The Category of a Remake Reconsidered
Abstract
The author describes and analyses the category of a remake as a cultural practice rated as a “worse” version of a box office hit or a phenomenon belonging to the postmodern “culture of exhaustion”. The tendency of repetition results from the very nature of the medium – reproduction. What then is the difference between a remake and other kinds of repetition: allusion, citing, adaptation? Film is a medium that operates in the sphere of representation. Remake is remarkable, in that it is a representation of a representation. In examining this phenomenon, we emphasise the relationship between the persistent need for repetition and cinema as part of the cultural field of production (which are different discursive practices). Cinema is a place of social and cultural memory, and each movie is in fact “re-made” – distributed and transformed in each new context and re-watching. Aesthetic and cultural trajectories defined by a remake refer to the origins of cinema. The remake is also a specific, institutional form of the structure of repetition. How a remake functions as both a stand-alone text and just a remake? Remake is a category that is part of the film industry (marketing strategies, author, brand), textual category (genre, plot, structure) and critical category (viewers – reception, the institution). Remakes just like Altman’s genres, make sense in transcending the whole body of films. Remaking is therefore not only an internal property of texts or audiences, but a by-product, a secondary result of the wider discursive activity.
Keywords:
remake, Robert Altman, culture of exhaustionReferences
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Authors
Agnieszka Nierackakwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of Silesia Poland
Dr hab., wykładowca w Zakładzie Filmoznawstwa i Wiedzy o Mediach Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. Zajmuje się problematyką przemian audiowizualnej kultury popularnej w kontekście przemian technologicznych, ponowoczesnym kinem gatunków, technologiami cielesności. Autorka tekstów poświęconych tej tematyce w tomach zbiorowych. Współredaktorka książki Media, ciało, pamięć. O współczesnych tożsamościach kulturowych (2006).
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