Film Remakes

Les films "Trois hommes et un couffin" de Coline Serreau et "Three Men and a Baby"
de Leonard Nimoy sont analysés ici de façon comparative. L’auteure explique
la façon dont la version américaine fait une « re-vision » du regard attendri
que Coline Serreau portait sur les nouveaux hommes nés des mouvements et des
analyses féministes. La nouvelle masculinité (non phallique) illustrée (désirée?) dans le film français est totalement abolie et remplacée par l’idéologie patriarcale américaine chez Nimoy.

The films "Trois hommes et un couffin" by French filmmaker, Coline Serreau, and "Three Men and a Baby" by American director and actor,  Leonard Nimoy, are analyzed here in a comparative way. The author explains how the American remake "re-vises" Serreau's tender gaze on the new men born out of the feminist movements and gender relations. The new (non-phallic) masculinity illustrated (wished-for?)  in the French film is totally abolished and replaced by the patriarchal ideology of the American film.

Through the theoretical framework of queer phenomenology and monster theory, this scholarly comic presents an analysis of the unauthorised, Turkish remake of E.T., titled Homoti (1987), featuring a gay alien as its main character. Being one of the three Turkish films made in the 1980s dealing with gay themes, Homoti emerges as a metaphor for the oppression of LGBT communities in Turkey by a patriarchal, military, nationalistic regime in the 1980s. Published in the online journal Sequentials. https://www.sequentialsjournal.net/issues/issue2/yalcinkaya.html

This collection was inspired by the observation that film remakes offer us the opportunity to revisit important issues, stories, themes, and topics in a manner that is especially relevant and meaningful to contemporary audiences. Like mythic stories that are told again and again in differing ways, film remakes present us with updated perspectives on timeless ideas. While some remakes succeed and other fail aesthetically, they always say something about the culture in which-and for which-they are produced. Contributors explore the ways in which the fears of death, loss of self, and bodily violence have been expressed and then reinterpreted in such films and remakes as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. Films such as Rollerball, The Ring, The Grudge, The Great Yokai Wars, and Insomnia are discussed as well because of their ability to give voice to collective anxieties concerning cultural change, nihilism, and globalization. While opening on...

"I will talk about some points of interest within both the 1973 and 2006 versions of the disaster film, Nihon Chinbotsu, which literally translates as Japan Sinks. I not only wish to discuss why this particular film was both made and remade, as my title suggests; but also how the story was depicted in both instances. The films’ aesthetics and narratives have been incorporated into an exploration of available sources that refer to the films’ production and reception. This is proposed in the research of remakes, particularly by Robert Eberwein. Cynthia Erb also applies this approach to studying how a film, or its iconography can be received and interpreted in different contexts over time (such as with her work on King Kong). In addition, I want to apologise if the imagery I’ve used in my presentation may appear shocking due to memory of the Toohoku Earthquake earlier this year. Nonetheless, the retrospective view on Japan Sinks that that tragic event has provided will be a final point of interest that I wish to address briefly.Before this, however, I will specifically discuss similarities and differences between the two films; influences from different films and genres; as well as particular views of Japan’s cultural identity that the films provide.
"

Reviving the Star Wars film franchise, after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, meant kick-starting a new trilogy that worked as a link between the old films and a new phase. The result was "The Force Awakens", a sequel to a 30-year-old trilogy, whose characteristics are not those of a conventional sequel because it exhibits a very strong connection to the original Star Wars film, "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope" (1977). This essay navigates through the ways that allow for repetition, continuity, and change to be intertwined within "The Force Awakens", as the film fluctuates between designations and does not allow for easy labeling.

Much has been written about the "cinema effect" in contemporary art. One symptom of this effect was the recent ascendancy of the remake as genre and strategy. Remakes of movies—classic, cult or obscure—have taken on the form of the video installation to invade museums for well over ten years. The works of Stan Douglas, Pierre Huyghe, and Douglas Gordon provide the most sophisticated examples of this practice. At their best, remakes rework films to extract structures and arrangements that speak to the film's historical moment as well as to the context of the remake. Many other works are much less fortunate.

