Remaking Film

Abstract

What is film remaking? Which films are remakes of other films? How does remaking differ from other types of repetition, such as quotation, allusion, adaptation? How is remaking different from the cinemas ability to repeat and replay the same film through reissue, redistribution and re-viewing? These are questions which have seldom been asked, let alone satisfactorily answered. This article refers to books and essays dealing directly with ‘film remakes’ and the concept of ‘remaking film’, from Michael B. Druxman‘s Make It Again, Sam (1975) to Horton and McDougal‘s Play It Again, Sam (1998) and Forrest and Koo‘s’ Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice (2002). In addition, this article draws upon Rick Altman‘s Film/Genre, developing from that book the idea that, although film remakes (like film genres) are often ‘located’ in either authors or texts or audiences, they are in fact not located in any single place but depend upon a network of historically variable relationships. Accordingly this discussion falls into three sections: the first, remaking as industrial category, deals with issues of production, including industry (commerce) and authors (intention); the second, remaking as textual category, considers texts (plots and structures) and taxonomies; and the third, remaking as critical category, deals with issues of reception, including audiences (recognition) and institutions (discourse).