Stupid as it may seem!
This needs to be remake!!! By Peter jackson in my opinion.
shareIt has been remade, the movies is called "Jaws"...
On a side note, it would be great to see someone buy the rights to the original film and change the score as it sits. I believe the music in the sound track takes away from the performances by the actors. You change the existing music to this film and it would go from a 7 to a 9 easy. Though I am sure Jackson would build a fine remake. I can not think of an actor who could play Ahab. Harrison Ford comes to mind, physically and his age seems right, I could see him barking orders.
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How about Morgan Freeman as Ahab? Besides being a great actor, Freeman is a boatsman who sails the Caribbean. As Ahab, his hatred of the "white whale" would take on extra significance. Plus, towards the end of the nineteenth century there were more than a few black whaling skippers trolling the oceans of the world. Think about it before you put down this idea.
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isn't morgan freeman black?
shareWhy, yes, he is. And that means what? Interesting that color always seems to define a character instead of looking at the merits of an actor who could bring a character like Ahab to obsessed life as Gregory Peck did. I could see Morgan Freeman bringing out Ahab's hatred of the poor whale.
shareA black captain Abah would not work for the simple reason that this would have definitive racial connotations, not at all intended by Melville. Think about it, black Ahab, white whale... everybody would think the director intended to make a racial statement.
shareIf you are going to have a black captain then I'd suggest Samuel L. Jackson. He would be perfect for captain Ahab. The best part is that you could play up the racial overtones. You could have him go off book in the middle of the movie somewhere ranting about 'this whole white whale thing'. It would be a hilarious tension breaker in the middle of the movie. Then you could build back up to the final battle
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The story takes place on a Massachusetts based whaling ship in 1841. A Black captain would be an impossibility. There were many free Black in Massachusetts and Yankees were progressive, but not that progressive. No White man would allow himself, especially not officers including the first mate to be subordinated to a Black captain. Making a Black actor the captain of a whale boat on the ship would probably be realistic, but the social conditions of that time and place were what they were.
As an artistic move a director could make the casting, but like others have already said, it would make a statement not intended by the author. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in that, but it would be a statement.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
the right honorable farley~ "How about Morgan Freeman as Ahab? Besides being a great actor, Freeman is a boatsman who sails the Caribbean. As Ahab, his hatred of the "white whale" would take on extra significance. Plus, towards the end of the nineteenth century there were more than a few black whaling skippers trolling the oceans of the world. Think about it before you put down this idea."
You know what, farley? Nantucket had a very famous all-African American whaleship way back in 1822!, captained by a man named Absalom Boston, born free on Nantucket. This was right around the same time as the Essex disaster which was the inspiration for Melville's Moby Dick. For what its worth, whaling crews were often very diverse racially and ethnically, probably because it was dangerous and filthy dirty work that required one to be gone for many months or even a few years at a time.
Absalom Boston was a notable Nantucketer, in addition to being the first African American to captain a ship (and with an all-African America crew, all of whom returned safely after a six month voyage, which was an accomplishment in that very dangerous industry), was also a successful businessman, community leader and, when his daughter was refused entry to the public schools there, on Nantucket, he successfully sued the town to integrate the schools - in 1845 - more than a hundred years before school integration issues would reach a critical mass in the rest of the country!!!!!
That said, and while acknowledging that it would be a particularly interesting choice for all of the reasons you've cited, I don't think that I can ever sit through another Morgan Freeman performance and please! not as Ahab!! He's been over-utilized, and over-exposed I'd say. I don't think that he's an especially gifted actor. He plays himself very well, but there's not a lot of range there and whenever someone wants to cast an African American man to play a role that connotes gravitas, wisdom and intelligence, steady maturity and general mensch-ness, why must it always be him???? Surely, there's got to be plenty of other guys out there who can fit that bill.
I don't think that I can ever sit through another Morgan Freeman performance and please! not as Ahab!! He's been over-utilized, and over-exposed I'd say. I don't think that he's an especially gifted actor.
