09 April 2005
the importance of history
Just watched the not-very-brilliant Open Your Eyes, and just after it had finished, the announcer mentioned that tomorrow night we could see the 'modern remake'. Now, given that the original is from 1997, and the remake Vanilla Sky 2001, is this four year gap really long enough to separate the modern from what preceded it (the pre-modern? the pre-millennial?). Or is this temporal division split instead along hollywood/non-hollywood lines, where everything from the former is by definition that which constitutes the modern, and everything else (everything European, let's say), is automatically nothing more than prequel material for the 'real' version which would be the Hollywood remake? Like many contemporary Japanese horror films, or even British comedy shows like The Office, is seems possible that these cultural objects exist only to be remade by 'America' and then sent back to the rest of the world under cover of their neutral, all-encompassing, global sheen.
