OK, before we start: Yes, I realize the mere existence of a remake does not magically cause a rift in the time-space continuum to destroy the original. You make consider that point duly noted. That said: What the shit? How would you even begin to remake Videodrome? First problem: Assuming they stick to the general plot (i.e. TV executive gets "programmed" as a weapon through the technology of Videodrome), what's the visual metaphor that takes the place of the videotape? Video in 2012 is mostly consumed via streaming on Youtube or Netflix or cable - there's no physical media that is associated with the abstract concept of "video" like a videotape was in 1982. Second: Never heard of the director. He's apparently a commercials guy. Which doesn't mean he'll be automatically bad, but a great deal of the pleasure of a Cronenberg movie is his cold, controlled directorial style. Which leads to the third problem... Third: Effects. This is on my mind because I recently rewatched Videodrome for the millionth time, and what's particularly striking about it is how Cronenberg (via the ridiculously great technical skills of Rick Baker and the other technicians) recontexualizes the then-current progress of special effects work. Think of something like An American Werewolf In London (which Baker worked on just before doing Videodrome) - it's a great movie, but the effects are contextually in the same place as they would be if you did the same movie in the 40s. The effects work are for transformations, in other words. But in Videodrome, the effects break out of merely being monster-makeup. In Videodrome, reality itself breaks down, so anything can be transformative - a TV set, a videotape, human flesh, etc. There's no way in hell they'll do a remake with all practical effects, but to this old fogey CGI just doesn't work as well for that kind of movie. CGI effects don't possess the weight of practical, especially when it comes to body horror. So that whole element of the movie gets lost. And finally: Videodrome is a hugely subversive movie. Let's skip over the sexual sado-masochism of the original - imagine trying to get a scene like piercing Debbie Harry's ears and licking the blood off the pins into a movie today - and instead concentrate on the underlying themes. There's a sly bit of misdirection in Videodrome where the brain-tumor-causing signal is originally transmitted via a repugnant broadcast of torture and violence because those images make the brain more receptive to the Videodrome programming, which at first seems like Cronenberg biting the hand that feeds him. (It's pretty brave to comdemn the very audience who would watch a movie like Videodrome for watching it.) Later on, though, it's revealed that the Videodrome signal can be transmitted under anything, even a test pattern. It's not the content that effects physical and mental changes in the viewer, but the medium itself. (Videodrome, in that sense, is clearly a nod to another famous Canadian, Marshall McLuhan.) Even better, it's possible that the Videodrome signal isn't even a bad thing, depending on how you interpret the movie. Is James Woods just an assassination flesh-tool, or does he actually undergo a transformation to the next evolutionary stage? Now, does anybody think a remake will touch any of that thematic depth? Bah, humbug. I say. BAH HUMBUG.
My immediate reaction is humbug as well. Fifteen quatloos that it'll be technically competent but mediocre, and basically soulless affair. The transformations will be "bigger" with heavy CGI, but with a fraction of the oomph. The thematic depth just isn't going to be there. The videotape as symbol and cause of change was terrific, because it was very much a film of its time. Media homogeneity was starting to break down, and that was just starting to accelerate, since what was on television was starting to spiral outside the control of the half-handful of big networks, satellite and cable television started getting serious market penetration, pirate channels started being a thing that more people knew about. (I always dug going over to friends' houses who had satellite TV and seeking out the broadcasts that was just raw feed, people milling around newsroom sets in between 'proper' airing, etc.) Big changes were afoot, so, yeah. Body horror's relatively easy to do as compelling in a personal scale (probably the best to hope for in the remake), but part of why I always loved Videodrome was that it was sort of body horror writ large; society itself as the body that was going through that loss of self. Max Renn was just the visual individual metaphor for it--sort of character-as-videotape. Nowadays? It's just not there anymore. It's not just streaming videos everywhere, it's that "shocking" ones are everywhere too. I'm sure there's giggling nauseated schoolkids recording each others reactions to seeing whatever the current equivalent of goatse or whatnot is as they discover them early on. There's nothing particularly underground about them, anyone can look at whatever gross shit they want with seconds of googling, and the notion that it's going to monstrously distort humanity itself doesn't have much zing (outside the fevered imaginations of extreme social conservatives, I suppose). If anything, the ease and prevalence of it has made mass media itself more bland (good observation about it being really hard to imagine them redoing the piercing play stuff). And now I have to watch Videodrome again.
