The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 19

THURSDAY 9 DECEMBER 1993 TMf AM -It Arts Edited by STEPHANIE BUNBURY In Tinseltown, to remake is to reap big rewards Folk-tales marry life cycle II Television Theatre MM The Wedding Napier Street Theatre, South i vict wu i re. ma PETER WEINIGER .5 Wedding' had a successful 1HE try-out season last year, find-, ing strong response among" audiences with its intense fusion ot; song, dance and toik ritual. Based ona collection of five traditional Bulgarian': folk tales, it has been refined into art expressive and impressive example of penormance ineaire. Two of the performers, Bagryana Popov and Angela Campbell, travelled throughout Bulgaria to gather materi-, the stories from the village women, to ethnographers and learned those songs, dances and rituals that seem to exist beyond the normal con-. straints of history to fashion a living culture nnH a nntlnnnl iriAntltv li.

Using the marriage ceremony as the centrepiece, the troupe traces the! rvrlp nf hlrth mnrrinffft And VKUUIIIg 111. V1 11J ,111110 HUU movement, wnai manes me so different is the way it brines' be musketeers-as-brat-packers, since it stars Kiefer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen in roles previously played by, among others, Van Hef lin, Oliver Reed and Richard Chamberlain. Now it's sort of a buddy-movie. With this film Parisian locations do not seem to have put off audiences. The remake has taken about SUS35 million in three weeks.

Can a sixth version be many years away? 'The Mutiny on the Bounty' has been remade four times with Mel Gibson most recently playing the heroic role of Fletcher Christian. That was 'The Bounty' in 1984. He joined distinguished company: Clark Gable in 1935 and Marlon Brando in 1962. There's an argument to say that with literary or historic subjects it is reasonable to redo the material if the filmmaker takes a different stance. It does not always work out for the better.

Last year Martin Scorsese remade the suspense classic, 'Cape Fear', with Robert de Niro. But it was widely judged to be inferior to J. Lee Thompson's 1962 version starring Gregory Peck in De Niro's role, even though Peck contributed a cameo in the remake. What makes Daniel Vigne's criticism particularly pertinent is that Hollywood is adept at recycling winning concepts without necessarily reworking old material. After the success of the Kevin Costner film version of 'The Untouchables' in 1987 an early example of Hollywood's present fetish for recycling old television series as full-length films the studios went through something of a revival of gangster films.

Old-time crooks were suddenly hot at the box office. And while films like 'Bugsy', 'Good-fellas' and 'Mobsters' sometimes touched on the same characters, they did it without stepping on the same material or producing a feeling of deja vu for the audience. They varied the points of view and focused on different periods of the gangsters' lives. The only direct lift, perhaps, among them was 'Miller's Crossing' in 1990, which many saw as essentially a remake of the 1942 Alan Ladd classic, 'The Glass Key'. One bizarre illustration of how Hollywood recycles itself is the 1957 Leo McCarey tearjerker, 'An Affair to Remember'.

'Affair', you will recall, is the "chick's movie" that Nora Ephron uses as a sensitivity index in her wildly successful film 'Sleepless In Seattle'. The film starred Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, but was actually a remake of another Hollywood story, 'Love that starred Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne in 1939. Now Warren Beatty and Annette The recycling industry philip McCarthy PUT yourself in the shoes of American film-goers: what's more likely to make you part with your IUS7.50 (JA11)? A film starring unfamiliar foreigners like Roland Giraud, Michel Boujenah and Andre Dussoller with Parisian street names and English subtitles? Or one starring comfortably home-grown types like Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg speaking fluent Brooklynese? Five years ago Hollywood did the choosing, as it so often does, for its patrons. That's how a French film entitled 'Three Men and Cradle' became an American film called 'Three Men and a Baby'. The guys in Tinseltown, quite literally, took a foreign movie concept and made it their own.

The studio laughed all the way to the bank, and, just as importantly, to a sequel in 1990 that reunited the Sel-leck-Danson-Guttenberg team in 'Three Men and a Little Lady'. In that case the movie moguls were the ones at Disney. Recently Jeffrey Katzenberg, the studio's mercurial head, was straightforward about Hollywood's penchant for "reinterpreting" the work of foreign filmmakers with more familar names, American locations and accessible accents. "Americans don't like reading subtitles," he said. "And this town has a voracious appetite for tried and true formulas.

