Play It Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes (Paperback)

~ Andrew Horton (Editor), Stuart Y. McDougal (Editor) "In this essay I propose a suggestion, based on an application of aspects of cultural studies, that is designed to provide a methodologically coherent approach..." (more)
Key Phrases: celluloid surgery, cinematic remakes, film remade, New York, Hong Kong, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This collection of original essays on movie remakes explores the phenomenon from divergent anglesAand not just the artistic. Included are a psychological examination of the motivation of a specific director (Spielberg), a Freudian dissection of an often-filmed story (The Jazz Singer), how being the product of a specific time and culture effects a remake (Robin Hood), and an inspection of popular mythology (Dracula). In their choice of essays, editors Horton and McDougal have stretched the common definition of movie remake almost beyond usefulness. They include in this category not only films that are new versions of movies previously made but also adaptations from other media; movies that allude in a single shot, camera angle, motif, or line to an earlier film; and makeovers, which they define as a film that substantially alters the original for its own purposes. Still, little serious has been written on the subject of movie remakes, recommending this for academic libraries and subject collections.AMarianne Cawley, Charleston Cty. Lib., S.C.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Play It Again, Sam is a timely investigation of a topic that until now has received almost no critical attention in film and cultural studies: the cinematic remake. As cinema enters its second century, more remakes are appearing than ever before, and these writers consider the full range: Hollywood films that have been recycled by Hollywood, such as The Jazz Singer, Cape Fear, and Robin Hood; foreign films including Breathless; and Three Men and a Baby, which Hollywood has reworked for American audiences; and foreign films based on American works, among them Yugoslav director Emir Kusturica's Time of the Gypsies, which is a "makeover" of Coppola's Godfather films. As these essays demonstrate, films are remade by other films (Alfred Hitchcock went so far as to remake his own The Man Who Knew Too Much) and by other media as well.
The editors and contributors draw upon narrative, film, and cultural theories, and consider gender, genre, and psychological issues, presenting the "remake" as a special artistic form of repetition with a difference and as a commercial product aimed at profits in the marketplace. The remake flourishes at the crossroads of the old and the new, the known and the unknown. Play It Again, Sam takes the reader on an eye-opening tour of this hitherto unexplored territory.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520205936
• ISBN-13: 978-0520205932
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,261,360 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Nuggets Amidst the Jargon, April 17, 2002

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The nineteen essays collected here (along with introduction and afterword) grapple with various aspects of cinematic "remakes", and while most have something to offer the general reader, many get bogged down in attempting to find a definition or critical space for remakes. In other words, to get to the good stuff, you're going to have to wade through a lot of critical jargon from psychoanalytic film theory and cultural studieswords such as "intertextuality," "oedipal" and "postmodernity" pop up a lot. That caveat aside, there are plenty of nuggets to reward the patient reader.

Albert Kolker's "Recalculating the Hitchcock Formula" is an intriguing analysis of Martin Scorcese's Cape Fear, in which it is proposed that Scorcese remade Cape Fear by simultaneously remaking Hitchcock's Stage Fright, I Confess, and Stranger on a Train. Dan Georgakas's essay on Robin Hood effectively shows how the 1938 and 1991 versions each embodied the cultural and political trends of their time. Michael Brashinsky's considers Bergman's Virgin Spring and Wes Craven's The Last House of the Left in an examination of how a to remake a European "art" film into a low-budget slasher picture. In "The Superhero With A Thousand Faces," Luca Somigli provides a cogent analyses of the relationship of superhero film franchises such as Batman and Superman to their comic-book sources. His elegant conclusion is that such projects are based on the accumulated myth of the characters and setting, rather than being remakes. My favorite essay is Elisabeth Weis's exploration on how the film M*A*S*H was adapted for television and managed to continually reinvent itself while maintaining audience loyalty. Other essays have their moments, but the ones above will be the most accessible and interesting to the general reader.