Remakes and amnesia...

[fajrdrako]

I just went and looked at fannish5, and this week's question means nothing to me, but I realize I missed last week's. This week's item is Name 5 remakes that never should have been made. I find that kind of meaningless... the world is full of movies that should never have been made; but on the whole, I've seen a number of remakes I've liked - more than that I have disliked, probably because in most cases I've seen the remake but not the original. I did like the later versions of The Lion in Winter and Born Yesterday, for example. I even liked the American movie Shall We Dance? as well as the (admittedly better) Japanese version.

I just don't have any problem with remakes. I like seeing the same material from different points of view, or done in different styles. How many versions have I see of movies based on one of my favourite novels, Jane Eyre? I hated some of them and have loved one of them and liked at least one more - I'm glad they kept remaking it, and I hope they continue to do so.

This week: What are your five favorite instances of amnesia, in canon or fan fiction?

Until recently I'd have probably said I didn't like any amnesia stories. I know of none I like in fan fiction; I'm open to recommendations. But in canon... well!

1. In Doctor Who: Captain Jack lost two years' worth of memories, and resents it, and wants them back.


2. In Torchwood, Captain Jack has invented Retcon, the drug that gives people selective amnesia, and he administers it wantonly and ruthlessly. I love the irony,the contradiction.


3. in The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, near the beginning, Francis Crawford of Lymond is hit on the head and temporarily forgets his own identity, while a prisoner in the custody of Christian Stewart. There is some lovely banter through this chapter; a sense that Lymond can be himself as we seldom see him, because for once he has been able to forget his troubles. Sometimes I have wondered to what extent he was faking it. Sometimes I have wondered at various implications of the section. But I do love it.


4. Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey. I liked the TV movie based on the book, too.


5. I can't think of a #5... give me time, here....

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the prejudice against remakes per se.

I think it's unjustified. It's common, but it's also something of a prejudice.

How many different productions of Hamlet have there been on stage?

Countless - and that's part of the richness of the experience. We can see Hamlet over and over and over, and each time it's a different Hamlet, and each new version - good or bad - enriches our experience. Maybe some people think if they've seen Hamlet once they don't ever need to see it again, but it's so much better to see it again - to explore the variations and permutations possible through the eyes of new directors, different actors, and fresh ideas.

And this is potentially true of every movie or play or TV show.

It's one reason I'm not on the side of the copyright sticklers: redoing an established work isn't a sign of lack of creativity, but the opposite.

The point of a remake shouldn't be to do it in just the same way as before, but to do it differently. To get something more out of it.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

This is one of my issues re: Hope's Ruritania books. The 1952 movie was, shot-by-shot, modelled on the 1937 one, just with a different cast and in colour. Why not go back to the novels and open them out? There are subplots and undercurrents to develop!

This is why I love fanfic!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is one of the joys of fanfic - the characters and themes of any given scenario can be revisited and re-examined from any number of angles. Ideas can be inverted and re-inserted and implications can be followed up on. It's remarkably freeing, and remarkably mind-expanding, in my opinion. So creative.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes: my take on it is that one of the 'villains' is actually a hero (and interestingly, the original author gave him a heroic death, saving the woman he'd shagged but didn't really love from being raped), and the 'hero' is a dupe of some very nasty people indeed.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love it when you can revise the viewpoint like that - and really, changing perspective is one of the great joys of fanfic. As viewers or readers, we see the action in one way - but ech of the characters sees a different view, depending on their character, or what they know.

I love examining and re-examining that.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

This is very much the case with the 2 main Ruritania books, as they are first-person narratives. I always want to ask: How far can I trust the narrator? What's his agenda? And personally, I don't regard propping up a spoilt, drunken playboy absolute monarch as a good thing!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

