are a couple of books I really, really want to make into movies because I can already see the movies in my head and they’re friggin’ awesome .
—PolarisDiB
>.Would you adapt your favorite book?<<
I probably would because I have an instinct to share my favorite thinbgs with others.
And it’s easier to get people to watch a movie than read a book…
Well, the knews about von Trier possibly doing something (whatever this means) about Taxi Driver would make my version the third. But no way, I would consider it blasphemy. Nobody (and certainly not I) could ever make a worthy version of my favorites.
I have to agree with Polarisdib- the missed opportunities could be interesting, A.I being a good example of a film that ended up in the wrong hands.
Top 5 Films you would like to see remade? (by people with some talent)
Remakes are not inherently disrespectful to the original. If a filmmaker has an original take on a familiar idea, I see no problem with it. There’s a wide variety of artistic sensibilities out there and I think seeing different takes on the same concept is fascinating.
Speaking about his remake of 3:10 to Yuma, James Mangold defended his take by comparing it to a Broadway revival. Same story, but from a different perspective, for a contemporary audience. Remember, the era in which a film is made can be just as important a factor in the final product as the people who made it.
This point of view is only a step beyond studying genre films, which, though not necessarily true remakes, often share enough in terms of plot and characters that they might as well be. Rio Bravo may not have been a remake of High Noon, but Howard Hawks looked at the plot and characters of High Noon and decided he’d like to put his own stamp on them. Nothing wrong with that. Both are classics.
The same goes for taking a film that didn’t live up to its potential and trying to do better. The Maltese Falcon had been made twice before we finally got the John Huston classic.
As long as the intentions of the filmmakers are honestly artistic and not just a cash-in (see the slew of recent horror redos) then I think remakes are fertile ground. It’s not an easy task, but some filmmakers (Chris Nolan, Martin Scorsese) have proven they can handle it.
@Jon
I love the original One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but I’d like to see someone like Terry Gilliam or Guillermo del Toro take it on. The novel is full of all kinds of surreal, hallucinatory imagery that was left out of the Milos Forman version.
I’m also still waiting on a definitive Hound of the Baskervilles. There have been countless terrible versions and a handful of good ones, but none of them have quite captured the essence of the book.
I’d like to try my hand at a version of Something Wicked this Way Comes…
I wouldn’t adapt a favorite book, until I had established myself so I could trust that I wouldn’t let down the source material.
But no I would never remake a favorite movie.
On one hand, I think it’s disrespectful to the original, but on the other hand, I would love to remake Andrei Rublev…
>> Would you adapt your favorite book? <<
I think that depends on the the book and the capability of the director (Mr. Obvious, here). A good adaptation to me would communicate the theme of the novel into the film. The differences left out or added shouldn’t be considered, in my opinion, when deciding whether or not the adaptation was good. Unless the differences affect the theme, of course, which is usually the source of much debate.
Like Less Than Zero. The book, I believe, related excessive wealth and privilege to moralistic apathy, and detailed a young man’s bewilderment and feeling of being lost upon discovering this relation. The movie, in my opinion, left out the message of the book completely to say “The 80’s were cool, and don’t do drugs.”
No
I dabble in screen writing every now and again and I have a friend that makes films (he’s actually in L.A. directing a film right now) and every time I bring this up he KILLS me for it.
First of all, he thinks the film that I always bring up would be a cardinal sin to re-make. Secondly, neither one of us has the clout or knows anyone that does to actually be able to do it…it would cost way too much money for a very unknown independent filmmaker and a guy who only dabbles in screenwriting and isn’t credited for anything to pull it off….but I bring it up anyway.
The Wizard of Oz.
But not a musical and more true to original novel. I really want to write it just to get it out of my system…but it’s crazy.
Eh, I care neither for Wizard of Oz nor the source material. I’d certainly be interested to see what else could be done with it.
