Musings: Remakes and The Industry

Quantity vs Quality. I think we know where Hollywood stands on this. Tinsel Town: The land of the mass produced, excessively advertised, star riddled abominations to the creative arts.

I keep forgetting that this isn't the 50ies anymore, not that the 50ies in Hollywood were terribly different. Stars were just paid less and not nearly as hassled as our modern starlets are. And the movies were either bad, good or avant garde. I keep imagining if a moviegoer from the 20ies or 50ies were to step into a 21st Century theater, what would her impression be? Shock? Awe? Horror? If Saw or Gladiator were showing, she might swoon on the spot. But it's interesting to contrast between the grainy, concept obsessed ye olde days of cinema and the drive through, "how much will this make us?" attitude of modern filmmakers.

Not to say all filmmakers are so very inept. But what else could it be about besides money? With such a slew of remakes such as The Pink Panther, The Stepford Wives, Rear Window (aka Disturbia), Psycho and now The Women and The Day The Earth Stood Still looming upon us, what can be said about the people who've seen fit to remake these classic favorites? It cannot simply be for the thrill of giving a working concept a shiny new veneer. It cannot simply be that no one in Hollywood has any more ideas of original, interesting, thought-provoking characters in wonderful, exciting new environments.

Could it?

I was asked a question by some young filmmakers once during an impromptu street interview, why did I want to go into video production? At the time, I didn't know quite how to answer (it was a pretty spur of the moment thing and I'm terrible with on-the-spot questionnaires) but as I thought more about it, it came to me. I'm SICK of seeing bad movies. I'm SICK of seeing my favorite actors portraying rubbish characters in rubbish stories. I'm sick and tired to death of crap being rolled out on the conveyor belt, and even more horrified to watch the helpless general public paying money to see it. I hate seeing people visit crappy movies, wasting precious dollars that they should be saving for the upcoming Depression, and coming out of the theater dumber than when they went in!

Stories were intended to entertain and educate. In the fashion of Aesop, they were meant to teach morals. The modern purpose of movies have been to either educate, thrill and always, entertain. Movies take our minds off things, or make us feel better about things, or make us ponder things. Movies have the potential to be extremely powerful. Like our history books, they can fabricate the truth, or rectify it. In the age of visual media, they will become more important than ever as a pulpit for political propaganda, as a forum for analysis of social issues and as visual codeine to alieve the pain at the pump, or at home or anywhere else.

A friend of mine once made me question my decision to go into film, because as he put it, I was too good for it. I should and have the capacity to be something greater, like a doctor, someone who heals people. I thought about it for a long time because I was worried that he was right. Maybe filmmaking was worthless and useless in the long run. I would be helping society much better as a medical practitioner, someone with strong ethics and a love for humanity.

I've come to wonder if filmmakers and doctors aren't so different. They both start out young, excited and wanting to change the world. And out of both groups, some become twisted and jaded, losing their creativity and love for originality in favor of money....or losing their humanity and love of helping people in favor of money...

- Marian