Awesome points, Drastic. By the way, here's some fun stuff for you Videodrome fans: Notes from a Videodrome test screening.
Holy shit. Remaking Videodrome would be an act of desperation for a major if it wasn't for the fact that it is a brilliant business decision - remake it as a generic, mildly disappointing mainstream gore/horror film, give it a decent marketing campaign, trick idiot 20-something couples into seeing it and make money off of all the Cronenberg fans who claim they won't go see it but can't wait to rage about it. Even if it fails: Hollywood accounting. Other seemingly desperate but possibly brilliant business decisions: Eli Roth remakes Salo; Takashi Miike remakes Men Behind the Sun. And this, this is why I think another sea change in American film production - comparable to the American New Wave in size, scope and quality - is right around the corner. I didn't comment on your response last time - apologies, busy and my head's a jumbled mess (obviously! as you can see) - but the short of it is that I think I wasn't clear enough in what I meant: there won't be another "American New Wave" and it certainly won't be called "American New Wave", following in the exact same footsteps as its predecessor, but it will have many of the same effects on film production, if not more, as the one from the 60s-80s. There are too many film-makers out there with too many original ideas for hack bullshit like this to survive much longer [as the overwhelming majority of Hollywood's output]. Will the new film movement be one inspired by foreign film critics and film school brats? Nah, not likely, but then the independent/arthouse movement in the 90s wasn't, either. If it was a remake/re-envisioning being done by the guy who made Darkstar, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween and, almost immediately beforehand, Escape from New York, as was the case with The Thing remake, then you had best buckle up and go along for the ride, like it or not, and accept that it'll be something new, again like it or not. When it's a commercials director who either wants to or has been tapped to remake it then we're just one remake closer to the death of this Hollywood cycle. It's creative impulse versus cynical cash-grab. I feel as if audiences are slowly awakening to the fact that they are cash-grabbed out. We'll still have remakes, and many of them will still suck, but the snr will be higher and so will the percentage of quality original films released. Sorry, I realize this is mostly off-topic. The only thing I'd have to say about Videodrome is that you forgot to say that it's equally as transgressive as subversive. (I kid, I kid!) I'm simply not sure how much further down Hollywood thinks it can mine, nor how much longer what currently passes for an underground/cult/independent film-making community can tolerate its current level of non-influence with arthouse/cult/independent theaters - of which more and more are opening every year - around the country. (Contrary to what they might believe, being one of 20,000 shitty fucktastically awful handicam-quality z-movies on Netflix isn't "the new preferred distribution method of independent film-makers".) It's either "American New Wave" or the 70s-90s low budget *-exploitation/sci-fi/horror/indie/arthouse phenomenon or both or bust.
Re: Independent/arthouse of the 90s: I always see the indie scene of the 90s, historically, as an continuation of the same scene of the 80s. Sort of like how it worked for music, where Nirvana built upon the path blazed by Husker Du and The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr., the arthouse successes of the nineties were there because of the trail blazed by your Spike Lees and Jim Jarmusches. It was more part of a cultural change in it's entirety - the coming of age of Gen X - than strictly a film movement. In my opinion, anyway. And, like the music, it was co-opted in the blink of an eye. That's all arguable, of course. But my big question about a potential upcoming American New Wave is: Why hasn't it happened yet? In the 80s and 90s, to make an independent feature cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (notwithstanding outliers like El Mariachi and Clerks). Today, a film-maker could sink a fraction of that money into digital film production and make movies forever. We're in an age where guys like the team that does the Crash series work with consumer level, off the shelf equipment because it's cheaper and basically the same quality. So why hasn't there already been a massive groundswell of new film-makers? Look at what's happened to music or comics or comedy in the past ten years: Technology has made the means of production of these things much more affordable and there's been an EXPLOSION of independent music, of digital comics, of comedy podcasts. Film-makers have had the same technical revolution, but there hasn't been the equivalent explosion. This is not to say you're wrong, understand. I'm genuinely curious as to where these new film-makers are hiding.