As we know from history, our narrators always have agendas of their own. Sometimes more or less honestly, sometimes not. It's fun to look at books that way.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And when they are major participants in the events, and not privy to what the other side is really thinking, I think there are valid grounds for questioning them. In this case, I also think the author (whose politics were not those of the nominal hero) was playing games and wants us to read between the lines somewhat.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think authors often play games like that - because, after all, they are playing God with all of the characters, and have to understand the various viewpoints.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Anthony Hope Hawkins was a keen supporter of the Liberal Party in the Asquith/Lloyd George era, which laid the first foundations of proper welfare provision in this country. (Indeed, he was once an unsuccessful candidate for Parliament.) The Ruritanian characters who appear to be the heroes in the novels he wrote as 'Anthony Hope' are supporters of an absolute monarchy, to the extent of upholding the right to rule of a drunken, incompetent playboy, against his half-brother, who is the governor of the capital city, and regarded as the champion of the urban poor against the aristocracy, the army and the Church. The main hero is the younger son of a British Earl, who accepts unquestioningly the royal equerry's summing-up of the situation:

The city of Strelsau is partly old and partly new. Spacious modern boulevards and residential quarters surround and embrace the narrow, tortuous, and picturesque streets of the original town. In the outer circles the upper classes live; in the inner the shops are situated; and, behind their prosperous fronts, lie hidden populous but wretched lanes and alleys, filled with a poverty-stricken, turbulent, and (in large measure) criminal class.
These social and local divisions corresponded, as I knew from Sapt's information, to another division more important to me. The New Town was for the King; but to the Old Town Michael of Strelsau was a hope, a hero, and a darling.

Is it any wonder the working classes are "turbulent"? And as for writing them off as largely "criminal"…! This is a country which is far more absolutist than its nearest neighbours, imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary. Each day, the capital's chief of police reports directly to the King with a list of the people who are under surveillance. It's not a nice place.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I love that sort of set-up. Makes me think of Latveria in the Marvel comics, which is really a further-fictionalized Ruritania, with an extremely absolutist rule.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yes. I couldn't help but think Michael was the better option. If he's managed to annoy the aristocracy, the army hierarchy and the cardinal, he's doing something right!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yup, he's effective and he's smart, if nothing else!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

As well as pandering to my h/c weakness for attractive young men (he has black hair and dark eyes; his eyes are unusually brilliant, which, together with his high colour, generally points in 19C fiction to TB – perhaps why he's in a hurry politically) who end up on the wrong end of sharp pointy objects…

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Funny how I have a bias towards these things too, though not necessarily the sharp pointy objects, unless wielded through an arras at midnight. Hmm.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

With me, it's more that said young men have to be on the wrong end, to appeal to my h/c instincts.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My h/c instincts - which I used to claim not to have, but I don't think I can get away with that any more - work differently from yours. And I do like my heroes to be on the wielding end of the pointy objects, though it's obviously not a universal requirement - Conrad and Caesar, to name two, ended up stabbed.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

My h/c instincts - which I used to claim not to have, but I don't think I can get away with that any more - work differently from yours.

In what way? What's your h/c preference?

And I do like my heroes to be on the wielding end of the pointy objects, though it's obviously not a universal requirement.

Mine are certainly often good at wielding them, but my h/c complex kicks in when they get on the wrong end, and I simply want to gather them up and repair the poor dears.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What's your h/c preference?

A while back, I'd have said I had no h/c preference at all. But I do like emotionally tortured heroes. And sometimes maimed heroes. The lines blur.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Emotionally tortured? - Sometimes.
Maimed? - Well, on the whole I prefer to think that mine can be repaired without permanent severe impairment, although they might not look so great shirtless.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Emotionally tortured? - Sometimes.

I would have said I never want to see my heroes physically tortured - in fact, I've been known to turn the TV off when my heroes are hurt, in some circumstances - but then there was a certain episode of Firefly where a torture scene hit all my heroic reflexes.... That's rare, though.

The 'maiming' thing is very specific, to heroes who get their hands chopped off. Other body parts don't do it.

Scars are generally irrelevant, though since I like a warrior hero, scars more or less go with the package. (Somehow this makes me think of Batman... And I once had a scene in a Smallville story where Bruce Wayne noticed there was something odd about Clark Kent because he had no scars anywhere on his body.)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I would have said I never want to see my heroes physically tortured - in fact, I've been known to turn the TV off when my heroes are hurt, in some circumstances - but then there was a certain episode of Firefly where a torture scene hit all my heroic reflexes.... That's rare, though.

Sadly, I know some of mine have been (more in real history than fiction). It makes me feel extremely protective of them. (One of my pet charities is the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (http://www.torturecare.org.uk/).)

Scars are generally irrelevant, though since I like a warrior hero, scars more or less go with the package.

