Megalo1026
04-21-2004, 02:21 PM
Recently there has been much public indignation, and rightly so, at the unnecessary glut of genre-film remakes flooding the cinemas. The public suspects—with ample justification—that Hollywood is too lazy to come up with new ideas. Moreover, the public is justly insulted that Hollywood thinks it can fool us into thinking these remakes new, or newly interesting, because of their larger budgets and splashier effects . . . or, just as bad, that they were too young to know the originals, and, this being the case, are automatically uninterested in them. This last assumption by Hollywood is, sadly, often accurate. Lately, when mentioning the original “Dawn of the Dead” to acquaintances, I’ve been shocked to realize that many of them had no idea that the current “Dawn” was a remake at all.
One realizes that cinema is, after all these years of lucid critical discourse on the subject, still struggling—or, rather, still OUGHT TO BE struggling—for recognition as a legitimate art form. Were this not so, distributors wouldn’t still be treating their product as mere commodity, scrambling to retain the public’s interest with superficial novelty. Were it not so, George Romero would be as recognizable a name as Mary Shelley; and, even if they hadn’t seen the original themselves, people outside our own genre fan-boy circle would KNOW the new “Dawn” was a remake just as they know the “Frankenstein” mythos predates the 1931 film.
Remakes are not a recent phenomenon. They date back almost as far as art itself. But the spirit of the remake, it seems to me, is far more cynical than it once was. When a painter would take his themes from the Bible, he wanted to reinforce the spiritual convictions of the masses. When a composer would write an opera inspired by Shakespeare or “Faust”, it was an expression of the thoughts and feelings that this literature inspired in him; or perhaps, as in the case of Goethe’s borrowing the “Dr. Faustus” legend itself, he was merely using this story as a vehicle for ideas that were entirely personal. The great “remakes” that have come down to us, that stand as great art in their own right, are neither slavish imitations of the originals, nor gaudy spectacles that disregard or destroy the whole point of their sources. The many variations on a story, a theme, a myth, a musical composition, etc., etc., should be a testament to its richness, its potential for multiple interpretations, its importance to history and continuing relevance to our culture and its individuals. In this way, imitation and variation are integral to the development of art. Sadly, it can be used as an easy way out, a quick fix. The danger of this is especially strong in the film industry, whose products are always and unavoidably, to a greater or lesser extent, a committee effort. This committee milieu engenders a mentality in which the questions of expendable resources and maximizing profit are ever-present. And the myopic conception of film as something to be passively consumed by the public ensures that they’ll always come back for more of the same uninspired crap that results from this mentality, as long as it is perpetually updated and spectacularized in the most superficial ways.
How many of you are aware of the new “War of the Worlds” that Spielberg and Tom Cruise will be shooting next year? How do you sci-fi fans feel about this? I personally am horrified, not just as a sci-fi fan but as a fan of great movies. I heard about this remake just days after watching the 1950s version for the first time in many years, and realizing what a great film it is. An article I just read (www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1171975,00.html) states, “There have been several film and television versions of the novel, but none of them as high profile as the Spielberg-Cruise collaboration promises to be. In 1953, a film version was made starring Gene Barry and Les Tremayne which used Wells's tale of the invasion of earth by Martian war machines to exploit contemporary anxieties about the cold war and the Soviet threat.”
This is bullshit. Granted, the 1950s cycle of American sci-fi movies is indeed notorious, and rightly so, for being just as much a document of Cold War/Communist paranoia as a celebration of technological progress and the indomitable human (particularly American) spirit. But one of the many reasons “War of the Worlds” struck me as remarkable is precisely the way it sidesteps this trap. Sure, it takes place in San Francisco, but we know, and are shown via montage, that the invasion is a worldwide problem. The filmmakers make a point of making this a human drama, and not a specifically American one. It is the whole world vs. these alien invaders; to equate these invaders with any particular human demographic would be absurd. The film is not satisfied to paint any specific cultural attitude or lifestyle as “right” at the expense of others; it is concerned with examining the various reactions of institutions that are universal to all cultures in the face of this inexplicable and seemingly unstoppable catastrophe: religion, the military, science, the media. There is a highly ingenuous use of ambivalence throughout the film. For example, when the three men at the beginning debate whether to approach the alien craft, it is the Mexican immigrant who warns that they can’t trust something so alien-looking; the priest, angered by the military’s “ask no questions” policy, attempts to approach the ships and communicate with them, only to be evaporated by their death ray—and yet he is obviously not meant to be dismissed as a fool by the audience.
