General - Remakes Of Older Films

[silverwhistle]

Originally Posted by Carmel Did anyone ever truly watch a remake and say that was better than the original, too many older films are being remade and botched in my opinion. I never seen or never i suppose will see a remake that was far better than the original, originals fitted their era and remaking them makes them awful. To many like so many are destined for Dvd release straight away and not to many add these remakes to their collections. can anyone ever imagine remaking Gone with the wind or The wizard of oz, no these were classics and i intend to keep them in my mind as just that.

The main ones I can think of are literary adaptations, which are open to reinterpretation in every generation.
I think the 1992 Kosminsky Wuthering Heights is the best to date (bar the BBC 1978 serialisation): far more faithful to the book, and with a seriously evil Ralph Fiennes. I prefer the BBC Great Gatsby (with Toby Stephens) to the overblown Robert Redford film which swamped the human drama with visual spectacle. I also prefer Alla Nazimova's silent Camille to Garbo's.

It should also be remembered that the much-loved Bogart adaptation of The Maltese Falcon is, in fact, the third. I'd be interested to see the first (pre-Hays Code) one.

[Carmel]

Silver whistle as for your quote Trust me im a doctor as my nan always said never trust a doctor, all their mistakes are buried.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Carmel Silver whistle as for your quote Trust me im a doctor as my nan always said never trust a doctor, all their mistakes are buried.

I know a lot of PhDs as well as MDs so I always ask what the doctorate is in

Steve

[batman]

Not all doctors are barmy .....

Bats.

[Hanseat]

Originally Posted by batman Did Lem give any specific reasons for disliking Soderbergh's version?

Lem was a notorious quibbler when it came to his texts, forever annoyed about perceived misconceptions and misinterpretations – maybe not quite surprising coming from a man so concerned about the impossiblity of communication between different beings, and not just between human and (possibly higher) being, as in Solaris. Therefore his complaints have to be taken with a grain of salt. Although in the case of Soderbergh's Solaris, despite never actually having seen the film, he did hit the nail on the head when he remarked: "[…]to my best knowledge, the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of people in outer space..." (full text of his comments on the Soderbergh film)

Originally Posted by Nick Dando The consensus of the obituary's for Stanislaw Lem were that the only English translation of Solaris is not very good. I've still to read it, after making a start a couple of years ago.

I don't think there is any translation of Lem's literary output which has not been denounced as inaccurate and incompetent at one point or another. Of course there is always something lost in the translation, but a good translation will find ways to make up for it. In Lem's case, the complexity of his writing combined with the complexities of his topics certainly put high demands on the translator; but the fact that Lem has found an ardent following among so many readers who only know him in translation is encouraging. Also, scifi fans are more obsessive about these things than any other group of readers, though not always correctly or reasonably so - interestingly enough, most complaints about supposedly bad translations of Lem's writings concern his science fiction. I have read Lem, and Solaris in particular, in a number of different translations and have found most quite acceptable, the English one included, despite its questionable origins.

Hanseat