Film remakes - Constantine Verevis

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of the phenomenon of cinematic remaking. Drawing upon recent theories of genre and intertextuality, Film Remakes describes remaking as both an elastic concept and a complex situation, one enabled and limited by the interrelated roles and practices of industry, critics and audiences. This approach to remaking is developed across three broad sections: the first, remaking as industrial category, deals with issues of production, including commerce and authors; the second, remaking as textual category, considers genre, plots and structures; and the third, remaking as critical category, investigates issues of reception, including audiences and institutions. The film remake emerges as a particular case of repetition, a function of cinematic and discursive fields that is maintained by historically specific practices, such as copyright law and authorship, canon formation and media literacy, film criticism and re-viewing. These points are made through the lively discussion of numerous historical and contemporary examples, including the remaking of classics (Double Indemnity, All That Heaven Allows, Psycho), foreign art-films (Yojimbo, Solaris, Le Samoura), cult movies (Gun Crazy, Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Dead), and television properties (Batman, The Addams Family, Charlie's Angels).

Constantine Verevis is Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne. He is author of Film Remakes (Edinburgh UP, 2006) and co-author of Australian Film Theory and Criticism, Vol. I: Critical Positions (2013). His co-edited books include Second Takes: Critical Approaches to the Film Sequel (2010), Film Trilogies: New Critical Approaches (2012), B Is for Bad Cinema: Aesthetics, Politics and Cultural Value (2014) and US Independent Film After 1989: Possible Films (2015).

A fine work of scholarship, Film Remakes promises to change the way we think about the phenomenon of the remake, and indeed about films, culture and intertextuality. This is the most authoritative, subtle and complex work on the cinematic remake that I have encountered. Verevis moves elegantly between history, theoretical argument and case studies
Lesley Stern, Professor of Film and Media, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego

Constantine's Verevis's recent study is a welcome addition to the growing discourse on the sea of topics that 'remakes' embrace that will prove invaluable for students, scholars of media studies as well as for disciplined general readers of cinematic culture.
Screening the Past

The book offers an elegant and insightful review of previous scholarly writing on film remakes and a series of case-studies -- ranging from close textual analyses to the exploration of fan, copyright and industrial discourses -- that pin down the remake in both a critical and historical fashion, offering both students and scholars an essential guide to approach film remakes.
SCOPE: An Online Journal of Film Studies

In this groundbreaking study, Constantine Verevis explores an aspect of commercial film production interesting to the scholar and movie enthusiast alike: remaking. Film remakes can be profitably viewed from a number of perspectives, and this book provides an intriguing and revealing anatomy of the phenomenon. Verevis writes with verve and insight; an important feature of Film Remakes is the series of individual analyses that sparkle with revealing and intelligent comment as they clarify general points about remaking. Though theoretically informed, this book is wonderfully accessible to the general reader.
R. Barton Palmer, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University

Constantine's Verevis's recent study is a welcome addition to the growing discourse on the sea of topics that 'remakes' embrace that will prove invaluable for students, scholars of media studies as well as for disciplined general readers of cinematic culture. - Screeing the Past, online journal, Issue 20