That may be, but I can't imagine anyone else playing "Easy Reader." share
How did I miss this post by you, jackboot? Always full of nsight. Are you the resident whaling expert at the Mystic Seaport?Actually, Freeman would probably be too old to play this part anyway; and yes, maybe I'm caught up more in his reputation than ability. That said, I think Freeman is a very fine actor who's been sabotaged by much typecasting as the lead character's sagious (sp) mentor and gentle elder. I remember a couple of his earlier roles: STREET SMART (which I've only seen about 1/2 hour of) and LEAN ON ME, and in these, he has some fiery scenes that I felt were commanding.
I'm not one of those who thinks films (even classics) shouldn't be re-made, but I certainly believe that if a re-make is bad it should be expunged from the public record and banished to the video bin at one's local record store (I point you to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and PSYCHO).
Hey Farley!
No, I just lived on Nantucket for around ten years and I happen to find history interesting. And that was a place with some interesting history, right there under your feet. Particularly regarding the Essex tragedy connection to Moby Dick.
Morgan Freeman has turned in some nice performances over the years. But I think that he's been pigeon-holed into that certain kind of role and that we, as movie going consumers, see too much of him in that one role. He has a wonderful presence and he definitely does bring across intelligence, steady maturity, strength, gravitas and all those things I mentioned before. He also can be a bit stiff at times. Okay, it was a fatally flawed venture from the start, but Morgan Freeman really threw a wet blanket over Bonfire of the Vanities. I just wish that there were more than one actor who would be called upon to fulfill that kind of role, because there's just got to be many others whom are equally qualified. It's kind of insulting to the audience and I think that it's limiting in terms of opening the public's eyes to embracing a wider variety of actors that can transcend the bad old racial stereotypes.
Some movies shouldn't be remade, I think. Movies that are too closely tied to a particular time and that are strongly identified with that movie's stars and that have held up as still being watchable and well-loved classics don't usually fare too well being remade. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of "The Women" (recent remake was a complete failure), or "Miracle on 34th Street" (stinker with bad choices made to tweak the story in the remake), or "The Big Sleep" (it's not so bad, great cast but I can't place it in the same ballpark with the Bogart and Bacall vehicle that was the original), or "The Philadelphia Story" (I can't even imagine how someone could pull that off if they were to try). The time when the originals were made fit them and they've held up fairly well largely based on the overall success of the execution of the production but also, something that has gained critical mass as a "classic" whether solely or just largely because of it's principle cast members is going to be an especially hard act to follow with a remake.
Classic works of literature are always fair game, I'd say, but, again, some movie versions of classic literature that have achieved classic status in their own right are so strongly identified with the stars in them, that the originals present a huge hurdle to a remake. Who would try to remake Ben Hur, even though Wyler's Ben Hur was in itself a remake? Everyone wants to remake A Christmas Carol, these days it's kind of a mature actor's "Hamlet lite" - seems like they all want to take a crack at it! Kenneth Brannagh did a nice job with Henry V, he took on the Olivier claim to ownership of that title and managed to acquit himself more than admirably. Moby Dick should be worth remaking, but what filmmaker would be faithful to the original novel and be able to fund and mount a production these days? And who would go see it? I'm afraid that our dumbed down culture of today would just shrug its shoulders and it would die at the box office.
Actually, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY WAS re-made as a Cole Porter musical called HIGH SOCIETY with Crosby and Sinatra. I think what you're leading to is, original cinematic material should not be re-made while literature classics are fair game.
High Society was different enough, turning it into a musical, that I don't think of the two as the same property. At least, that's how I see it, Commodore Farley. But, if I did have to compare, I'd say that High Society fell way-short of The Philadelphia Story.
