Old Things Made New
There is a story that is retold in my family about having eavesdropped on a teenager thumbing through the record bin at Musicland in what was then Seville Square in Kansas City.
“I didn’t know Paul McCartney was in another group before he was in ‘Wings’ !”
I am now at an age where I remember the original versions of movies and recognize riffs from the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s (more commonly known as ‘samples’) that pop up in current songs that I hear on Sirius. Freaky Friday with teenage ingenue Jody Foster became Freaky Friday with teenage ingenue Lindsay Lohan. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? was remade as Guess Who? and starred an unmemorable Ashton Kutcher. Were I to have had a different life trajectory that included having kids in my 20′s, they would now be old enough to want me to take them to the “new” Witch Mountain movie staring Duane “The Rock” Johnson, a remake of 1975′s Escape to Witch Mountain.
Is it cynical to think that there are no new ideas out there ? Or are remakes a fond tribute to the movies and songs that make us all gooey in the center? Since our collective grasp of technology is so far beyond what existed even 10 years ago, do we re-tell these stories simply to catch them up with what we can do? And when, if ever, have the remakes been better or even as good as the original?
Then there are films that seem impervious to the remake. Gone with the Windcomes to mind. A studio film in every sense with stars who are iconic in how we think of them in roles that made them famous. When Atlanta burns to the ground, it’s as primitive a special effect as any. How does that film not get remade staring High School Musical’s Zac Effron and Vanessa Hudgins? I’m not saying that it should…
At a time when recycling, and being “green” is at the epicenter of our consciousness, can you re-purpose and re-imagine indeed, reclycle relationships? Can you make something new, from something old? Can the boy who kissed you in 8th grade, be the man you are supposed to be with now?
And, in the end, it comes down to the question that closes this entry . . .