I am going to list a few movie titles and I want you to read them and see if they have anything in common:
"No Reservations", "Shall We Dance", "The Ring", "Taxi". Hopefully the last title gave you a little clue, but all of these movies have been recreated for audiences in the United States from previously made foreign films. "No Reservations" was adapted from a German film, "Shall We Dance" was originally Japanese, "Taxi" was an award winning French film, and "The Ring" as well as "The Grudge" were both made from Japanese films as well.
In their originally countries, many of these films were award winning, while in the U.S. they did marginally well or sparked hardly any interest at all, (I'm sure many of you haven't even heard of the film Taxi because it did not do very well at the box office in the US). Of these films I have seen the both the foreign and American versions of "Shall We Dance" and "Taxi". If I had to choose, I would choose to watch the foreign versions in a heart beat. Especially in the case of "Shall We Dance", which explores a man's journey to find himself while disregarding the Japanese culture that some what stigmatizes ball room dancing. Although the American version is very similar with a man trying to find himself, it does not seem to have that deeper exploration of culture.
Japanese "Shall We Dance" Trailer
Some how when we try to take a good film and make our own version, I think we loose some of the cultural significance of the original. I'm sure there are many good cross over movies, I just wonder if it's better to make films that are more significant to our own cultures as opposed to trying to translate the cultures of others to our own.
So I guess my question is should we keep trying to make these cross over movies or would it be better to focus on exploring our own culture through film?
16 comments:
I think that there is a lot to be said for exploring our own culture through cinema, but there is a lot to be said for experiencing the cultures of others through cinema (though I don't think the best way to do this is by americanizing foreign films). If we want to learn more about another culture it would be much better to look at their culture through their eyes, and not through ours. We know what we think about them. We get enough of that in our own films. But we could learn a lot more by finding out what they think about the world around them.
I think we should explore our own culture for sure, but sometimes the crossover movies can help us to understand other cultures. If we focus on the issues we have at home though, movies might have more of an emotional impact.
Movies with plots that explore other cultures are insightful and important. We have a very ethnocentric society. So many people are ignorant about other cultures outside our own. For those people who may never get to experience living in a country outside the U.S., films may be a good, although less preferred, way to learn about issues, people and cultures of foreign countries.
I love a lot of those movies you mentioned so if they had to be taken from an original foreign film I have no problem with that. I feel like America's culture is a melting pot - so it makes sense to take film ideas from other countries and cultures. I love diversity! I don't think America is hurting when it comes to original film productions. We seem to have a good balance.
Although I am a big supporter of foreign films and agree that we are very good. I believe that we can get good ideas from foreign films where if we put them in American context could make for not just a very contrasting movie but also a completely different one.
I think that remakes of foreign films should attempt to maintain the overall message of the original film. As you expressed, sometimes the message does not translate very well into American culture, in which cases I think that it would be better that the film was not remade for American audiences.
I haven't seen a whole lot of foreign films, at least not that I know of, but I do think that there is a lot to be learned from them and the messages they are trying to convey.
I think it's a lot better to focus more on our own culture rather than try to adapt foreign films. I completely agree; I've seen some movies in other languages and I've actually thought while watching, "If this were in English, I probably wouldn't like it as much." There is that cultural difference that allows foreign films to be a certain way that we just can't duplicate in the United States.
I think we like experiencing other cultures more than our own, but at the same time, those movies that talk about our own culture are good too. In all honesty, I don't think it matters whether we cross over or not. As long as it's a good movie, I'll go.
I think that you can lose something when a film is translated and adapted in a different country. I dont think it is a lost cause as i am sure there are lots of movies that have done alright that were originally foreign. The office I think is an example of this somewhat. I absolutely cannot stand the original English version, but like the US one.
I do agree that the American consumer ought to be more open to foreign films and the ideas that they present us because more choices are always better than fewer. However, I don't know if I would trust American movie makers not to completely ruin a foreign picture in remaking it. Just watching the comparisons between the "shall we dance" movies made me shudder (although that could be my animus for Richard Gere coming out). I try to think what would happen if some of my favorite foreign films, like 'Das Boot', were remade by American studios and I can't help but think they would ruin them. Perhaps with the right director, the right producer and the right screenwriter it would all come together, but the rarity of that event actually occurring makes me wary of saying, "Its a good idea for American studios to copy foreign films."
i think by recreating foreign films we are in a way exploring our own culture and putting a new cultural twist on what has already been previously made. I do think it would be interesting to see what kind of movie americans could create without just copying other films.
I think cross-over movies are a great idea. If a film did well overseas why not try it in Hollywood where the acting and effects can be 10x stronger. After all Hollywood is one of the top movie making industries in the world. I'm sure a lot of foreign films could do very well in the United States.
I think cinema is even of American culture is not necessarily reflective of reality, so if we could achieve that I think it would be very beneficial to pursue that course. In experiencing other cultures through cinema, reflects an Americanized view of that culture too, so the truth is not really reflective. Instead I find it stereotypical or skewed. So I guess my answer would be, if we could achieve realistic movies representative of our own culture first, we should do that, and let other foreign film industries, represent their own countries and cultures accurately in order for us to better understand other entities.
I think that both are important for America. However, if we are adapting foreign films for America, I think we should explain and portray more of the foreign elements in the films. This would make the films more meaningful and facilitate a better understanding and appreciation. If this is not done, no one will understand the significance of what they are watching.
It's far better for us to just stick to what we know and stop remaking what other countries have done. Let them do their own work. We can appreciate it, sure, but we can't copy them.
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