Home

Remakes are great

13.09.11

Let’s just remark that the film offers a delicious complement to the classic BBC TV series . By doing things slightly differently, Alfredson proves that remakes can have a point. The two versions — like two productions of, say, Hamlet — approach the material from very different angles. (Oh and I, of course, know that, being preceded by a TV series, the new Tinker, Tailor is not strictly a remake. Look, just play along. Okay?)

One of the supposedly unshakable tenets of movie lore states that the remake never lives up to the original. Now, it is true that a recent slew of unimaginative sequels does rather turn one against this particular field of endeavour. Think for a moment of the remakes of The Stepford Wives, Alfie, The Poseidon Adventure and The Pink Panther. Now fold down the flap on your vomit bag and hand it to the helpful stewardess. There’s a good fellow.

It needn’t be this way. What links A Star is Born (1954), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Fly (1986), Scarface (1983) and The Thing (1982)? Oh, you’re way ahead of me. They are all remakes. What’s more, rather than being clever reinventions of forgotten trash, most of these films were preceded by very decent efforts. Indeed, I would argue that the 1937 version of A Star is Born — with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March — is slightly better than the transcendent Judy Garland version. It is true that almost all were originally based on non-filmic material, but you won’t find much of the source stories in the later versions of Scarface, The Fly or The Thing. (Though the Coens’ recent version of True Grit did follow the novel closely.)

Source: Irish Times (blog)