Published in Art Papers in 2006.

Money, Copy, Quotation, Motive, Genre.
The treatise is a reflection on the phenomenon of the remake, which plays a very exposed role in cinema, puts it in relation to the other arts and tries to find a system behind the decisions of film directors and producers when a remake makes sense and when it does not.

De l’histoire de l’art européen à la réalisation des autoportraits de Morimura Yasumasa, il n’y a qu’un pas entre ce que nous appelons communément citation et pastiche. Néanmoins, la production de l’artiste chemine entre les concepts du "mitate" et du remake à partir d’images appartenant à la mémoire collective. Cette approche de l’œuvre de Morimura donne lieu à une nouvelle version de l’image répétée à travers le corps travesti de l’artiste, vecteur d’une "japonisation" sous-entendue.

The history of European art to the achievement of self-portraits Morimura Yasumasa, there is a thin border between what we commonly call "citation/quotation" and pastiche. However, the work of the artist progresses between concepts of "mitate" and "remake" from images belonging to the collective memory. This approach Morimura's production gives rise to a new version of the image repeated through the cross-dressing of body of the artist, a vector implied "Japanisation".

This chapter examines a film cycle in contemporary Hollywood cinema that consists of remakes of beloved and iconic feature films and television series of the 1980s. Among them are, for example, The Karate Kid (1984/2010), The A-Team (1983-87/2010) and 21 Jump Street (1987-91/2012). Media discourses surrounding the remakes generally describe them as “part of a retro mood that has revved up the careers of baby-boom performers while providing comfort food for the audience” (Cieply A1). An entire generation of today’s filmmakers, actors and cinemagoers grew up with and still remembers these series and films of the 1980s (including their related lines of merchandise).
I suggest that the 1980s retro trend is openly nostalgic for a decade that directly precedes the radical societal and technological transformations of the 1990s and 2000s. When it comes to the originals, apparently none of the remakes in the 1980s film cycle resorts to what Thomas Leitch has termed the “rhetoric of disavowal.” Instead the films of this cycle almost seem to celebrate the originals and their 1980s aesthetic; they directly rely on their cult status and presence in the collective memory; and in a playful (postmodern) manner they do everything to draw attention to the earlier texts. This includes, for example, the unchanged (and therefore immediately recognizable) titles of the remakes, almost untouched scripts (e.g. in The Karate Kid), meta-references about the status of the 1980s series and the remake (e.g. in 21 Jump Street), repetition of the title music, trademark haircuts, accessories and lines (e.g. in The A-Team), and cameo appearances of the 1980s actors. I closely analyze these aspects with regard to the timeliness of the 1980s remake cycle and in relation to audience, culture, and production trends in other media.

Works Cited

Cieply, Michael. “In Hollywood, an ‘80s Moment.” New York Times 29 Mar. 2012: A1.
Leitch, Thomas. “Twice-Told Tales: Disavowal and the Rhetoric of the Remake.” Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice. Ed. Jennifer Forrest and Leonard R. Koos. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 2002. 37-62.

Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, has become one of the most influential alien invasion films of all time. The film’s theme of alien paranoia – the fear that some invisible invaders could replace individual human beings and turn them into a collective of emotionless pod people – resonated with widespread anxieties in the 1950s United States culture. It has been read as an allegory of the communist threat during the Cold War but also as a commentary on McCarthyism, the alienating effects of capitalism, postwar radiation anxiety, or masculine fears of “the potential social, political, and personal disenfranchisement of postwar America’s hegemonic white patriarchy” (Katrina Mann).
Addressing all these cultural anxieties of the time, Invasion of the Body Snatchers has turned into a signature film of the 1950s. Yet despite the film’s cultural and historical specificity, the paranoid theme of alien invasion is has lent itself to re-interpretations and re-imaginations like few other themes, always shifting with the zeitgeist and replacing former cultural anxieties with more contemporary and urgent ones. This chapter examines the three cinematic remakes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that have been released over the last 55 years: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Dir. Philip Kaufmann, 1978), Body Snatchers (Dir. Abel Ferrara, 1993), and most recently The Invasion (Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2007). By focusing on the updated settings and re-written endings of the individual films, the case study shows how these remakes engage with profound cultural changes and resulting fears and/or hopes of the 1970s, the 1990s, and 2000s.