Edit: Shiiit. I completely did not mean to derail the Videodrome thread. :( Do you want to erase this and take it to PM or another thread, man? Because I really wanna keep talking about this but don't wanna fuck up yo' thread! Well, why did it take nearly twenty years after the code fell for the original American New Wave to happen? That's a rhetorical question, obviously, but we have even more problems facing young/amateur/non-major film-makers today than ever before; the ease of access to an audience and the ease of which you can make a digital film and digital's inherent cheapness are all red herrings. Fifty years after the next major film renaissance happens we'll be able to look back and academically discuss the reasons why there was a 20 or 30 year gap between the quality films in the 90s and the next quality film movement, but as of now, my best guess is the following combination: (1) Film-makers who don't work within the existing major studio system still have not found the best avenue of distribution. I am not talking just young upstarts, I am talking all non-majors. If you make festival-bait and it doesn't sell - you're SOL. If you make arthouse cinema and it doesn't play well in Los Angeles or New York or, to a lesser degree, Chicago - you're SOL. If your niche independent film or independent documentary doesn't do well in its first or second week at the nation's only "arthouse" chain (Landmark) - you're SOL. That's if you even seek traditional distribution - good luck with VOD, streaming or Youtube. As with music, the new reality for upstart film-makers is that you're appealing to eyeballs and nothing but. (2) Confirmation bias. You don't think there's a massive groundswell of new film-makers, so you don't see them. They're there. (Likewise: I think there's a massive groundswell of new film-makers, so I do "see" them.) They're making far too many shitty horror films, but they're there. At Facets. At Odd Obsession. At I Luv Video. At Scarecrow. On Netflix. On Youtube. Films and film-makers taking the Evil Dead film-making ethic and running with it. Films so poorly made that the only way you'll ever get to watch them is by walking into the only local video shop distributing copies of it - watch them and you can see the love for the craft, though. (3) You want me to make feature length films and do what with them? This relates to (1). Film-making might be cheaper than ever, but that doesn't mean it's cheap. Upstart film-makers have virtually zero chance of a ROI. It's all about eyeballs. Sure, if you're making Evil Dead, and it's a labor of love, that's great, who gives a fuck, but most films aren't Evil Dead and most people do give a fuck. Bands are easy to manage because it's four guys who own all their own shit and play locally/regionally after work. It doesn't equate to making a film. On top of however many untrained actors, who will each fuck up virtually every take numerous times, you have crew, who will each fuck up virtually every take numerous times. All of you have day jobs. The ones who don't and do this for a living want to get paid. If you don't do this for a living, you have to work to pay them. If you make movies for a living, you need to sell this to pay them. And you're telling me you're just going to give this away for fucking eyeballs and nothing but? If you put a movie on Youtube before you have a plan to monetize it then you're never going to make any money on it. Moreover, I'm seriously curious as to how the internet - ease of access - has vastly inflated the fan:buyer ratio. It certainly has with music. It's harder than ever for musicians, even though people so often like to claim that the internet has saved independent music. That might sound like a joke, but it's not. RLM are how popular and their cheap-as-fuck completely awesome horror movie has probably sold a fraction of as many copies. (4) It's easier to be creative in television - and it shows, as most quality tv is of higher quality than quality film. No shit. You want to be creative right now? Go into television. Or be a comedian. Or animation. Or anime. Or comics. Or writing. Or games. Entertainment has diversified so much in the last fifty and even twenty years that it's not hard to see that people who previously might have been film-makers are now making quality television or are going into comedy or any other field of visual entertainment. Even theater has had a revival over the past 20 years. Theater. Was that by accident? (5) Why would Hollywood, and its three major supporting theater chains, give them a chance? Everything the system does is designed to minimize risk, mitigate loss and maximize profit. The unknown tosses that entire system on its head. Studio executives don't much care one way or another whether a film is made so long as it makes money, and studio heads of old were notorious for roadblocking projects based on personal grudges or dislike for the material, so it isn't exactly like the olden days were golden. What studio executives do care about is numbers and the numbers tell them that they can make the exact same cheap cynical bullshit on a weekly basis and the stupid fucking American public will go see it. Moreover, they'd rather go see that than a film that actually tries, no matter how entertaining or good it might be. QED: "The Amazing Spiderman" has made $140m (global) more than "The Dark Knight Rises". Will the latter catch up? Probably. Does that still depress the ever-living shit out of me? Sure fucking does. The problem isn't that these film-makers don't exist or that Hollywood doesn't want to give them a chance - they do and it has before, repeatedly, and will again - it's us. We're the problem. We always have been. With all forms of entertainment. Studio heads and their executives (aside from the rare "creative", although some critics contend they're more widespread now) only care about numbers - whether that's money or demographics or something else depends entirely on what part of the process they're trying to control - the film is only the unwanted by-product of connecting the dots from one set of numbers to the next.
