Why hollywood remakes foreign films

They do, however, forever taint any discussion of them. But while many remakes are dumbed-down or unimaginative, nearly all are unfairly maligned from the outset, simply by dint of being remakes. The decision to remake international films is typically a studio decision, and can be criticised pretty fairly, but the actual movies are generally made by filmmakers with the best intentions, and deserve to be viewed on their own terms. Some of the most interesting English-language remakes see international directors remounting their previous films and using the opportunity to say something new.

In remaking In Order of Disappearance as Cold Pursuit , Hans Petter Moland elevated an ordinary gang-warfare subplot into a commentary about American indigenous exploitation. Michael Haneke's American remake of Funny Games followed his original almost shot-for-shot, but took on new meaning simply through being made inside the American cultural context the original was, in part, commenting on.

Either way, filmmakers coming at their previous work from a new angle is fascinating to watch. When auteurs do remakes, they often generate classics in their own right. Insomnia originally from Norway helped cement Christopher Nolan as a director to watch. Part of the hate toward these films undoubtedly represents fetishisation of international cinema based exclusively on its best examples.

While promoting international films, cinephiles often fail to acknowledge that international film industries produce plenty of basic and even bad entertainment, too. Numerous French comedies adapted into standard American comedy fare — fare like Dinner For Schmucks , Three Men and a Baby , Father's Day , Jungle 2 Jungle — are considered standard comedy fare where they came from, too.

The same goes for Japanese horror films, Hong Kong action movies, and more. Such films are often placed on pedestals by English-language audiences, for whom they represent something foreign and unusual. Every country makes trash. Downhill — the most recent such remake, released this month — is a blend of all of this.

Its source film Force Majeure is essentially a masterpiece, prompting cringes when an American remake was announced starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. Downhill loses some of Force Majeure 's European commonwealth feel, and there's a touch more fish-out-of-water comedy. It's more family- than relationship-focused, and the filmmaking isn't as stylish or confident. While a planned U. By the time a remake is ready, the story has gotten old.

Will Smith optioned the remake rights for the French hit back in but was unable to successfully relocate the story — about an urbane public servant banished to the boondocks — to the U. In the meantime, however, the film has spun off two Italian versions — Welcome to the South , and its sequel Welcome to the North — as well as a Dutch remake, Weg van jou Already, an international land grab is underway, as studios, streamers and independent giants try to lock up the best global talent.

If Netflix has 80 million subscribers in the U. Wright sees the adaptation business at a crossroads. Marilyn Monroe , perhaps the movie star, plays the role of Sugar Kane, the jazz singer Curtis and Lemmon perform with in drag, with self-aware, lived-in charm.

All three leading performers feel unleashed, excited to play in this freer-than-usual world. If you have a friend who gripes about never wanting to watch old, black and white, classic films, Some Like it Hot is a great starter film, as it moves and grooves at a refreshingly zippy pace. Plus, that last line?

Inspired: By La Totale! Diane Lane , in an Academy Award-nominated performance, plays a happily-enough married woman who meets stranger Olivier Martinez and, naturally, begins a torrid, steamy affair, including a sex-on-a-train sequence that will make you want to try sex-on-a-train for about three seconds, before you realize what a logistical nightmare that would be those seats are too small!

But the obvious star of the film is Lane, whose committed complexities oscillate between lust, disgust, fulfillment, and fear, garnering sympathy all the while. Koji Suzuki first released a novel called Ringu in Director Hideo Nakata adapted the work into a feature film in And director Gore Verbinski adapted both works into a new, American feature film in By some miracle, this international multimedia franchise works and terrifies in all of its nascent entries disappointing American sequels excluded, of course , with Verbinski recognizing both the elemental and contemporary terrors of the material, and using those fundamental ideas to springboard into a new feeling tone and visual style.

A journalist Naomi Watts in the American version is unlucky enough to view the tape, and tries to find out its secrets and save her skin. Fresh off his breakthrough thriller Memento , Nolan got himself one helluva cast. Insomnia , based on the Norwegian thriller of the same name, stars Al Pacino as a dysfunctional detective on a murder case in Alaska, where the sun is always, always, always in the air, no matter the time of day.

How could Michael Haneke , notorious Austrian provocateur, possibly manage to heighten his visceral-horror-meets-intellectual-muckraking suspense deconstruction Funny Games? By, um, making the exact same movie. When Haneke updated his film for American audiences in , he did so by casting respected Hollywood stars Naomi Watts and Tim Roth , rising stars in the indie scene Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet , and putting them in the exact same script with the exact same shot compositions.