Muse Droppings
By:
C.C. Youngren

Remakes

When we ponder the great metaphysical questions of the universe—or multi-verse as it may be—one of the lesser ones that comes to mind is “why would anyone want to make another version of The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3?   There is an economic candidate answer, of course.  Actors and gaffers, set-dressers and vermin wranglers were gainfully employed for some interval, and the culprit producers may indeed realize a profit.  Fair enough, but is there any creative incentive to rehash a previously executed plot (OK, the subway-jackers can now tweet the police) rather than cobble together a fresh interplay between character and circumstance? 

This is the third version of Pelham, remember.  A forgettable Edward James Olmos/Vincent D’Onofro TV version was sandwiched in between the Walter Matthau/Robert Shaw serviceable original, and today’s Denzel Washington/John Travolta extravaganza.  I never saw the 2nd and have no plans to see the third.  (Remind me to bite off my finger if I even approach clicking that red “add”: button on the Netflix menu.)  Maybe the technology evolution of the intervening decades explains the creative drive.  Those special & visual effects folk are artists too and arguably deserve an interpretive time at bat.  We watched Walter Matthau’s averting grimace to off-screen flashes & buzzing as Robert Shaw stepped on the third rail.  With explicit immolation now a just few virtual brush-strokes away, could a trembling John Travolta with entrails vaporizing in HD be worth a $12 Saturday night admission?  (Hint: answer starts with “N-O”).  21st century cinema technology might be an excuse for Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds  too, but it is not really a very good one.  The one-eyed Martian cobra heads in the 1952 version, slithering through the farmhouse rubble, were even more scary.  Compare that remake with Steven’s wonderfully original Close Encounters, so superior in every way. 

Of course Pelham is not the highest multiple remake by a long stretch.  There have been 70 or so large-screen versions of Hamlet, at least 17 of which were silent movies.  Excuse me while I contemplate the existential value of silent Shakespeare…

…OK I’m back, having concluded that on some abstract scale, a silent Hamlet does rank slightly above a silent version of Mahler’s 7th.  Anyway, I really have no quarrel with re-re-reinterpreting Shakespeare.  Olivier’s 1948 version is my favorite Hamlet, but Branaugh’s would be damn close if it weren’t so damn long.  While Mel gets no cigar, I will admit that the Gibson-Glenn Close version did make exposing my then teenagers to the towers of Ellsinore palatable.  And when we saw Rosencrantz & Guildenstern a few weeks later, their knowledgeable chuckles dissolved my fears of abuse by haute culture.  I liked both Branaugh’s and Olivier’s Henry V too, and will even give the nod to the later version.  The St. Crispin’s Day/Band-of-brothers speech would give goose-bumps even in other, much less talented hands.  (Aside: When one of those TV critics once remarked how he thought Gene Hackman’s Hoosier locker-room speech reminded him of St. Crispin, three words emerged: shoe-television-throw.)

Re-filming film classics (as opposed to plays), however, invokes suspicions of idea-block.  I offer the Coen brothers remake of Ladykillers  as evidence.  The Coen brothers! I love those guys.  What, just what, were they thinking?   A Tom Hanks drop-shadow of Alec Guinness just simulates blurred vision, not fresh perspective.

Granted there have been remakes that stand on their own.  Martin Scorcese’s Cape Fear is probably the best.  The DeNiro/Nolte contest might even be great if you had not seen the original Mitchum/Peck version.  But I had seen Polly Bergen in distress, so with Jessica Lange in a similar predicament I was distracted by the nagging, if tangential, thought of just who was the second guy to invent the light bulb?  Scorcese did pay specific homage to his predecessors in recycling Peck, Mitchum, and Balsam albeit in different roles. Very nice.

Homage in wretched excess, however, self-destructs.  The 1998 Psycho mimicked scene & substance, camera angle & dolly, until the venture was less a remake than a forgery.  Not a particularly good one either unless you would be inclined to bid up the price of a Venus Paradise Pencil Set, color-by-number, Caravaggio.

We can be thankful for the road not taken too, while remaining mindful that fear is 100% anticipation.  It was rumored that J-Lo and Ben Affleck were par boiling a remake of Casablanca.  That this potential project evaporated with that collaboration qualifies as proof positive that there is a God, and that He is merciful.

I am resigned to the fact that the recycling urge is just too powerful to deny.  Yet it cannot be allowed to elbow originality off the stage. I propose a solution—compromise if you will—accord, “road map” to…  The Rule: Remake movies two at a time.   The trick is NOT joining a pair by common character, setting, or plot—in fact I encourage the opposite.  Rather simply use fractions of the original titles to provide the complementary Ying and Yang.  Demand a dollop of plot creativity in the nostalgic soup.

Numerical titles are the easiest to combine. 2001 Dalmatians?  HAL as the diabolical proprietor of a chain of Vietnamese restaurants could be a computer animated blockbuster.  “Seven” and “8 ½” average to “7 ¾ .“  Just think what Fellini could have done with that head in a box. 12 Angry Monkeys, etc.  Some could be simple word arithmetic/substitution: Ordinary, Ruthless People,  Dirty Dancing with Wolves,  Them Antz, Seven Brides for Seven Years in Tibet, Air Force One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—or near misses: Godzilla Must be Crazy, and Malcolm F/X.

Then there are the puns, from the Soupy Sales level (Blue Lagoonies) to Last Rambo in Paris, and E.T. with Mussolini, to the near-Joycean Au Revoir Les Dogs, much more difficult to parse.  I could go on—Anna Karenina-Conda, Shane-spotting—but won’t.  I know you’re already thinking of some.

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