Paramount has announced they plan to produce a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece “Vertigo,” with Robert Downey Jr. in the role played by James Stewart.
No. Please don’t. For one thing, RD Jr is no Jimmy Stewart. Not even close. Look what happened when they did a shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho.” Some classics should just be left alone.
I wonder if they are going to update the conditions of the story to the present day, and how they will try to make it appeal to contemporary audiences. I don’t mind the idea of other actors, but the script and the director together made that movie. Whatever changes they make from the original, I doubt they will be able to put together such an effective combination a second time.
I am just really tired of all those remakes in general. Everything coming out of Hollywood nowadays is either a super hero franchise, a remake, a musical, or a cartoon. Very few original ideas are being produced.
I don’t understand shot-for-shot remakes outside of acting or filmmaking projects for educational purposes. Why wouldn’t I just watch the original, which is already considered a masterpiece?
I’m not falling for it.
I probably gave a wrong impression when I mentioned the shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho.” That does not seem to be planned for “Vertigo.” I was just trying to emphasize the wrong-headedness of remaking Hitchcock, when even if you copied Hitch exactly the results could still be terrible.
So they’re making a replica of the first one? Maybe dress it up in new clothes?
According to IMDB, Vertigo has already been remade…four times.
Huihun ye (1962) – Hong Kong
Al Wahm (1978) - Egypt
La Présence des Ombres (1995) – France/Canada
Officer (2001) - India
And that doesn’t even count films inspired by it.
As for Beyond Oblivion (1956): “The similarity of the plot theme of Vertigo (1958) and Beyond Oblivion (1956), shot two years before in Buenos Aires, obsessed all Argentine movie buffs for decades. Finally the question was elucidated: the link between both films is the novella “Bruges-la-Morte” (1893) of the Belgian writer Georges Rodenbach. Hugo del Carril adapted it directly. Alfred Hitchcock indirectly, through a French novel entitled “D’Entre Les Morts” (1954) that its authors Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac hatched a childish police plot about the double tragedy of Rodenbach.” - Más allá del olvido (1956) - Trivia - IMDb
Well, not everything. But your point is taken, save that you neglected my special cinematic nemesis: live-action remakes of animated features.
*golf clap*
Stranger
Well, except for the film that just won Best Picture.
I thought Mel Brooks had already had a go, as well
The original was done very well, with two Hollywood greats - Jimmy Stewart + Kim Novak. Plus it was directed by Hitchcock. Is there any wonder that this is one of the classic films that made the biggest impression on me? I’ll give the makers of the remake the benefit of the doubt, but I’ll say this: they have some big shoes to fill.
I do hope they update certain things to appeal to contemporary audiences. In particular, I hope the remake won’t contain a scene from the original where Stewart dragged Novak, first to a clothes store, where he insisted a particular suit be purchased for her, then to a hairdresser’s, where he demanded her hair be colored a specific shade of blonde, both against her will, so that she would look exactly like the woman she reminded him of, and the (female) staff at both places ignored her protests and calmly went along with his demands! That should definitely go. This is 2023, not 1960.
After Hollywood runs out of old classic movies (or TV shows) to strip-mine for remake material, what do they do then?
Oh duh, I know the answer. Start all over again and remake the remakes, of course.
Well, you’re certainly not putting a good spin on it.
I think it was Roger Ebert who said something along the lines of “why do they remake good movies? They should remake bad movies into good movies.”
What, like The Velocipastor?
“Judy, please, it can’t matter to you!”
When I saw this in the theater in the 1980s, the entire audience burst out laughing at this line.
She agreed to those things because she was in love with him, and she (somewhat neurotically) went along. She never protested to the staff, only to him, but she couldn’t change his mind. At least that’s the way I remember it. He was obsessed, but so was she.
One thing to remember about this movie, it’s a tragedy. There is no happy resolution, (spoiler alert) at the end she is dead and he, although recovered from his vertigo, is completely lost to the possibility of happiness (probably); and it was all caused by his obsessive love. Maybe they should make an opera of it, instead of a movie, the material fits better. Anyway, will a remake be able to sell that ending to audiences, or will they try somehow to change it?
To be clear, Stewart is not a hero in this story in any sense; he is a man so obsessed with ‘correcting’ a mistake by re-enacting it that he suborninates, bullies, and eventually places the object of his obsession in a scenario into mortal peril (and ultimate death). The movie is supposed to be a psychological study, although not a very realistic one (and changes and omits significant elements of the source material, the novel D’entre les morts) and quite frankly Hitchcock was a major creep who would have been #MeToo’d out of Hollywood today faster than you can say, “Weinstein”. The film is most notable for the use of color and cinematography (particularly the “trombone shot” and the much copied free-floating figure over a rotating animated background indicating a descent into insanity) but it doesn’t make a lot of sense from any narrative standpoint, and the acting is stilted and uncomfortable (except for Barbara Bel Geddes’ ‘Midge’, who just completely disappears from the film about halfway through).
Vertigo has nothing of the enduring appeal of Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, or North By Northwest (although the latter has its own issues that are pretty ridiculous by modern standards) and I think it is vastly overrated just because of the reputation it had in the day. Maybe there is a place for remaking this movie today that explicitly references the abusive relationship and alters the dynamic between the characters, but a straight remake is not only unnecessary but likely completely unappealing to a modern audience.
Stranger