Film remakes: do they ever succeed?

[fred41]

I liked Carpenter's "The Thing" much better than the original.

[fred41]

I also prefer Cronenberg's "The Fly"..

[maxpower]

Those are both great movies, Fred, and similar in their grotesquerie, I think.

[Stavros]

i don't think i'd call some of these failures.

the departed won scorsese a 'best director award' (something even goodfellas couldn't do for him) and made the studio back their money plus some profit.

some like it hot was a major success (critically and financially)- it's even now part of the national congress not to mention making the director a million and all 3 stars more than 500,000 each. whether or not you like the film, it's place in history is sealed.

i get what you're saying- and i too frown upon remakes- but most of those films made their money back and that's all the producer and especially the studio cares about to consider the film a failure or success.

the new oldboy isn't something i'm looking forward too (despite my hatred for spike lee coupled with his asshole-ism behavior) but i also disliked the original and hated stolker.

i think a better question you should've asked could've been 'why do american remakes of foreign films make more money and become more popular?" eg: the vanishing, insomnia, traffic or solaris

The point about failure is a personal one -they fail me. I think Prospero is right about the re-makes in English of non-English films, but there are plenty of people in the UK who think anything with sub-titles is to be avoided, not just in the USA. It is just economics: the English-speaking world is a larger market than Korea or Sweden so the opportunity to make a book profit is there. It was revealed yesterday that only 7% of the British films made between 2003-2007 made a profit...
http://www.contactmusic.com/article/...dy-bfi_3979440

[Stavros]

I almost completely agree with your assessments, Stavros. I've never been able to get to the end of Some Like it Hot, although on the other hand, I can't share your extreme dislike for femininity icon Marilyn Monroe, who's excessive and sometimes almost carricatural charm I just can't resist.

I think in general it's easy to realize that remaking author cinema into commercial hollywoodian movies won't work. A good example comes to my mind in Tarkowski's "Solaris", remade by Steven Sodherberg, a great director nonetheless, who did a decent job but gave in to the more pop side elements of the original to produce a love movie on the same topic. In this case of course, it was an impossible task. Also comes to mind the absolutely terrible, ridiculous, pathetic, mushy mushy "City of Angels", by "I can't remember whom", as a remake of the magnificent Wim Wenders original "Wings of Desire", written by Nobel Prize Peter Handke. I can't think of anything in this remake that's not plain wrong. Jim McBride's "Breathless", with fair efforts by a rarely good Richard Gere and a lovely Valery Kaprisky was certainly not worthy of the original Jean-Luc Godard's either, but has in this case to be put in the "well tried" department. A good example of this impossibility to remake something too personal is certainly Jean Renoir's "Boudu Sauvé des Eaux"; Paul Mazursky should have stayed out of this one ("Down and Out in Beverly Hills"), and even good French actor-director Gérard Jugnot ("Boudu").
We generally should be thankful to the gods that author's movies are ordinarily too personal to be translated into hollywoodian flicks. I can say for myself that they saved me from many ulcers and high blood pressure.

I guess it's a bit different when it comes to a second movie made on the same novel rather than on the previous movie. "Eye of the Beholder" was directed in 1999 by Stephan Elliott from a Marc Behm polar. But Claude Miller's very personal interpretation was much much better: "Mortelle Randonnée" ("Deadly Circuit"), 1983, with Michel Serraut in his greatest role and Isabelle Adjani, still a goddess at this point, is a magical movie, bordering on masterpiece. Fred Zinneman's "The Day of the Jackal" was a good movie(1973), based on a Frederick Forsyth novel, that Michael Caton-Jones' boring "The Jackal" is far from matching (1993).

Also different, I suppose, when the circumstances in which the film was produced are important. "Le Corbeau", a great, great unsung Henri-George Clouzot movie, made during the war, with a layer of meaning definitely about collaboration and the anguishing, agonizing state of occupation, could not be remade properly either despite Otto Preminger's considerable talent. Fred Zinneman's "High Noon" also comes to mind, produced painfully during the McCarthy era; Peter Hyams 1981 attempt was far from the original, despite its conversion into sci fi, in "Outland", with Sean Connery.

There's also this... what? cuteness, vanity (the word I have in mind is "coquetterie") of remaking exactly or almost exactly an old cinema classic. Very good director Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu" and Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" are fun to watch, but still not at the height of the originals, maybe largely because, well... they simply aren't.