Okay, so the thematic complexities of the film will probably not be equaled by the Spielberg version. Spielberg will probably beat us over the head with the “messages”, and hence they will be, ironically, LESS convincing: a pattern I’ve seen in most of his recent work.
But let’s look at the most immediately striking feature of the original: the special effects themselves. If there’s one thing Spielberg’s posse will get right, it’s special effects. But what’s the point? The effects in the original are brilliant. I was shocked that it came out just two years after “Destination Moon”, which received Oscars for its SFX but looks rather laughable today. “War of the Worlds” holds up amazingly well in this department, and even if it didn’t also feature fine writing, direction, cinematography, editing, and acting, it would deserve to be a classic for the SFX alone. The SFX are still thrilling to watch, and I was pleased to find that the scenes which had terrified me as a child, still totally creeped me out as an adult.
“But you can see the strings!” After half an hour of being amazed by the movie’s visuals, I was momentarily troubled to see that the sets of strings by which the alien ships were suspended were, in many shots, plainly visible. But I soon reconciled myself to them, and have even come to accept them as an emblem connecting these sublime vessels to the dei ex machinae of ancient Greek theatre: a small reminder of the boundary between real life and art, and hence a token of the filmmakers’ ingenuity and dedication to the craft; because we are prevented from being fooled entirely, we have no choice but to remain conscious that this is art, and to appreciate it as such.
This relationship between art and its audience, and between art and “real life”, is problematized when, as in the CGI-drenched monstrosities of today, the tracks of art’s evolution are conscientiously erased. In a sense, bringing more and more fantastic creations to a greater and greater level of visual “realness” begins to make them less impressive, convincing, or engaging. There’s nothing to grab onto: The human eye can almost always tell a cartoon when it sees one, no matter how advanced; when a film depends mostly on CGI, while trying to pass itself off as live-action, the whole thing becomes a slippery, intangible image—a joke—a grotesque of the cinematically “real”.
So I ask once again, What’s the point?, even while knowing that I’ll end up seeing it anyway. Sadly, I think Hollywood is thriving just as much these days off the morbid curiosity of the indignant fan-boys as it is off the credulous mainstream.
One realizes that cinema is, after all these years of lucid critical discourse on the subject, still struggling—or, rather, still OUGHT TO BE struggling—for recognition as a legitimate art form. Were this not so, distributors wouldn’t still be treating their product as mere commodity, scrambling to retain the public’s interest with superficial novelty. Were it not so, George Romero would be as recognizable a name as Mary Shelley; and, even if they hadn’t seen the original themselves, people outside our own genre fan-boy circle would KNOW the new “Dawn” was a remake just as they know the “Frankenstein” mythos predates the 1931 film.
Remakes are not a recent phenomenon. They date back almost as far as art itself. But the spirit of the remake, it seems to me, is far more cynical than it once was. When a painter would take his themes from the Bible, he wanted to reinforce the spiritual convictions of the masses. When a composer would write an opera inspired by Shakespeare or “Faust”, it was an expression of the thoughts and feelings that this literature inspired in him; or perhaps, as in the case of Goethe’s borrowing the “Dr. Faustus” legend itself, he was merely using this story as a vehicle for ideas that were entirely personal. The great “remakes” that have come down to us, that stand as great art in their own right, are neither slavish imitations of the originals, nor gaudy spectacles that disregard or destroy the whole point of their sources. The many variations on a story, a theme, a myth, a musical composition, etc., etc., should be a testament to its richness, its potential for multiple interpretations, its importance to history and continuing relevance to our culture and its individuals. In this way, imitation and variation are integral to the development of art. Sadly, it can be used as an easy way out, a quick fix. The danger of this is especially strong in the film industry, whose products are always and unavoidably, to a greater or lesser extent, a committee effort. This committee milieu engenders a mentality in which the questions of expendable resources and maximizing profit are ever-present. And the myopic conception of film as something to be passively consumed by the public ensures that they’ll always come back for more of the same uninspired crap that results from this mentality, as long as it is perpetually updated and spectacularized in the most superficial ways.
