Last week I posted about an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This week’s post is of a similar genealogy -adaptations of foreign films into American blockbusters. What is the reasoning behind this? Is it that the familiar will attract the cinema goer better than the dreaded unknown? Are foreign films ‘copied’ because if they were so successful on a smaller scale then they will instantly be hits in America? Or are producers tired of the numerous scripts churned out in America, do they feel that by ‘going foreign’ they are generating something new, fresher, and never before seen by American eyes? One could look at the dozens of page to screen adaptations to develop the notion that Hollywood has become bored with the ideas being brought to the table by screenwriters.
Recently I read an article on the Los Angeles Times’ website that got me thinking about this habit of remaking and redistributing foreign films. In the article Eric Pape notes how ‘Hollywood’s enhanced efforts to adapt — or simply copy — foreign-language films highlight a cultural transformation of popular European cinema in recent decades.’ He suggests that the Americanisation of a movie illustrates a newer style of European film making taking root. ‘Many technically capable European filmmakers are surprisingly intimate with American film traditions.’ His point develops into a sort of cyclical motion in which each party- American producers and European producers- begin to mirror the styles they admire in each other. Could this then mean that a more universally recognisable cinema is emerging: one which all cultures can explore and enjoy?
I could use Martin Scorsese’s 2006 thriller-cop film The Departed as a prime example of the remaking of a foreign-language film. It was based on a successful 2002 Hong Kong movie called Infernal Affairs. To add to our list of remakes, Quarantine was adapted from a Spanish zombie film entitled [Rec]. Paco Plaza co-wrote and co-directed the European version, he claimed that to have one’s film remade was a ‘‘stamp of approval. And it increases the popularity of the original films, so I have no complaints of any sort.’’ Another big contender in the Hollywood remake sphere was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo directed by David Fincher. This film was released in 2011 just a measly two years after the Swedish version was released! Bigger actors combined with a bigger budget were supposed to make the 2011 version of the novel a successful investment. Many critics believe that money is at the heart of these remakes; success abroad is seen as a prequel to success at home. In his online article for the Guardian, Charles Gant reveals that actually ‘‘MGM disclosed to its investors that box-office for Fincher’s film was “below our expectations and we booked a modest loss”.
In the kaleidoscopic sphere of film it must be hard to maintain constant innovation and surprise for American audiences, directors and distribution companies: sometimes European film can achieve this without even setting out to. I would agree with Plaza’s above remark that these remakes should be seen as a stamp of approval but, I would also venture to say that more credit should be attributed to the original creators of the ideas which materialise upon the screen. Finally, a query, does this spike in Hollywood adaptations mean that less people are interested in foreign film, and even hold subtitled film’s shown in American cinemas in distain? The idea that the audience does not want to think, that we do not want to read while we watch has developed over the past decades and I fear that Hollywood remakes may perpetuate this stereotyping well into the future.
Works Cited:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/mar/29/is-the-hollywood-remake-dead
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/02/entertainment/la-ca-remakes-20110102
Americanization 