I guess remakes in the comedic genre are particularly difficult to render, especially when translation is involved. Having access to original French versions might give me some biases, but many remakes stucked in my throath over the years. A few movies were remade after fabulous French comedic actor's performances, Pierre Richard. Richard is one of the 3 or 4 greatest giants of French comedy. He had a unique style and created an inimitable and charming character that he pretty much kept from one movie to the next. "La Chèvre", "Les Fugitifs", "Le Grand Blond avec une Chaussure Noire" and "Le Jouet" (dir. : Francis Veber, Yves Robert) to name only a few, were remade after wild European successes under titles: "Pure Luck" (with Martin Short and Richard Glover), "Three Fugitives" (Nick Nolte, Martin Short), "The Man with One Red Shoe" (Tom Hanks), "The Toy" (Richard Pryor). Despite good efforts in each cases, none came even close to be as good as the originals.
I guess that in this case too, the uniqueness of a director's style can be difficult to match. I'm thinking in this case of Edouard Molinaro. Mike Nichol's "The Birdcage" and Billy Wilder's "Buddy, buddy" were pale in comparison to nice comedies "La Cage aux folles", "Trois Hommes et un Couffin" and "L'Emmerdeur". French director Jean-Marie Poiré is even more personal: the remake of his delightful and delirious "Le Père Noël est une ordure" (which would translate by "Santa Claus is a Dirty Son of a Bitch") was made into a pale and confused "Mixed Nuts" by Noah Ephron.

I realize that I'm writting a complete essay, here, so I'll finish this up with the exceptions. I think that science-fiction movies, because of technical progress in special effects, are bound to potentially be better in remakes, providing of course, that they're not, as I said, author movies (you won't see a good remake of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" or Tarkovsy's "Solaris", "Stalker" or "Offret"), and that they therefore remain at pop level, made for wide audiences. So are horror movies for the same reasons. I prefer the 1978, Philip Kaufman version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to the Don Siegel, 1956 version (which on the other hand, was a fabulous carricature of the MacCarthism); in fact, I prefer the 78 version to the two ulterior ones, by Able Ferara in 93 and Oliver Hirschbiegel in 2007 ("The Invasion", with a once again cold and stuck up Nicole Kidman).
Suspense have also had their share of improved versions. One that immidiately comes to my mind is "Cape Fear". The 1991 Martin Scorsese version, with Robert de Niro and an all star cast is much better than the 1962 J. Lee Thompson original.

There. I'm stopping right here before putting everybody to sleep...

I have never understood the appeal of Marilyn Monroe, so while we agree on Some Like it Not, we have to disagree on her. I also agree with most of your comments, and think perhaps the French language films are harder to translate though not sure why --the different sense of humour may be a factor, although I did think Les Visiteurs was often hilarious, comedy is difficult to cross over. My father loved Fernandel and took me to see some of his films but I wasn't impressed. I can't imagine anyone doing a remake of a Jacques Tati film...unless...

[robertlouis]

There are three reasons that Hollywood does remakes.

1. The original is at least a generation away, eg Carrie, or in a relatively obscure language such as Swedish, eg Let the Right One In and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that the younger generation of US filmgoers, who make up the vast majority, are unlikely to have seen it before.

2. Hollywood these days comprises the celluloid offshoots of vast multinational conglomerates whose interest is in low-risk high-profit product. Look at the largely terrible franchises that run out of imagination after the first or second episode but keep limping along while the gullible are still prepared to exchange their folding money for it. And simply take an older film, throw in more bangs and some CGI and the punters will lap it up. And artistic integrity, whatever that is, can go fuck itself.

3. And last, but not least, it's about maximum profit for the least effort. That's capitalism, baby.

In short, it's utterly cynical. And the result is largely execrable rubbish.

[RyderMonroe]

"The Thing" with Kurt Russel was awesome and that was a remake. and the remake/prequel they made of that a few years ago was pretty good too.

[youngblood61]

"The Thing" with Kurt Russel was awesome and that was a remake. and the remake/prequel they made of that a few years ago was pretty good too.

I agree, Ryder that was a good one.

[MrBlonde]

No doubt the remake of The Bourne Identity was much much better than the original.

And I know I will catch the wrath of McQueen fans but besides "The Getaway" which I also thought was better with Baldwin I also completely loved the Pierce Brosnan remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair". In fact I think the more recent Crown Affair is in my top 20 movies ever. It's just a fucking fun ass movie. But I will admit I did see the remake before the original so that could shape my thoughts on it.

[RyderMonroe]

No doubt the remake of The Bourne Identity was much much better than the original.

And I know I will catch the wrath of McQueen fans but besides "The Getaway" which I also thought was better with Baldwin I also completely loved the Pierce Brosnan remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair". In fact I think the more recent Crown Affair is in my top 20 movies ever. It's just a fucking fun ass movie. But I will admit I did see the remake before the original so that could shape my thoughts on it.

I liked the Bourne remake a lot but the original was still better imo.