Stop Hating On Remakes!

There was much consternation over the weekend over the gall of someone daring to develop a remake of, shock horror, an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I appreciate that yes, Hitchcock is one of the greats, but to suggest that to remake his work would be a travesty is, to be frank, a little strong. It’s nothing new, Hitchcock must be one of the most re-made directors of all time. And after all, Hitchcock himself wasn’t adverse to a remaking his own work…

I understand the reasons why people are so against remakes of classic films, and remakes in general. It’s lazy, they’re just reworking an existing screenplay. It’s cheap, and for every remake produced an original script isn’t getting its chance to be made.

The fact is, there are movies that have been made, even some that are considered classics by some, that could benefit from a bit of reworking for a contemporary audience. I love the concept of Logan’s Run for example, but i didn’t like the film that much. I know i’ll get roasted for that, but i think it’s a great basic idea that could be done much better. Now, i can’t speak for Suspicion, because if i have seen it, i certainly don’t remember it. But looking at historical reviews of it, it was ‘good’ at best, and certainly not a highly plaudited example of the master’s work.

There is a dearth of great writers in Hollywood. There are very few actively working screenwriters that are capable of coming up with compelling stories, and well constructed plots. If you’ve got a choice between a mediocre story idea realised by a shoddy director, or a decent story idea done by that same director, which would you choose to watch? Cynical maybe, but the bottom line is movies need to be made constantly for the studios to survive, and if they all made the decision to take risks on original screenplays, for every great success story there would be a film company out of business, because they couldn’t turn a profit on the awful movies they were churning out.

There’s a generation of moviegoers who haven’t seen Hitchcock’s work, and never will. They are black and white, they are awfully static due to filmmaking restrictions from the period, and the style of acting is different to that which the younger audience is used to. Better to let the story live on by reinterpreting it for modern day than let it die with the older audience that remember it so fondly.

The idea that remakes are taking the place of original ideas isn’t necessarily right either. Great filmmakers will continue to develop new ideas, and make great original movies. Jean-Pierre Jeunets will carry on making Micmacs, Kathryn Bigelows will continue making Hurt Lockers and Duncan Joneses will carry on making Moons. Mediocre, journeyman filmmakers will make average, or below average movies whether the material is original or rehashed. Remakes are required to keep the revenue stream going. The Hurt Locker just about covered costs, Moon possibly didn’t even manage that. Clash of the Titans and Robin Hood will make huge box office. Audiences will continue to pay money to see recognisable work, and shy away from brand new material. Come on, can you tell me you’re not going to go and see Clash of the Titans or Robin Hood? Vote with your wallets, not your mouths. Even the highest grossing movie of all time, Avatar, is a mish-mash of old ideas.

Clearly the biggest problem here is that Hollywood studios are not putting enough work in to developing promising young writers. By all accounts, the spec script system is very much a lottery, and there are probably great movie ideas sitting in stacks in cupboards, or in landfill, discarded after a ten page read because they were only ‘two thirds there’. There are too many aspiring writers, and no effective system for panning out the gold.

The biggest surprise for me is that Will Smith is contemplating this for his next movie. By his own calendar, he’s due to save the world again. He obviously sees potential for this movie, and for everything you can say about Will Smith, his movies make a lot of money. In a time when dollars are made on brand recognition rather than star power, Smith is a rare commodity.

Bazmann – You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann

I love Avatar

Get off your high horse and Go fuck yourself!!
http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/ Emily Breen

It such a strange situation isn't it? At the moment the default setting upon hearing about a 'reimagining' is shock/horror, yet you know it will only take one film to hit big before people change their tune. If, for example, Robert Rodriguez does an amazing job with Predators then suddenly the word will become (temporarily) synonymous with something sparkly & brilliant! It's so funny. I'm all for originality of thought & execution but ultimately why can't good film just be good film?!
fanboy_d

“There’s a generation of moviegoers who haven’t seen Hitchcock’s work, and never will. They are black and white, they are awfully static due to filmmaking restrictions from the period, and the style of acting is different to that which the younger audience is used to. Better to let the story live on by reinterpreting it for modern day than let it die with the older audience that remember it so fondly.”

