America, You’re To Blame For Hollywood’s Artistic Decline
Much hay has been made over Hollywood’s growing reliance on the remake. Creativity is dead, yes, we know, but, more importantly, the silver screen’s recycling kick also acts as an endorsement for mediocrity. And it’s all your fault!
Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times offers three reasons why remakes are all the rage. First, despite some duds, many remakes do make scads of money, as exhibited by Star Trek. Second, the audience likes them. Finally, after years of rejecting the remake, directors are now keen on the idea.
There was once a time when filmmakers used their craft to elevate their ingenuity, vision and originality. Sadly, those traits are few and far between these days and, rather than stretch own their lazy imagination, filmmakers claim they’re “reinventing” previous big screen forays. Bullshit.
While people like Rob Zombie may want to call themselves “auteurs,” no self-respecting artist would take someone else’s work, shoot it from a different angle—or, heaven forbid, in 3D—and display it as an example of their bottomless creative well. But, like any business, Hollywood’s ruled by a little thing called supply-and-demand and can’t be held entirely accountable for this developing trend.
The public’s only endorsing this sort of behavior: by going to remakes, we are tacitly telling Hollywood, “Hey, it’s okay: we crave nothing new. We can’t stretch our tiny minds to understand—or even demand—an entirely innovative film going experience.” No, we’re all telling upcoming filmmakers that we’ll happily consume any well-trod, familiar story.
We can blame Hollywood all we like, but it’s really the public who’s encouraging laziness on the part of our entertainers. It’s we who are helping erode the foundations of America’s collective imagination, thus giving rise to remakes like Fame, The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 and, why?!, Footloose. This isn’t nostalgia. This is a sad indictment of our insatiable love for all things safe, secure and ultimately conventional. And it’s for that reason that we don’t deserve entertainment at all. Not until we can prove we need more than flashing lights and shiny objects to get us off.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
Hey Andy
Embarrassed by my inner trekkie, I have to advise that this year's Star Trek wasn't a remake
Using this logic, once crack made it to the suburbs, it should have been legalized and added to the menu at Olive Garden.
I'm sure if given enough time, we could find a way to blame this on George Lucas.
There's some irony to this with the Melrose Place ad on this page.
@Paul Duane: Dashiell Hammet's Red Harvest: Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo: Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars: Walter Hill's Last Man Standing.
lionel-mandrake
"no self-respecting artist would take someone else's work... and display it as an example of their bottomless creative well."
Four words for you: John Carpenter's The Thing. Maybe Zombie is no Carpenter but Carpenter was rubbished for remaking Howard Hawks, too.
Paul Duane
@shanesongs: No, it's just the 7000th thing to be named "Star Trek."
Not to get technical, but "Star Trek" is not a remake.
the_other_argento_kid
broadway suffers the same illness... good luck finding a musical that's not based on a movie, disney character, or pop songs.
and not to forget the legacy of rap, where the reuse and 'theft' of other musician's original material created a new pop empire. where would 'white lines' be without 'cavern', 'you can't touch this' without 'superfreak'... or the p. diity empire without every other artist's work you can imagine....
does this make every cover song, every cover band a hack too?
i think this stems from producers/directors/studios wanting the "safe thing" too. it's easier to sell the idea based on a 'proven track record' than nothing at all. and now... you can sell a remake by the fact that remakes have a track record.
@Paul Duane: I would like to add Werner Herzog's Nosferatu and Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, Both of which are fairly brilliant (and made by self-respecting artists).
If Hollywood makes nothing but bland crap, can people really be blamed for going to the bland crap they kind of know already? Oh, and since they keep packaging movies deceptively, making even the good ones seem like bland crap, how are we even supposed to know which ones are going to be good? Remember how the previews made Charlie Bartlett look like American Pie? Turned out to be a decent little coming-of-age movie. Since most people didn't see it, to them it might as well have been Porky's 9: The Reckoning.
Within twenty years, Halloween 2 will qualify for its own retrospective.
I foogled with the Google to try to find the link to the lists that The Nicholl Fellowship used to have at their website--its a loooooong list each year of people that I NOW cannot find--all are unknown screenwriters trying to break in--who have written something that was read by contest officials who later said, "Yeah, I think this should be a movie," and the script went on to the next qualifying round. There are HUNDREDS every year, people. Why Ho'wood doesn't tap into this potential is ridiculous. Maybe one lucky one per year gets an indie production deal, but most are just gathering dust on somebody's hard drive. Most of it seems to be an art of futility--people proving their chops so they can be HIRED to write the remake.
I think Hollywood will have to start remaking films that were just terrible in their original form to really turn off the audience. Really, can you see it, Kate Hudson and Freddie Prinze Jr. starring in Bird on a Wire? Yah. By that point people will start bringing flamethrowers to movie openings. Perhaps then the remake genre will run its course.
Also, screw remakes. Just give me some decent prequels or sequels and we can call it even...new material + nostalgia = potential win.
Spirit Fingers
@nozer: Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein's Monster in a Box by Zombie Spalding Grey.
well, if you used the essence of what is going on in current culture for ideas and inspiration for screenplays, how many movies could we watch whose main message was look how fabulous I am, look at my washboard abs, look at my car, look at my granite countertops? I mean who has time for creativity and having a unique point of view???
The kids are glued to their electronic devices and texting nonsense all day, the adults are on the internet "browsing", and the rest are watching someone else's dreams on American Idol.
Is it any wonder creativity is suffering? One must have some down-time to allow the human mind to work it's magic. There is very little down-time built into a typical day in late 2009.
On the flip side, there are many creative peojects that could still be resurrected from days past that would be relevant and interesting in their updated form. I could name a few.
Everybody is a star!
MelitaPolyhymnia