The temptation is irresistible." It's got to the point where the sale of story "prototypes" to Hollywood is worth more to many foreign filmmakers than the box office returns of their originals. The past 12 months have proved to be a peak year in the remake factories. Al Pacino's 'Scent of a Woman' was a remake of a 1976 Italian film of the same name. The Bridget Fonda film, 'The Assassin', was a remake of the 1991 French film 'La Femme Ni-kita'. And in 'Night and the City', Robert de Niro reprises a role originally played by Richard Widmark in the classic 1950 British film also called 'Night and the City'.

Both versions of 'Night and the City' are the story of a hustler trying to keep ahead of his debtors in the original he's a fight promoter and in the remake he's a sleazy lawyer only the remake is, once again, set in New York instead of London. Yet remaking successful foreign films is but another variation of Hollywood's quest for surefire box office mil the GiwiAl rpcinnnl Anil fiAtlnna' nnnlitips whllp retaining thp univprsal- ilv nf its emereine themes. Remakes are not always an improvement: The new 'Cape Fear' was widely judged inferior to the IBbJ classic. This is a production to listen to and watch, to absorb the distinctive sounds and movement, the ancient rhythms' the timeless messages of hope and conquest, coniuci ana iuvc, cunnec- ttnn anil iUcnanrimi TIiq dnrlae arA Familiar face: Tom Selleck in 'Three Men and a Baby'. winners.

After all, the movies are a risky business look at Arnold Schwarzenegger's SUS80 million flop, 'Last Action Hero' and any safe bets are welcome. This is an industry that relies on market research and consumer trends. So a foreign film's success on the American art-house circuit can pinpoint a "movie concept" with wider potential. If a foreign film can grab a respectable audience, even with subtitles, think what the same idea might do in English. The French film 'The Return of Martin Guerre' made 10 years ago and starring Gerard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye, last year got a major Hollywood makeover.

Warner Bros gave it a trans-Atlantic shift and a 300-year time change to become 'Sommersby', starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. In both versions the premise was a man who apparently returns to his small village after many years away at war. Is he really the same person? In the original the setting was 16th Century France. In the big budget remake it took a very respectable SUS60 million here it happens in post-Civil War Tennessee. The man who directed 'The Return of Martin Guerre', Daniel Vigne, said recently that he liked the remake.

But he raised the obvious question: "Why, when there are so many good stories to be told, are the Americans so keen to do something that has already been done?" But then, given its appetite for material, it is not as though Hollywood does not also recycle Itself. Indeed, it is something of a tradition. Americans are flocking to the fifth remake of the Dumas classic, 'The Three Musketeers'. This one seems to mainly told from a woman's perspective and relate how arranged mar- rionac wam a lifaJAno lAiipnttU Intrt ha unknown: marying an unknown husband. adoDtine an unknown mother-in- law aim an uniuiuwii laiimjr 111 an PHILIPPA HAWKER Toying with a world at play THE 17th Century philosopher John Locke didn't merely give us an 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'.

He was also responsible for the Invention of alphabet blocks. Like many others before, and since, he thought learning should be part of play. David Suzuki, in 'Connections', (SBS, 8.30 pm) examines the implications of Locke's assumption, and the role of toys in society. Suzuki starts off with a certain amount of overstatement, some of it visual: he appears dressed in a Santa Claus outfit, and asks us to consider whether toys are "shaping the values, attitudes and even the intellects of tomorrow's In North America, he tells us, the toy industry has annual sales of more than $16 billion. It all the Barbies in the world were placed end to end, they'd encircle the Earth three-and-a-half times.

Suzuki ranges widely, from Nintendo to nature walks, from Barbie Dolls to blocks: he takes us from the manic intensity of toy-show presentations to the environmental educationalist who appears to believe that even pulling the wings off butterflies can be a learning experience. At first it looks as if Suzuki is going over the top, and will embark on a straight-out denunciation of G. I. Joe and Sally Secrets, video games and an industry hype which reaches fever pitch around Christmas. Instead he presents us with a much milder view.

Some reservations are expressed by some of his interview subjects about the role of gender-specific toys. But most of the experts he consults don't differ substantially from the spokesperson from Mattel, who tells us that Barbie reflects society's demands, rather than trying to take a lead. Professor Jerome Kagan, a Harvard child psychologist, says that people are more influential than toys, and suggests that Plato wasn't inhibited by a limited toy cupboard. It is proposed that we broaden our view of what a toy might be: it could be language or music or thought. The focus shifts from toys to play.

