New York Times article about the (blasted) Wicker Man remake
Remake ‘The Wicker Man’? Now That’s Scary
Above, a scene from the newest version of “The Wicker Man.” The original film, which was set on a remote Scottish island, starred Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward. The new movie, which opens on Sept. 1, stars Ellen Burstyn and Nicolas Cage.
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WE don’t commit murder up here,” Christopher Lee, as Lord Summerisle, says about midway through the 1973 British cult film “The Wicker Man.” “We’re a deeply religious people.” The line is delivered with just the right genteel inflection to unnerve viewers, who until this point have been watching a movie that feels more like a musical, drama or mystery than a horror film.
But almost nothing about the “The Wicker Man” - which co-starred Edward Woodward as a smug Christian policeman, Sergeant Howie, who travels from the Scottish mainland to a remote island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a young girl - was by the numbers.
A folksy musical score, composed by Paul Giovanni, created a feeling of merriment and innocence, even as Sergeant Howie encountered a shockingly lustful, secret society. The unlikely islanders, celebrating May Day with naked dancing among their Celtic-inspired rituals, included a gyrating Swedish beauty, Britt Ekland. Then came veiled suggestions of human sacrifice, during a slow descent toward trouble.
Such idiosyncrasies of style and content were part of the charm that lured the writer and director Neil LaBute into making a contemporary “Wicker Man,” which will be released in the United States by Warner Brothers on Sept. 1. But it has been no simple matter to honor the film, which was written by the late Anthony Shaffer, while upgrading it for a new audience, even as fans and at least one of the original filmmakers watch warily from the sidelines.
Reached in London recently, Robin Hardy, who directed the original, sounded annoyed by the idea that his picture was being remade at all, and said he was waiting impatiently for a copy of the new script. “The simple fact is that I asked to see the script last August, and they said they would send it to me within two weeks,” he said.
When they finally catch up with the remake, Mr. Hardy and devotees of the original will learn that Mr. LaBute - the 45-year-old playwright whose debut film “In the Company of Men” examined male cruelty toward women - has rediscovered the gender wars in his new version.
Set off the coast of Washington State (and shot near Vancouver), Mr. LaBute’s film stars Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn, along with Kate Beahan, Molly Parker and Leelee Sobieski in an ensemble cast. It transforms Sergeant Howie (Mr. Cage) into a suave, right-leaning California motorcycle cop, while changing the original’s weird community from patriarchy to matriarchy. With the exception of Mr. Cage’s character, the men live at the beck and call of their calm leader, Sister Summerisle, played by Ms. Burstyn.
In a telephone interview in mid-July from Los Angeles, where he was overseeing the final mix of sound elements (the music was composed by Angela Badalamenti), Mr. LaBute said he was interested in probing the assumed white male authority position that Mr. Cage’s character represents, and the inevitable power struggle between men and women. As for the original, Mr. LaBute expressed admiration for its “singularity” but made no apologies for his departures. “It’s like a child leaving home,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of, ‘I’ve come to this as a fan of what you’ve done, but I am going to have to depart from it.’ ”
He added: “There are people out there who say, literally, ‘I don’t care if it’s good or bad, I hate the fact that they are doing it.’ So, that’s a difficult audience to work with. You have to forge yourself ahead and say, I’m making something which, if people are fair with, I think they’ll see that you’re coming to this with good intentions, and trying to retain the spirit of the thing without being slavish to it.”
Mr. Hardy said he had nothing in principle against movie remakes but insisted that “The Wicker Man” was not the most inspired choice for source material, given its unique qualities. “The main thing is that under European law, and also under the rules of simple courtesy, when you remake somebody’s film, you are supposed to give them an idea of how you are going to do it,” he said.