How many of you are aware of the new “War of the Worlds” that Spielberg and Tom Cruise will be shooting next year? How do you sci-fi fans feel about this? I personally am horrified, not just as a sci-fi fan but as a fan of great movies. I heard about this remake just days after watching the 1950s version for the first time in many years, and realizing what a great film it is. An article I just read (www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1171975,00.html) states, “There have been several film and television versions of the novel, but none of them as high profile as the Spielberg-Cruise collaboration promises to be. In 1953, a film version was made starring Gene Barry and Les Tremayne which used Wells's tale of the invasion of earth by Martian war machines to exploit contemporary anxieties about the cold war and the Soviet threat.”
This is bullshit. Granted, the 1950s cycle of American sci-fi movies is indeed notorious, and rightly so, for being just as much a document of Cold War/Communist paranoia as a celebration of technological progress and the indomitable human (particularly American) spirit. But one of the many reasons “War of the Worlds” struck me as remarkable is precisely the way it sidesteps this trap. Sure, it takes place in San Francisco, but we know, and are shown via montage, that the invasion is a worldwide problem. The filmmakers make a point of making this a human drama, and not a specifically American one. It is the whole world vs. these alien invaders; to equate these invaders with any particular human demographic would be absurd. The film is not satisfied to paint any specific cultural attitude or lifestyle as “right” at the expense of others; it is concerned with examining the various reactions of institutions that are universal to all cultures in the face of this inexplicable and seemingly unstoppable catastrophe: religion, the military, science, the media. There is a highly ingenuous use of ambivalence throughout the film. For example, when the three men at the beginning debate whether to approach the alien craft, it is the Mexican immigrant who warns that they can’t trust something so alien-looking; the priest, angered by the military’s “ask no questions” policy, attempts to approach the ships and communicate with them, only to be evaporated by their death ray—and yet he is obviously not meant to be dismissed as a fool by the audience.
Okay, so the thematic complexities of the film will probably not be equaled by the Spielberg version. Spielberg will probably beat us over the head with the “messages”, and hence they will be, ironically, LESS convincing: a pattern I’ve seen in most of his recent work.
But let’s look at the most immediately striking feature of the original: the special effects themselves. If there’s one thing Spielberg’s posse will get right, it’s special effects. But what’s the point? The effects in the original are brilliant. I was shocked that it came out just two years after “Destination Moon”, which received Oscars for its SFX but looks rather laughable today. “War of the Worlds” holds up amazingly well in this department, and even if it didn’t also feature fine writing, direction, cinematography, editing, and acting, it would deserve to be a classic for the SFX alone. The SFX are still thrilling to watch, and I was pleased to find that the scenes which had terrified me as a child, still totally creeped me out as an adult.
“But you can see the strings!” After half an hour of being amazed by the movie’s visuals, I was momentarily troubled to see that the sets of strings by which the alien ships were suspended were, in many shots, plainly visible. But I soon reconciled myself to them, and have even come to accept them as an emblem connecting these sublime vessels to the dei ex machinae of ancient Greek theatre: a small reminder of the boundary between real life and art, and hence a token of the filmmakers’ ingenuity and dedication to the craft; because we are prevented from being fooled entirely, we have no choice but to remain conscious that this is art, and to appreciate it as such.
This relationship between art and its audience, and between art and “real life”, is problematized when, as in the CGI-drenched monstrosities of today, the tracks of art’s evolution are conscientiously erased. In a sense, bringing more and more fantastic creations to a greater and greater level of visual “realness” begins to make them less impressive, convincing, or engaging. There’s nothing to grab onto: The human eye can almost always tell a cartoon when it sees one, no matter how advanced; when a film depends mostly on CGI, while trying to pass itself off as live-action, the whole thing becomes a slippery, intangible image—a joke—a grotesque of the cinematically “real”.
So I ask once again, What’s the point?, even while knowing that I’ll end up seeing it anyway. Sadly, I think Hollywood is thriving just as much these days off the morbid curiosity of the indignant fan-boys as it is off the credulous mainstream.