will they dig up conrad veidt, as well?
They're remaking the
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Dear God, why?
I don't know a whole lot about art, or film as art. What I do know is that I am a big fan of the Expressionist movement. It consisted primarily of Germans that had survived the first Great War, and talked about the War and the aftermath through art. The result is surreal, disturbing work of an authentic nature that absolutely no one has matched since.
Caligari is one of the best examples of that art form. Everything from the plot, to the costuming, to the scenery reflects a reality that is...shattered. Broken beyond repair. Whatever adjectives you want to apply to it, it is a direct product of the world from which it was made and the lives of the people that made it. That can not only be replaced; it cannot be effectively mimiced.
So why the hell are they remaking it? I find it hard to believe that they will produce anything of artistic merit out of it; the very fact that it's an update precludes a whole lot, and, as I said, the original is very much a product of its times. There's alot to be said about "Right Now", but pirating an exemplar piece of art and trying to force it into a modern light dosen't seem like too clever of an idea to me. It isn't going to be a big blockbuster; Caligari means nothing to too many people for it to matter.
I'm not an artist, but I do consider myself to be something of a writer. And I would never try to take, say, Slaughterhouse-5 and rewrite it to make it fit into 2005. It's a work all its own, a product of its times, and wouldn't work today. I wouldn't want to rewrite "Howl". My girlfriend, who is a painter, wouldn't take Max Ernst's work and re-paint it, no matter how much she admres the originals.
So why does the film industry insist on doing it? We're not talking about remaking the Exorcist or Willy Wonka here; much as I love those movies, they can be spun off into new movies. But Caligari?
I don't get it. I can't find a whole lot of information about the new one, but I don't like the shots on the main website already.
I don't know. I guess, depending on what they do with it, I may get fairly excited about it; I may even like it. That depends very, very heavily on what they do with it. But my strong initial reaction is, Dear God, why?
Bad news via Michele, who also has a handy
list of how we can stop things like this from happening.
