Some thoughts on NYT article & remakes

Because my father wanted to see it in IMAX on opening night- and my father never pays full price to see movies, much less on opening night- I sat through the wretched remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  A few days later, the New York Times published an editorial about the narrative/thematic shortcomings of the remake when put up against the original.   Seems like a frequent enough discussion; I don’t know why Brent Staples felt inclined to point it out with this particular movie; it seemed obvious enough.  Yet while his article touches on the tightening of special effects and softening of plot & character, he misses something bigger- especially where science fiction/fantasy films are concerned.

Here are some pictures, from, respectively, Forbidden Planet, The Wizard of Oz, Jason and the Argonauts, and the original Day the Earth Stood Still.    Now, look at these images.

 

 

 

 

Contemporary viewers, even yours truly, understand that there is not an Emarald City there; the rocks are not another planet, the skeletons are animated, and the robot is a man in a suit.  It’s obvious to us, and I think that we aren’t giving our elders enough credit when we say “Oh, it looked real to them!”  No, it didn’t.  People knew it was a man in a suit, etc.

What these older movies required, particularly these science fiction/fantasy films, was an extra willingness to suspend disbelief.  It required the audience, precisely because they understood they were looking at cardboard props, to work even harder to believe in the story, not the effects. 

In literature, we refer to this as “active” reading.  A reader is required to give something of him/herself to the reading in order to buy/understand/engage with what is happening in the story.   These older films do require active viewing- and are often rewarded by audiences for it.

Consider The Wizard of Oz.  Every kid knows this.  Even if they haven’t seen it, they know the Wicked Witch of the West and the Yellow Brick Road.  And the cool thing is that, when you show it to them, they stay with the movie.  My (totally untested and unresearched) theory of why this movie stays is that viewers work hard (subconsciously) to believe in the Witch, the Scarecrow, etc. 

I love my Lord of the Rings movies.  I’m going to see Watchmen.  If I didn’t know that these things weren’t real, I’d never believe that they weren’t.  But I’m a passive viewer in these movies.  The images happen TO me.  The images don’t flesh out/happen BECAUSE of me. 

So when we’re editorializing about remakes, don’t focus on the characters, the development, or even the effects.  It’s been done to death.   Look at the audience and how much the audience is bringing or has to bring to the movie in order to enjoy it.

(By the way, for a movie that addresses this idea of audience imagination being used to engage with a movie, try Joe Dante’s Matinee.)