I suppose that anything is fair game, but I think that films that have stood up as currently popular classics and especially the ones that were star vehicles, such that we identify the personalities of the principle players strongly with the film, have a poor chance of success when re-made. The classic piece becomes larger than life, the stars now have mythic proportion and the inevitable comparisons between the new upstart re-make and the well loved classic leave the remake at quite a disadvantage and an automatic underdog before anyone even sees the remake. Time is also a hurdle. A story that works well in the 1930s or the 1940s or what-you-will, when re-made, may have that working against it, too, which, I see as one reason (of the many reasons) why the recent re-make of The Women was such as abject and dismal failure.
Actually, a far from shabby re-make of a pretty good film (and an almost shot-for-shot re-make at that) is THE PRISONER OF ZENDA. The first, more famous version, stars Ronald Colman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. while the re-make boasts Stewart Granger and James Mason. Can't remember much more except both are enjoyable swashbucklers; but to your point, both are period (19th Century) films, which seem valid in their depiction. Compare that with something like 12 ANGRY MEN (1957)
which was updated in the 1990's by William Friedkin for HBO. It was quite the contortionist's act to make the story relevant in 90's New York when no one's been executed in the state since the 1960's. It's akin to up-dating THE GRAPES OF WRATH by showing Tom Joad and his family being chased out of the Oklahoma dustbowl because hi-tech industry is taking over.
Here's one that worked well once, twice, but bombed the third and fourth times. Of course, I'm talking THE FRONT PAGE, which was re-made better as HIS GIRL FRIDAY, attempted by Billy Wilder in 1974 (which I never saw, but understand is quite bad) and finally, up-dated in the 80's to a TV newsroom setting in SWITCHING CHANNELS starring Christopher Reeve and Kathleen Turner (which evidently is unwatchable).
I don't know about you, but I can't think of any film - good or bad - I've ever seen where I thought needed a re-make.
I love His Girl Friday. It's brilliant. I'm surprised Billy Wilder couldn't do something with it. The machine gun chatter from that grizzled chorus of newspaper reporters was just astounding in His Girl Friday!
Well, personally, I wouldn't elect to ever see many remakes made at all, but to play old Scratch's advocate, the Wyler Ben Hur is a stellar remake; and the Bogart Maltese Falcon is another terrific remake.
I went on an extended jag of watching a lot of made-during-the-war WWII films about a couple of years ago or so, and while they were very much films of, and for, their then-present time, I couldn't help but wish for a little better technical razzle dazzle in pyrotechnics and authenticity department. Even Mrs. Miniver, which is a wonderful film when it comes to the acting performances, was really hurting when I watched those model airplanes crash. Some of those war era films were downright cringe worthy, like the battle scenes in the technicolor submarine film, Crash Dive. And, while not a remake it's hard not to compare them: look at the difference between the beach landings as shown in The Longest Day (kind of cheesy and at times silly) vs. Saving Private Ryan (shockingly gruesome and I suspect very realistic).
Interestingly, and to turn my previous paragraph on its head, in the more recent day Memphis Belle (1990), the segment that tore at my heart the most was when the supercilious P.R. man, played by John Lithgow, was demanded to read some of the letters from the families of his airmen and officers lost that were written to the base commander, played by David Strathairn, while showed were clips from Wm. Wyler's wartime aerial combat footage. It was chilling.
I liked the newer Thomas Crown Affair. The 1994 Little Women was good. The 1949 technicolor Little Women with June Allyson I did not like so much. The 1933 Little Women with Katharine Hepburn was good. I really like the Charles Laughton Mutiny on the Bounty. Of course, it has its detractors and then there are those who like the Brando Bounty.
thought about it -- your idea is ridiculous!!!
What the $%*& is a Chinese Downhill?!?
The allegory in the novel is complex enough without out trying to load on a contemporary view of very dubious significance. If you want to rewrite the novel, rewrite it, and reserve some respect for the author's intent.
shareI can't see Morgan Freeman pulling off a villain role.
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Mel Gibson would make a good Ahab, but this film is so good a remake seems like just another attempt to make quick bucks.
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