What kinds of understanding do children acquire from play? Suzuki invokes a host of educators, play experts and child psychologists to answer the question. They have different notions of what the activity is, but the focus always seems to come back to its educational value, although there are dissenters such as Professor Brian Sutton-Smith, who says that play simply prepares you for more play. Suzuki makes play into a comfortably serious subject; he doesn't touch on some of the interesting issues about the role of imagination, fantasy and escape, or the darker side of play. On the whole, he paints a rosy picture which seems to be intended to reassure us: the future of tomorrow's adults is probably safe, as long as they have plenty of blocks and a playgroup. We don't actually hear from children, although we occasionally overhear them.

It made me think of Penny Marshall's comedy 'Big', in which Tom Hanks played a child who magically assumed an adult body and got a job in a toy firm. There were some terrific scenes in which Hanks explained to executives why one toy was fun and another wasn't, why some had sold and some were left on the shelves. The executives don't realise they are actually talking to a child although they probably wouldn't dream of asking one but they're impressed by Hanks's expertise. They just don't recognise where it comes from. At 9.30 pm, Jacques Tati's 'Playtime' is an excellent companion to the Suzuki program who is better at exploring the world through objects, and engaging in massive trial-and-error experiments, than Monsieur Hulot? unfamiliar tri 1 1 ana It ic thlc canaa nf lAnnlna mlvoH with haiu nnH ffaar and loss that comes across so coherently in a way that transcends time, space and This year Hollywood is experiencing a new phenonemon that is a kind of hybrid of the two trends; where successful remakes of earlier celluloid hits are beginning to spawn their own sequels.

A few years ago Hollywood began producing feature film versions of cartoons and series popular when its core audience of baby boomers was growing up. 'The Untouchables', in fact, became the lead-in to a whole genre. 'Dennis the Menace', 'Maverick', 'Boris and Natasha', 'The Beverly Hillbillies', 'The Fugitive', 'Zorro', 'The Addams Family', 'The Saint', among others, were, or will, be dusted off on the big screen. The ending of the Harrison Ford film of "The Fugitive' doesn't appear to leave much room for a sequel. But given that the film took JUS 175 million in the US alone, and is second only to 'Jurassic Park' in 1993 box takings here, Hollywood might yet find a way: repetition is never a problem if it involves counting more box office Benning will reprise those roles in a version that takes the name of the 1939 original and should be released next year.

In all three cases the stories are identical: a middle-aged playboy and a younger woman fall in love aboard an ocean liner even though they are both engaged to others. There is roughly 20 years between each of those versions of 'Affair' and that seems to be a timeframe that activates derivative minds in Hollywood. In 1972 Steve McQueen and Ali Mac-Graw made their first appearance together in 'The Getaway' and they eventually married. It was the story of an ex-con, his wife and their flight from the law. Now another husband and wife team, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, are going to remake it.

The imperative behind Hollywood's recycling binge is very much the same as the one the impels the studios to turn out sequel after sequel as they did five times with Sylvester Stallone's Rocky' series. If it hits a crowd-pleasing formula it wants more of the same while there are dollars to be made. piai-c. The troupe, which features Popov and ramnhpll tnppthpr with WaHp dccu, auiuaiiina dcws, ruui mon-oghan and Peter Neville, has stylisU-, cally and dramatically synchronised movement and song interspersing' each sequence with Enelish transla-' tions that make the legends and allego ries accessible. A lone drum is the only accompaniment to the songs and-dances, creating an atmosphere that is.

distinctive and seductive, full nf emn. tion and expectation. work of its gold and sliversmithing graduates. The exhibition, 'Mine', runs until 17 December at the faculty's gallery and shows the work of 12 artisans. The gallery is in building 2, level Bowen Street, which Is off the La Trobe Street entrance.

Arts Peace at Southgate SOUTHGATE is swinging into the goodwill season with a mural exhibition, 'Peace on Earth', a "very '90s view of peace and the planet The work of 12 artists and illustrators is now hanging above Southgate's upper concourse, lit by a 30-metre Frank Bauer light sculpture. Artists include Kate Durham, Nick Howson, Darren Price and Mich Vane. The '90s angle is presumably evident in the artist Paul Pantelis' depiction of God as a slam dunker in a peace play-off, while Mich Vane shows two wise men and four wise women bearing gifts. The exhibition continues until 30 January. (Lfe(M DIARY adapt 'The Sign of the Seahorse (An Underwater Operetta)' into an animated musical film.