That paragraph is like, the opposite of how anyone who loves movies should feel. And I agree with the broader points of your argument!
Baz_mann

That paragraph isn't about how i feel, great filmmaking is great filmmaking from any period. It's a realistic acceptance of the way a large portion of todays younger audience feel about black and white movies.
fanboy_d

I suppose that's true, but if that portion of today's younger audience is unwilling to appreciate those stories in the manner in which they were originally told I don't see why they're entitled to have that story retold to them. That paragraph may not express YOUR feelings (I assumed it didn't), but the feelings it describes belong to people that are not film lovers – I don't care if the story lives on with them! It certainly wouldn't die with an older audience, because young people that love film are immersing themselves in film history and developing a deep appreciation for older films all the time and there's no reason to believe that trend won't continue with each successive generation.
Ben Shillito

A generalisation: cineastes don't like remakes. People who know nothing about film, and exist solely in the popcorn queue for franchised action 'movies' love them.

Evidence for this generalisation: see article above.

More than HALF of Hitchcock's 57 films were in colour, and the man INVENTED many of the camera moves which are the language of modern cinema. Static? He made the first British talkie, and practically invented the Freudian semantics of cinematic suspense. And as for the acting style, I'd be amazed if you can find a more convincing, less mannered portrayal of pure, dumb terror than Cary Grant in the last third of North by Northwest.

Em's mention of Rodriguez is pertinent – a man whose second film was an inferior big-budget remake of his first, and whose oft-mooted Barbarella remake has died once more, for very good reasons. But Predators is a sequel, not a remake. Because there's no NEED to remake Predator, anymore than there is any reason to remake Suspicion.

I don't buy that there are no good writers in Hollywood – there's hundreds of them, but the braying morons of the multiplex voted with their wallets (turning up to see re-hashed crap and letting gems like Moon rot), so the number-crunchers who run the studios commissioned more of the same, and all the decent writers moved into TV, where you can be as daring, original and clever as you want.

The Sopranos, The Wire, Galactica – none of these would have got a tenth of the recognition they deserved on the big screen, because the cinemas are cluttered with unnecessary remakes, not to mention the endless run of creatively-bankrupt sequels. As one comic-book after another rushes into production, original, intelligent work is being strangled in the crib, and ultimately ghetto-ised into “art” cinemas like the Curzon or the BFI. DVD is now the only place you can really see decent films, and the consumption model there is equable to TV-on-demand, watched at home, on the small screen, while hacks like Michael Bay, George Lucas and their ilk stink up the cinemas with their incoherent tosh.

And speaking of incoherent – it's 'averse' not 'adverse', possessive 'it's' takes an apostrophe, and the personal 'I' should be capitalised. Also, the subject of the Hitchcock paragraph shifts in the second sentence, giving the implication that people who haven't seen Hitchcock are black and white and don't move much.

And I CAN honestly tell you that I will not be going to see Clash or Robin Hood. Neither will I be paying to watch Potter 7 and 8, the Elm Street remake, Avatar 2, etc etc etc. I'll be at home, watching good films on DVD.
fanboy_d

I'm somewhere between cineaste and general movie-goer I think. Not all remakes are bad, some are the worst idea in the world.
Baz_mann

Perhaps if you'd spent less effort critiquing my grammar (possessive its DOES NOT take an apostrophe, look it up if you're unsure), and more on your argument, it wouldn't have been so weak. The paragraph regarding Hitchcock's work was more a summary of why many younger movie-goers avoid his work than it was representative of my own opinion, but i'll defend it nonetheless. Much of Hitchcock's best work was in black and white, much of his colour work came when he was past his best. Modern computer techniques mean the camera can now go anywhere, it can film 360 degree takes, it can literally thread the eye of a needle. Some of David Fincher's work makes great use of this, so yes, compared to what the modern audience is used to, Hitchcock's work is fairly static. The ability of actors from Hitchcock's period isn't in question,, but the acting style WAS decidedly different to today's, making it harder for a portion of contemporary audiences to connect with older movies.
No, 'there's no reason' to remake Suspicion, in the same way that there was 'no reason' to adapt the novel Before The Fact, which Suspicion was based on. The truth is the majority of Hitchcock's work was adapted from novels, in the same way that the Harry Potter movies you so dismiss are. What's the difference? In both cases it's essentially a rehash of someone else's source material. You call Lucas a hack, but at least he wrote his own stuff! Successful work will always be re-hashed. Transformers draws big box office, so every toy gets a film adaptation, Twilight makes hundreds of millions of dollars, so everyone wants to write a vampire movie…

I do welcome argument, and you are perfectly entitled to voice your opinion that remakes are not necessary. In fact, go and tell it to Martin Scorsese. He won't hear you though. He'll be too busy polishing his Academy Award…

Stop Hating On Remakes!

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