Indeed. And are something to fuss over.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Re torture: yes, we get what history gives us. Most of my favourite men had unhappy ends.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Which is why I tend to be so protective of my 'pets'. I want to rescue and look after them, with lots of TLC.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

The character played by James Mason, right? His role, and a wonderful couple of sword-fights, were what I really enjoyed about the 1952 version. The remainder was saccharin.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

No: Duke Michael, the character played by the far-too-old Robert Douglas in that version. He's meant to be between the Rudolfs and Rupert in age, so about 25-27; probably half-Jewish, and also possibly tubercular.

Rupert von Hentzau (James Mason's character) is the rapist/would-be rapist. In the book, it's unclear whether Michael got there in time to save Antoinette, but after he dies in her arms, she goes after Rupert with a revolver. Sadly, she misses, and Rupert continues being evil in the sequel.

I've got some stuff on my website: The Ruritanian Resistance (http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk/ruritania).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Is Robert Douglas part of the Michael Douglas family?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

No, he was a British actor (né Robert Douglas Finlayson, the son of a Scots army doctor, from Bletchley), who, after a few movie roles in the UK, went to Hollywood just after WW2 and chiefly played 'villains' in swashbucklers. He also directed.
Here's his IMDb entry (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001888/).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Now I realize who you're talking about....

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

His character in King Richard and the Crusaders (an adaptation of Walter Scott's The Talisman) was the Grand Master, Conrad's wicked co-conspirator. Dreadful novel, dreadful film.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think the title Grand Master in modern fiction is treated like High Priest is in the stories set in or about Ancient Egypt - that is, to be automatically the sign of a hierarchical Bad Guy. For this reason, whenever possible, I write Grand Masters and High Priests as heroes.

(And also because I like the idea of heroic Grand Masters and High Priests.)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think the title Grand Master in modern fiction is treated like High Priest is in the stories set in or about Ancient Egypt - that is, to be automatically the sign of a hierarchical Bad Guy.

It's part of Scott's anti-Templar hang-up. As Mills noted at the time, Scott used them as mediæval substitutes for the "scheming Jesuits" of the Gothic novel. In the 1950s film version, they changed them to a fictional order of Castelaines, to avoid trouble with the Hays Code (not bringing the clergy into disrepute) and with the Masonic 'Knights Templar', of whom quite a few prominent Hollywood figures were members.

(And also because I like the idea of heroic Grand Masters and High Priests.)

And the fact is that many of the Grand Masters of the military orders were heroic. You get the occasional egomaniac jerk, like Gerard de Ridefort or Folco de Villaret, but most were dedicated, brave, and self-sacrificing. (Think of the deaths of Roger de Moulins at Cresson in 1187, or Guillaume de Beaujeu at Acre in 1291; or the martyrdom of poor old Jacques de Molay, who preferred to die proclaiming his innocence than allow the false charges, to which he had admitted under duress, to stand.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Scott used them as mediæval substitutes for the "scheming Jesuits" of the Gothic novel.

There's a certain logic to that.

many of the Grand Masters of the military orders were heroic.

Well of course they were! But the nasty ones, and the incompetent ones, seem to get more press.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

It's very lazy reliance on stereotyping; as is Scott's use of that other Gothic stereotype, the evil Machiavellian Italian.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

For some perverse reason, I've always rather liked the Machiavellian Italians and the scheming Jesuits, because they always struck me as being highly intelligent compared to the brawnier and more simplistic characters.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Indeed: but when one knows that said "Machiavellian Italian" was in reality one of the greatest heroes of the age, a creature of rare beauty and dazzling courage, as well as intelligence, and not some hole-in-the-corner schemer…

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more! He was also a good writer and insightful thinker - and a man of action. A Renaissance Man, in other words!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

12C Renaissance, that is!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The best one!

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The point of a remake shouldn't be to do it in just the same way as before, but to do it differently. To get something more out of it.


Another aspect of this is that there are some great roles out there, in cinema/TV as well as on stage, and why shouldn't other actors have the chance to have try them?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think it's useful to have ideas, or visual concepts, or whatever else may be in a movie or TV show, revised, reconsidered, and re-envisaged in the light of a different time in history or with the input of new thoughts. This includes things like making an opera from a play or a story, or making a movie from a comic book.