Este capítulo pretende analizar las características esenciales de la narrativa televisiva contemporánea para compararlas con las del largometraje cinematográfico tradicional. En consecuencia, explicaremos en primer lugar las diferencias que la ficción televisiva y fílmica tienen en cuanto a unidad narrativa y progresión dramática: la duración textual, el tiempo de consumo y la combinación de la “anthology plot” y la “running plot”. En segundo lugar, examinaremos los conceptos de adaptación y remake, en los que tanto la memoria como la originalidad juegan un papel crucial para el éxito de cualquier derivación diegética. Tras aclarar el marco teórico, aplicaremos la teoría al análisis de dos series de televisión recientes basadas en largometrajes de éxito: la primera temporada de Fargo (FX, 2014-), una suerte de remake-secuela de la película de los hermanos Coen del año 1995; y las tres de Hannibal (NBC, 2013-15), un reboot de la franquicia de El silencio de los corderos (The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991) que intenta llenar los huecos previos al nacimiento del personaje en la novela El dragón rojo, de Thomas Harris.

For his 1991 remake of J. Lee Thompson's 1962 film Cape Fear, Martin Scorsese had the Bernard Herrmann score of the original adapted by Elmer Bernstein. This article first examines that Herrmann score, before showing how it was effectively 're-composed' for the later film, with Bernstein taking its basic components and redeploying them in often entirely new musical and filmic contexts, while also combining them with his own newly composed music and further pre-existing material from Herrmann's rejected score for Torn Curtain (Hitchcock, 1966). The motivations for the reuse of Herrmann's music, and issues of interpretation arising from the 1991 score's compilation status will be considered. The article aims to be relevant not only for scholars of music in moving-image media, but also for those interested in remakes and media intertextuality more generally.

Desde principios de los años setenta, el impulso cultural de reutilizar imágenes, estilos y géneros del pasado de la historia del cine y convertirlos en nuevas formas ha crecido exponencialmente, siendo cada vez más evidente en todas las artes y medios de masas, extendiéndose también más allá de los Estados Unidos. Teóricos como Fredric Jameson han tratado de definir estas tendencias. Dentro de una práctica tan amplia y extendida, este trabajo supone una aproximación selectiva. Los filmes recientes de Martin Scorsese y Pedro Almodóvar, dos veteranos del cine autoreferencial e inventores de nuevos recursos, presentan interesantes revisiones a las cuestiones sobre cine y conciencia. En Shutter Island y La piel que habito, estos cineastas tratan la memoria, el sueño y los estados de locura. Scorsese y Almodóvar miran hacia la historia del cine, a conocidas películas que ya trataron en profundidad estas cuestiones, como El gabinete del doctor Caligari, Un perro andaluz y El doctor Frankenstein, y realizan significativas contribuciones. Esto se consigue mediante la cita, incorporación y comentario de obras anteriores, a las que añaden los nuevos recursos cinematográficos. Recurren a obras del expresionismo y el surrealismo alemán, además de ejemplos del cine de terror y teorías psicológicas sobre la estructuración del inconsciente. De esta manera, Scorsese y Almodóvar continúan homenajeando la historia del cine, sin dejar de explorar el potencial del medio. Ambos realizadores emplean recursos, como el narrador no fiable y las subjetividades cambiantes, para tratar estos temas, técnicas además que fomentan una posición autorreflexiva. Lo hacen, además, empleando avanzadas manipulaciones digitales de imagen y sonido. Aunque llegan a diferentes conclusiones, sus obras son gestos metacinematográficos, memorias del cine sobre la memoria, señalando al espectador el acto en sí de ver una película y las cualidades oníricas del propio cine.

