Get this: maybe I won't even need to bother seeing The Lives of Others (2006). By the time I can, I'm sure this idea for a movie, which I've read about at IMDb, will already be in theatres:
German Oscar Winner Set for Hollywood Remake
The Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film is to be remade as a Hollywood movie. German espionage drama The Lives Of Others will be revamped as an English-language film with moviemakers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella coming together for the project. Pollack tells trade paper Daily Variety, "We would just desperately love for that film to be something that reaches more people. We haven't gotten locked into making it yet, but we're working hard at trying to get it going." The film's writer/director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck claimed Oscar gold for the film in February.
Now I understand they're just toying with the idea of adapting it, but will they transport the story elsewhere? The fuckin' historical context is what makes this movie interesting. Without that, you have something else, so don't talk about "remaking" it. Anyone who knows me knows that there is nothing in film I dislike more than the remaking of perfectly good foreign-language films so that they supposedly see a wider audience. (People don't like to read movies, after all.) The originals don't reach wider audiences because English-language filmmakers have "culturally appropriated" these films so that viewers don't realize the "adaptations" are remakes and thus are less likely to see the point in viewing the original. There just needs to be a campaign or something to better advertise foreign-language films. It would be a lot cheaper than remaking a whole film, scene by scene, with more recognizable faces. (See this for more information.)
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Just the idea of this infuriates me so much. You're exactly right, the social, cultural, and historical context is what makes this movie powerful. It's not going to work in an Anglophone situation. And making an English-language movie that takes place in Germany based on a previously made one is very stupid. Why can't these hacks just come up with their own original ideas?
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