Both the American and Egyptian cinema rely on this potential road to success
CAIRO: Not another bloody remake, one devastated, incensed young man typed out this complaint on one of the message boards for the movie website Rotten Tomatoes after the announcement of a forthcoming remake of the comedy classic Revenge of the Nerds.
Film remakes have become one of the staple foundations of an average cinematic year. The number of remakes produced during this decade is implausibly staggering, increasing with every subsequent year. Last year, 16 remakes were released in American theaters, accounting for 13.2 percent of the market share of the American box office; this year, a total of 17 films have been released so far, making 2006 the year with the biggest number of remakes in 20 years.
Many critics have deduced from these numbers that American cinema is on the brink of a serious creative block with the number of original screenplays as rare as a Hollywood actress with natural breasts.
Film scholar Constantine Verevis defines film remakes in his book Film Remakes as commercial products that repeat successful formulas in order to minimize risk and secure profits in the marketplace. This, to a great extent, isn t far from the reality of current mainstream American cinema. Remakes are an easy product to sell, since the producers of such films are presenting a movie that, in most cases, viewers are already familiar and acquainted with, and judging by the limited success of highly original concept films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or this year s Stranger than Fiction, audiences are more inclined to accept formula films than unconventional, inventive pictures. Truth to be told though, remakes haven t always been necessarily a bad idea.
Remakes have always given apt filmmakers the opportunity not only to introduce a great but forgotten story to a brand new audience, but also to tell an old story using a different approach in order to produce a film that may seem on the surface recognizable, but is, in fact, fresh in its vision, purpose and themes.
The key to a successful remake is the director and no one else. Brian De Palma took Scarface, a rather good 1930s crime flick, and converted it into a grand allegory of American greed; David Cronenberg s The Fly was, unlike the undemanding 1958 horror original, a petrifying meditation on mortality; George Cukor s 1954 remake of the 1937 film became one of the essential melancholic musicals in history. And who could forget the ultimate suburban nightmare that Martin Scorsese created with his 1991 remake of Cape Fear ?
But for every good remake, there are dozens of insufferably bad ones: The Alamo, Planet of the Apes, Breathless, The Jazz Singer, Swept Away, The Wicker Man … the list is endless and the mere notion of remembering those films is too painful to handle.
Egyptian cinema has also caught onto the concept of remakes. Some will be astonished to learn that at least 40 percent of all Egyptian films have been composed entirely of both official and non-official remakes of generally classic Hollywood films. Some of these films were undoubtedly inept, but the larger part of this group was composed of very fine pieces of entertainment. Back in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, Egyptian filmmakers perfectly mastered how to transform a well-known American story into an inherently Egyptian one, without losing any of the distinctive elements of these films. But with the temporary collapse of the industry during the ’80s and ’90s, Egyptian remakes grew to become atrocious cinematic travesties, characterized by scene-by-scene plagiarism of commercial Hollywood films.
These days direct remakes hardly exist in the Egyptian film scene, although half of the yearly cinematic crop is based in essence on the legendary underdog story made famous by Rocky, which is, obviously, the favorite movie of Egyptian filmmakers. The only Egyptian remake to be screened in theaters this year is Matege Nor os (Let s Dance) based on the 2004 Jennifer Lopez flop Shall we Dance, which was, itself, a remake of a Japanese film of the same name. Expectations are naturally quite low for the latest effort of director Inas Al-Degheidy who, thus far, hasn t directed a single good movie.
The best remake of the year nonetheless easily belongs to Martin Scorsese s The Departed. A remake of the 2002 Asian cult hit, the film transcends the excellent original and becomes, in the divine hands of Scorsese, an exhilarating masterwork of American cinema. The film feels like one quick rush of blood to the head: extremely intense, thrilling and tragic.
Next year, another 17 remakes are lined up to be released in the US and the rest of the world including the obligatory Asian horror adaptation (“The Eye, “One Missed to Call ), American classics (“Hairspray, “Halloween ) and the typical stab against humanity (“Porky s! ). It s highly unlikely that a film of the same high caliber of The Departed will be released anytime in the next couple of years. But who knows? A great remake of the most unexpected of films can suddenly burst into theaters and prove us all wrong. For now though, go see The Departed, enjoy Jack Nicholson s triumphant performance and relish every moment of the film because, clearly, you won t find a better American film to watch this year.