For a long time, Hollywood has been interested in remaking films
of different countries. On the level of transnational cinema, a remake
can be considered as borrowing ideas, and adaptation of a work of one
cultural background to another society and country in modern period of
globalization. Hollywood tends to produce remakes of East Asian films
in 21st century while it had done mostly of European films in the
previous century. Among Hollywood remakes of East Asian films, the
case of Oldboy is noticeable. Korean Oldboy and its US remake made
by Spike Lee are two films which expressed the same feeling and
pursue of revenge in the same circumstances, but at the same time two
directors showed to spectators two different main heroes through
different narration and heroes' different representation within the
cinema. To discuss about two films, researchers of this article refer to
concepts of puzzle film studies, which deal with complex non-linear
narrative strategies in contemporary art films. This study examines and
compares two films in terms of complex narrativity, evolution of main
characters from an ordinary human to a monster, and the removal of
monstrosity in the conclusion.

Film Remakes is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of the phenomenon of cinematic remaking. Drawing upon recent theories of genre and intertextuality, Film Remakes describes remaking as both an elastic concept and a complex situation, one enabled and limited by the interrelated roles and practices of industry, critics and audiences. This approach to remaking is developed across three broad sections: the first, remaking as industrial category, deals with issues of production, including commerce and authors; the second, remaking as textual category, considers genre, plots and structures; and the third, remaking as critical category, investigates issues of reception, including audiences and institutions. The film remake emerges as a particular case of repetition, a function of cinematic and discursive fields that is maintained by historically specific practices, such as copyright law and authorship, canon formation and media literacy, film criticism and re-viewing. These points are made through the lively discussion of numerous historical and contemporary examples, including the remaking of classics (Double Indemnity, Psycho), foreign art-films (Solaris, Le Samouraï), cult movies (Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Dead), and television properties (Batman, Charlie’s Angels).

Alfred Hitchcock’s genre-defining 1960 classic Psycho, three Psycho sequels (1983, 1986, and 1990), the television pilot Bates Motel (1987), Gus Van Sant’s much-maligned Psycho remake (1998), and the new television series Bates Motel (2013-) attest to an ongoing fascination with the story about the murderer Norman Bates and raise pertinent questions as to the narrative possibilities of innovative reproduction. The individual entries to the franchise function as serial installments in an ongoing narrative and draw attention to the impact remaking has on dynamic processes of meaning-making over time. This essay focuses on the most recent addition to the Psycho franchise: A&E's Bates Motel. It examines the new television series’ self-description as a contemporary prequel, and discusses aspects of the series that will shed light on both the cultural functions and narrative possibilities of Bates Motel within the Psycho franchise and the practice of remaking as such.

This article aims to address the largely negative critical response to Steven R. Monroe’s remake of I Spit On Your Grave (2010), by both analysing its themes in comparison to Meir Zarchi’s 1978 original film, and by positioning the new version within its own generic context. Using examples from feminist film theory which analyses Zarchi’s film (Clover 1992, Creed 1993, Read 2000), I suggest that Monroe’s version not only interprets, but actively enhances the perceived feminist message of the original, and consider how role reversal during the revenge section of the film contributes to this. I also outline the way in which Monroe’s film can be understood as representative of recent trends in the horror genre – most notably, its inclusion of explicit, gory violence and themes of retribution. Ultimately, the portrayal of the remake’s female protagonist as less sexualized and arguably more monstrous than the original character works in conjunction with other changes and a torture porn aesthetic in order to position the film clearly within the context of contemporary horror cinema.

This special issue of 'Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies' offers an original and provocative contribution to debates around adaptation and appropriation in film, television and new media.