I don't mind derailing this thread, Bryce. There's not really much to be said about a Videodrome remake past "Hands up who thinks that's gonna work? Yeah, that's what I thought." Again, I want to underscore that I do not think any of your analysis is necessarily wrong. It might be spot on, for all I know. The question of "Where's the next great American New Wave?" is not one I think I have an answer to. I merely have the perspective of a forty-something die-hard movie nut who's been absorbing movies since I could turn a UHF dial. That said: 1) Very true. And here's where I fix my beret firmly to my head and say: "Is video streaming really cinema?" In other words, is the experience of watching a movie over the internet on your phone really the same thing as seeing a movie properly projected on a screen as a communal experience? Maybe it is. But I suspect at least some of the problems I'm having discovering new film-makers who are making the kinds of film I'm interested in (more on that later) is that the language of cinema itself has been debased. This is why, I suspect, I will be the last person still buying movies on bluray, just like I'm one of the last people on Earth that still buys CDs: quality of experience is important when it comes to a visual medium. 2) Some truth to that, as well. There might be some tremendously talented film-makers out there grinding out the tenth sequel to Cabin Fever or something, but I'll never know because it completely doesn't interest me. What I DO know, though, is there are very little film-makers making movies of the type that I find interesting. Which is why when something like the recent Rubber comes out, everybody jumps on it because there's so little in the way of formal experimentation within American movies anymore. I happen to think Rubber was a pretty terrible movie, but I was more than willing to meet it halfway because at least it was trying. 3) The internet maybe hasn't been so hot for rock bands, but that's only one kind of music. For electronic or hip-hop guys, the past ten years has been a complete gamechanger. Dudes who make beats in their bedrooms can be heard by millions of people. Look at a dude like Skrillex, who released his music for freesies and now makes an insane shitload of money DJing, pretty much bypassing any sort of normal music-industry template altogether. 4) I'm not sure that's it's easier to be creative in television. Dan Harmon, for one, might wildly disagree. The AMC-style shows run by clear auterist types like Matthew Weiner or VInce Gilligan are still very much the exception and not the rule. But to the wider point - that there's more ways to be creative these days, that afford a greater amount of control over the final product than movies do - that's certainly true. I often wonder if the age of cinema is just, you know, over. Not to say there won't be movies made, but the idea of movies being the main focal point for serious artistic expression (like novels were to the 19th century) like it has been for the past 70 or so years might just be over with. 5) Very true. That's why we didn't see a wave of heady, adult sci-fi after Inception made $800 million - there's nothing in Inception that's easily cloneable. The 70s New Wave came out because the studios were floundering and had no idea how to appeal to a new, younger audience, so they said "Well, what the fuck, let's let these hippie weirdos roll the dice for a while." Something similar needs to happen, I think, before a new New Wave.
By the way, kids: Videodrome turns thirty years old today. In it's honour, I'm totally gonna fuck my television tonight.
I saw the title and immediately confused it with Terrorvision, which made for a far more bizarre, entertaining read as madkevin treated it like a lost work of art.
This forum must have awesome SEO. It's already one of the top hitsTHE TOP HIT for Videodrome Stomach Vagina. edit, the next morning: And now it's not. Wtf.