—DiB
What did you guys think about Gus Van Sant’s PSYCHO…. which was essentially a scene-by-scene reenactment, in color, of Hitchcock’s 1960 PSYCHO?
Was it a labor of love? A tribute?
A travesty?
Did it bring something new to the original? Did it cheapen the concept?
Why would Van Sant want to do a frame-by-frame remake?
Movies—- and the effect they have on us—— are highly affected by the era in which they came out.
Part of the pathos of OLD YELLER is thinking about the ultra-saturated Buena Vista Technicolor colors onscreen. To see it today in ultra-subtle HD just wouldn’t be the same, would it?
For example, nowadays, with digital computer wizardry, one could make a new WIZARD OF OZ that would leave audiences gasping. But would it supplant the orignal?
One could, theoretically, do a remake of 1967’s BONNIE & CLYDE. And today, with our more….ahem…..liberated sensibilities, we’d probably get a “Bonnie” who looks like Heidi Klum, and she’d spend half the movie with her bare tits hangin’ out. And we’d probably get some fairly explicit NC-17 scenes of Bonnie and Clyde fucking. Not to mention some Tarantino-esque ultra-violence that would make the 1967 violence look like a paper-cut. This is a remake I’d avoid like the plague.
“One could, theoretically, do a remake of 1967’s BONNIE & CLYDE.”
I’ve already heard rumours about that, I think it might be happening
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355646/
hope you like Hilary Duff
As far as Van Sant’s “Psycho”, I thought it was a pretty good film by itself…but it wasn’t better than the original and it didn’t add anything new to it IMO.
I do believe in tributes…Quintin Tarrantino gets blasted all the time for “stealing” certain elements from other directors…but I think that is the way a filmmaker SHOULD pay a tribute to another filmmaker. The shot from inside the trunk does not make or break “Reservoir Dogs”…the film would have been a classic independent film today if that shot wasn’t in it and Tarrantino should be given all the credit he is due for making the films that he does from the ground up.
On the other hand, like said before, Van Sant’s “Psycho” was basically a scene by scene adaptation of Hitchcock’s and I don’t think this is a good or ethical way to pay homage to another filmmaker. Van Sant made money off of that movie…they all got paid. It’s not like the film fell into obscurity and everyone had forgotten about it and he was attempting to breathe life back into it…the film is immortal, it will go down as one of the greatest thrillers of all time, the shower scene will go down as one of the greatest scenes in American film history. There was no reason to do what he did and he made money off of it. That’s just my opinion though.
Sorry for potentially taking this thread “somewhere else”.
I’ve always wanted to remake something totally lousy that isn’t even old, like “Hidalgo.”
Hidalgo? Is that a western?
Kind of an Arabian western, with Viggo Mortensen.
@ Jon Kennard
This new Hilary Duff thing (granted, she IS a Texan, like Bonnie Parker was) had better be very, very good, or I’ll never forgive any of the people currently affiliated with the project.
@ Jon Kennard
This new Hilary Duff thing (granted, she IS a Texan, like Bonnie Parker was) had better be very, very good, or I’ll never forgive any of the people currently affiliated with the project.
Anyway, I doubt that the new Hilary Duff BONNIE & CLYDE will be honest to the truth of history:
The naked truth of their story is this: Bonnie and Clyde’s friendship was never consummated because Clyde Barrow was homosexual.
Homosexuality was something he developed a taste for in State Prison before he even met Bonnie Parker.
The true love of Clyde Barrow’s life was not Bonnie Parker…. it was a handsome blond prison inmate he met named Raymond Hamilton. He also had an ongoing relationship with C.W. Moss, a younger member of the Barrow Gang.
I would be very surprised indeed if this new vehicle has the temerity to depict the TRUTH.
ILoveCourtneyHate
would you like to remake your favourite film? is it the ultimate homage or destruction of a film you love, sucking the life out of it?
i personally think it is wrong, and i would never consider it. i mean, either you think that you can top your favourite film or you will totally flop and ruin the film you love. seems ridiculous.