The SUS20 million film will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in collaboration with a Canadian animation company, Nelvana. Kennedy and Marshall produced 'Who Framed Roger and Kennedy also received production credits for Steven Spielberg's 'Jurassic Park'. Mr Base will adapt 'The Sign of the Seahorse' for the screen and will also write the the music and lyrics. Talent Mine THE faculty of art and design at RMIT is now exhibiting the Fitzroy Furies THE PANORAMA cinema at 145 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, is best known for showing films and occasionally exhibiting art, but for the next few evenings it is doing something completely different. 'The Furies a Road Movie Mystery' is an "experimental reading of a major new Australian feature film currently in Written and directed by Jon Hewitt and produced by Denise Patience, the reading includes music by Ross Hazeldine, paintings by Lorraine Allen and set design by John A.

Ellis. The reading will be nightly till Sunday (inclusive). Tickets are $5 and can be booked by ringing 417 2298. Base to Tinseltown GRAEME BASE, the author-il-lustrator of the phenomenally successful children's books 'Ani-malia', 'The Eleventh Hour' and 'The Sign of the Seahorse', is going Hollywood. Mr Base has done a deal with Paramount Pictures to SEVEN 6am Aerobics Oz Style.

G. 6.30 Agra's Cartoon Connection. G. 9.0 Lamb Chop's Play-Along! P. 9.30 At Home.

PG. 10.30 News. 11.0 Eleven AM. News. 12.0 Film: The Two Worlds Of Jennie Logan.

1979 romantic fantasy starring Lindsay Wagner and Marc Singer. PG. 2.0 Perry Mason. US drama series. PG.

3.0 The Hogan Family. G. 3.30 Family Ties. G. 4.0 Disney Adventures.

G. 4.30 Blockbusters. C. 5.0 Family Feud. G.

5.30 Wheel Of Fortune. G. 6.0 News, Sport, Weather. 6.30 Real Life. Public affairs.

7.0 Blossom. US comedy series with Maylm Bialik and Ted Wass. G. 7.30 Full House. US comedy series.

G. 8.0 HanghV With Mr Cooper. US comedy series. Mark injures himself while enacting a story for a first-grade class. G.

8.28 Tattslotto. Draw 1292. 8.30 Boys From The Bush. Australian-British comedy series about two friends who run a Melbourne marriage bureau-cum-detective agency. With Tim Healy, Chris Haywood.

M. 9.35 Stay Lucky. New British comedy-drama series about a streetwise cockney and a feisty northern widow. With Dennis Waterman. M.

10.40 Herman's Heed. US comedy series with William Ragsdale. PG. 11.40 Hitler: The Final Chapter. Adolf Hitler's final days.

PG. 12.45am NBC Today Show. 2.45 Film: Blood Money. 1988 drama starring Andy Garcia and Ellen Barkin. M.

4.30 Maigret British detective series. PG. 6.30 Sons And Daughters. R. TWO 6am Open Learning: Out Of Empire.

S. 6.30 ATVI Newt. R. 7.0 1st Edition. 7.30 Open Learning: Accounting 1.

8.0 French In Action 1. R. 8.30 Children's And Schools' Programs. 12.0 The World At Noon. 12.30pm Quantum Summer Of Science.

R. 1.0 Open Learning: Discovering Psychology. 1.30 Time To Grow. s. 2.0 Parliament Question Time.

The Senate. 3.0 Children's Programs. 5.0 The Afternoon Show, including S.02 Widget; 5.30 The Adventures Of Tintin. R. 6.0 The Goodies.

G. 6.30 TVTV. Final of the series focusing on the world of television. 7.0 News, Sport, Weather. 7.30 The 7.30 Report With Mary Delahunty.

8.0 Wtldacreen. Natural history series: Clowns Of The Air. The story of the puffin. 8.28 News if Iso at 9.28). 6.30 Police Rescue.

Australian drama series. Angel finds himself in a siege situation when he befriends a manic depressive artist. With Steve Bastoni, Colin Friels. PG, S. 9.20 Backchst S.

0.30 The Big Picture: The Trouble With Medicine Life Support A look at medicine's role in the final stages of life. PG. 10.30 News. S. 10.40 In Company With Su Crutckshank.

New Interview series. 11.10 Money Matters. Financial series: Firm For Sale. G. 12.0 Streets Apart S.

12.30am ATVI News. 1.0 Embassy. Australian drama series. PG, S. 1.50 Rage.

Music videos. 4.35 Doctor Who. R.G. 5.0 Open Learning. NINE 6am Bill Cosby's You Bet Your Life.

G. 6.30 ITN World News. 6.55 Business Today. G. 7.0 Today.

G. 9.0 Here's Humphrey. P. 9.30 Ernie And Denise. G.

10.30 News. 11.0 Designing Women. PG. 11.30 Entertainment Tonight PG. 12.0 Film: The Great Georgia Bank Hoax.

1977 comedy starring Richard Basehart and Burgess Meredith. G. 1.50pm The Golf Show. G. 2.20 Cricket.