The issue is organised in four sections, each dealing with a different form of cultural borrowing. Part I examines 'Hollywood Cinema and Artistic Imitation' and provides three complimentary historical accounts of the development of adaptation within US cinema. Part II looks to the future and examines the contemporary practice of 'Found Footage and Remix Culture'. Shifting focus onto more imitative forms of appropriation, Part III focuses on 'Modes of Parody and Pastiche.' Finally, in Part IV, the focus shifts away from the predominant focus on US media to consider the contribution that 'Transnational Screen Cultures' can make to our understandings of the adaptive act.

Contributors are: I. Q. Hunter, Jason Scott, Stijn Joye, Eli Horwatt, Emma Cocker, Sérgio Dias Branco, Brigid Cherry, Darren Elliott, Jordan Lavender-Smith, Austin Fisher, Neelam Sidhar Wright, and Pamela Atzori.

This special issue seeks to make an original contribution to seriality studies. It explores narrative, cultural, and historical dimensions of serial narratives in an effort to come to terms with their changing forms and functions within the field of popular culture. Altogether 13 essays from leading and emerging scholars in the fields of film and media studies, literary studies, cultural history, ethnography and American studies address questions relating to the production and reception of serial narratives in the past and present. How can the evolution of serial forms be understood within particular theoretical frameworks? How does the sprawl of serial narratives across different media challenge established notions of authorship, narrative closure, and cultural legitimacy? How does it work to increase audience loyalty and engagement? How do authors and producers respond to new modes of consumption that differ from the ritualized experience of daily, weekly or monthly installments? Do DVD sets, VOD services, and streaming demand new narrative strategies and storytelling techniques to satisfy the binge or repeat viewer of television series? What effect has the “second screen” on viewing experiences and (the semblance of) audience participation?

Coline Serreau's Trois Hommes et un Couffin is a family movie that emphasizes the strength of the bond between parent and child and the importance of traditional family values. The film was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award in the " Best Foreign Language Film " category. Serreau was specially applauded for her " sweet-tempered humour " (Wilmington 1987) and frugal lighting style, despite it being an uncommon occurrence in comedy. Contrarily, the American remake, Three Men and a Baby, (1987) directed by Leonard Nimoy, uses a brighter imagery and much more punchline-heavy dialogue to deliver the story. The variations we see between these films lie primarily in their style of humour and the method of direction, which occur due to the differences between the cultural contexts in which they were made. However, we do not see much of a time-shift between these two renditions of the story since these movies were made only two years apart, and are both set in the mid-1980s. The French original was a major box-office success despite having actors that were largely unknown during that era. Due to this, all the commercial success it enjoyed was attributed solely to the strength of the scriptwriting, the performance of the actors, and the choices of direction. Whereas the actors in the Hollywood remake were considerably more famous and the decision to cast them was likely made because of the increased importance Yolmo

Over the past two decades, French artist Pierre Huyghe has produced an extraordinary body of work in constant dialogue with temporality. Investigating the possibility of a hypothetical mode of timekeeping - “parallel presents” - Huyghe has researched the architecture of the incomplete, directed a puppet opera, founded a temporary school, established a pirate television station, staged celebrations, scripted scenarios, and journeyed to Antarctica in search of a mythological penguin. In this first book-length art historical examination of Huyghe and his work, Amelia Barikin traces the artist’s continual negotiation with the time codes of contemporary society. Offering detailed analyses of Huyghe’s works and drawing on extensive interviews with Huyghe and his associates, Barikin finds in Huyghe’s projects an alternate way of thinking about history--a “topological historicity” that deprograms (or reprograms) temporal formats. Huyghe once said, “It is through the montage, the way we combine and relate images, that we can create a representation of an event that is perhaps more precise than the event itself.”

Barikin offers pioneering analyses of Huyghe’s lesser-known early works as well as sustained readings of later, critically acclaimed projects, including No Ghost Just a Shell (2000), L’Expédition scintillante (2002), and A Journey That Wasn’t (2005). She emphasizes Huyghe’s concepts of “freed time” and “the open present,” in which anything might happen.