World Series one-day international: Australia South Africa, live from the MCG. 4.30 Goodsports. C. 5.0 Ultraman. G.

5.30 Troop. G. 6.0 News, Sport, Weather. 6.30 A Current Affair Summer Edition. 7.0 Sale Of The Century.

With Glenn Ridge. S. 7.29 Keno. 7.30 Matlock. US drama series.

Matlock's accountant Is framed for murder. With Andy Griffith. PG, S. 8.30 Raven. US adventure series.

A woman's penchant for daredevil men turns deadly. With Jeffrey Meek. Lee Majors. M. 9.30 Cluedo.

Australian mystery series. A handsome Italian generates a different kind of electricity when he comes to Brindabella to do the rewiring. PG, S. 10.30 Nlghaine. News.

11.0 Room For Two. G. 11.30 Cricket Highlights of the one-day international. 12.30am Entertainment Tonight PG. 1.0 Top Cops.

M. 2.0 Turn Round Australia. G. 2.30 Film: Rosemary's Baby. 1968 thriller starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes.

M. 5.0 The Man In The Family. US comedy series. PG. 5.30 The SuHrvans.

G. TEN 6am Neighbours. S. 6.30 Mighty Mouse And Friends. G.

7.0 Dungeons And Dragons. G. 7.30 Wizards. G. 8.0 Totally Wild.

G. 8.30 Mulligrubs. P. 9.0 Good Morning Australia. G.

11.0 Sally Jessy Raphael. I Saw My Mother Murder My Father. PG. 12.0 Santa Barbara. PG.

1pm The Bold And The Beautiful. PG. 1.30 Donahue. Safe Sex Orgies. PG.

2.30 The Oprah Winfrey Show. Conversations With Oprah Dr M. Scott Peck. PG. 3.30 Live It Up.

PG. 4.0 Zorro. G. 4.30 Mission Top Secret. Australian drama series.

C. if 5.0 News, Sport, Weather. 6.0 The Simpsons. G. 6.30 Neighbours.

Bunny comes to Erinsborough to put a stop to Brad and Beth's marriage. S. 7.0 Who's The Boss. US comedy series with Tony Danza. G.

7.30 Beyond 2000. Australian science and technology series. Amanda Keller visits the Johnson Space Centre. Andrew Waterworth looks at the world's smallest laptop computer. S.

8.30 Diana: Her True Story. Conclusion of a two-part British drama based on Andrew Morton's biography of the Princess of Wales. PG. 10.30 News. 11.0 Sports Tonight 11.30 Special Squad.

Australian detective series with John Diedrich and Alan Cassell. S. 12.30am The Professionals. British drama series, M. 1.30 Film: Slipstream.

1989 futuristic adventure starring Bill Paxton. 3.30 In Living Color. PG. 4.0 Prisoner. S.

5.0 The Lone Ranger. G. 5.30 Sports Tonight. G. The SaBvatiiosn CG.risftni.as Toy Apsal Proudly sponsored by Bob Jane T-Marts Australia-wide Barkin Mad: Ellen Barkin stars in 'Blood Monev' (Seven, 2.45am).

SBS 6.30am WorldWatch, inc Dateline. R. 7.0 Le Journal. 7.30 The Journal. 8.0 Chinese News.

8.30 Novosti. 9.0 Das Journal. 9.30 Weatherwatch And Music. 12.30pm Business Report I. 0 The MacNeilLehrer Newshour.

2.0 Weatherwatch And Music. 4.30 TV Ed. 5.0 English At Work. R. 5.30 Den Of Wolves.

G. 6.50 FYI. 6.0 World Sports. 6.30 World News. 7.0 Dateline.

Current affairs. 7.30 Youth Express. Cultural and social issues affecting Australia's youth: Young and AbleManly Desires. PG. if 8.30 Connections: Toys.

David Suzuki questions why we buy our children toys and explores their influence on both sexes. G. 9.30 Film: Playtime. 1967 French comedy starring Jacques Tati. Monsieur Hulot wanders through an ultra-modern Paris.

G. if II. 35 Eat Carpet Experimental and avant-garde films. 12.35am Dangerous Loves: Tales Of Marquez. Spanish series based on stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

PG. 2.05 Close. Please deposit unwrapped toys and books in good condition at your nearest Bob Jane T-Mart This space kindly donated by (newspaper name) as a community service announcement..