Bringing together an eclectic array of subjects and characters - from moon walking to situationist practices, from Snow White to Gilles Deleuze - Parallel Presents offers a highly original account of the driving forces behind Huyghe’s work.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/parallel-presents

This book is devoted to study how the breakthrough representation of the connection between sexuality, criminality and sickness of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1960) has been being reworked for 50 years, according to changing cultural contexts and different personal and political agendas. The analysis focuses on eight case studies selected from the enormous number of works more or less closely inspired by “Psycho”: William Castle’s “Homicidal” (1961); Hitchcock’s “Frenzy” (1972); Brian De Palma’s “Sisters” (1973) and “Dressed to Kill” (1980); slasher horror movies from the 1970s and 1908s; Robert Bloch’s novel “Psycho II”; the three cinematic sequels produced in the 1980s; Gus Van Sant’s remake (1999); and Gary Orona’s pornographic version “Official Psycho Parody” (2010).
The download includes the introduction and the table of contents.

Horror Video Game Remakes and the Question of Medium: Remaking Doom, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil. In Fear, Cultural Anxiety and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films Remade. Scott A. Lukas and John Marmysz, eds. Lexington Books, 2008.

This article examines a unique case of format translation in quality television: Mexican free-to-air broadcaster Televisa's remake in 2015-16 of a period romance-cum-mystery series originally shown by the Spanish private network Antena 3. The article begins with an account of Copycat Television, Albert Moran's pioneering study of transnational remakes, which defines the format not as a blueprint but as a loose and expanding set of programme possibilities, and goes on to explore tensions around genre, TV ecology and audience in both countries and series. Offering a close account of production, reception and textual detail, the article demonstrates that the Mexican version of the format is at once more politicized and more romantic than the Spanish original. Finally, both productions, broadcast as they were at a time of rapid technological change in their respective audiovisual industries, attempt to create an imaginary national harmony that is projected into the past and yet adapted to new contemporary audiences. (A longer version of this article, including close analysis of episodes can be found as a chapter in my book Television Drama in Spain and Latin America.)

This chapter extends the idea that Michael Haneke's Funny Games is founded on the programmatic subversion of genre conventions and ingrained viewing habits to the mechanisms of remaking a film in a different cultural context, arguing that Haneke experimented with the meaning of the transnational remake itself.

In diesem Artikel nehme ich erneut die Praxis des Retro-Remaking in den Blick und gehe insbesondere der Frage nach, inwiefern sich der explizite Bezug zur Vergangenheit auf die Reproduktionslogik aktueller Filme auswirkt. Wie werden – auch hinsichtlich Profit versprechender Wiedererkennungswerte sowie vor dem Hintergrund gewachsener inter- und metatextueller Kompetenzen auf Seiten des Kinopublikums – vertraute Plots narrativ weiterentwickelt und filmästhetische Codes wieder aufgegriffen? Welche Bedeutungen ergeben sich aus dem Wechselspiel zwischen Original und Neuauflage? Mein besonderes Augenmerk gilt dem Film BLADE RUNNER 2049, der 35 Jahre, nachdem Ridley Scotts düsterer, auf Philip K. Dicks Roman Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? basierender Science-Fiction-Film BLADE RUNNER (1982) in die Kinos kam, die Dystopie um künstlich hergestellte Menschen, den sogenannten „Replikanten“, fortsetzt. Reproduktion ist als zentrales Konzept in beide BLADE RUNNER-Filme eingeschrieben, geht es doch darum, wie Menschen und Erinnerungen künstlich hergestellt werden können und was Mensch und Maschine letztendlich voneinander unterscheidet. In BLADE RUNNER 2049 wird dieses Verständnis von Reproduktion aber sowohl durch das Fortsetzungsformat des Films als auch durch seine Fortpflanzungsthematik erheblich kompliziert. Wie ich zeigen werde, bedeutet dies auch, dass BLADE RUNNER 2049 reproduktive Identitäts- und Zeitkonzepte nicht wie der erste Film in Frage stellt, sondern gegen heteronormative Vorstellungen von Familie und biologischer Reproduktion eintauscht.