Andrew Hurwitz, a founding partner of New York law firm Epstein, Levinsohn, Bodine, Hurwitz & Weinstein (who does not represent anyone involved with either version), said the laws to which Mr. Hardy referred, known as Droit Morale, or Moral Rights, are distinct from the economic rights that come with owning a copyright. Mr. Hardy said he would be entitled to pursue an injunction against the film in Europe if he doesn’t get to read or see the film before it is released, though he stressed that he would not do so. A spokesman for Lionsgate, which is among the film’s distributors abroad, declined to comment on the potential effect of an injunction.
Mr. Hurwitz said that while it is true that European courts, particularly in France, give greater respect to the moral rights of authors than do American courts, he does not think an injunction would be likely, “unless the remake,” he said, “once viewed, radically distorted the integrity of the underlying film, the way colorization of a black and white film has been found to do.”
Norm Golightly - a partner in Mr. Cage’s Saturn Films, which is one of the movie’s producers - said in any case that he would be delighted to show Mr. Hardy the film prior to release.
In a separate telephone interview, Mr. Cage said there would have been no reason to remake “The Wicker Man” if Mr. LaBute hadn’t approached it from a new vantage point. “I think it’s a homage,” Mr. Cage said of the new film. “It’s a way of us saying this is a wonderful film. It’s not us saying that we are better. If anything, it is a tip of the hat, and perhaps it will inspire people to look at the original again.”
The new movie is likely to bring additional viewers to the original: Anchor Bay Entertainment expects to re-release “The Wicker Man” on DVD on Aug. 22.
Mr. Cage said seeing the original for the first time several years ago left him with a profound feeling that he couldn’t shake for weeks. And Mr. LaBute, who first saw the film while working at the Magic Lantern theater in Spokane, Wash., in the 80’s, said he set out to do “exactly what I felt like the first one had done to me: it took me to a place that felt entirely new, and also entirely worth it.”
Mr. Shafer, who before writing the script had immersed himself in accounts of Druids and their sacrifices, and Celtic fertility rights, once called “The Wicker Man” an “anti-horror film,” for it was conceived as a reaction to the tongue-and-cheek Hammer horror films including “Scars of Dracula,” “Dracula A.D. 1972,” and “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed” that were made in England from the 50’s through the 70’s.
“We thought it was time to make a film based on a lot of the real background to those Hammer films,” Mr. Hardy explained. “We wanted to turn it on its head and have a real pagan society.” The appeal of that world, he added, was as responsible as the suspense for the movie’s continued impact.
“I personally think it is because we were able to create a society, an imaginary society, which was very attractive to people,” he said of the success of “The Wicker Man.’’ “These people were classless and happy in their religion and their lives, able to express themselves through music and song and dance, and that was very beguiling to the audience.”
Mr. LaBute said the new film probably has a number of scenes that are bloodier than anything in the original. Still, he said, he deliberately exercised restraint in using special effects that, as he put it, provide only a “moment’s pleasure.”
“Even if there are a few people who are pushing you in saying, ‘We would love it if this movie was “Saw” for the first weekend, and it was “The Sixth Sense” for the next five weeks,’ ” he said, “you ultimately have just one film that you can create.”
The movie he finally created, he said, will echo its forebear’s intelligence, even if that means making the contemporary audience work a little harder than usual: “If ‘The Wicker Man’ is a thinking person’s horror film, that’s great.”
Above, a scene from the newest version of “The Wicker Man.” The original film, which was set on a remote Scottish island, starred Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward. The new movie, which opens on Sept. 1, stars Ellen Burstyn and Nicolas Cage.
---------------------------
WE don’t commit murder up here,” Christopher Lee, as Lord Summerisle, says about midway through the 1973 British cult film “The Wicker Man.” “We’re a deeply religious people.” The line is delivered with just the right genteel inflection to unnerve viewers, who until this point have been watching a movie that feels more like a musical, drama or mystery than a horror film.
But almost nothing about the “The Wicker Man” - which co-starred Edward Woodward as a smug Christian policeman, Sergeant Howie, who travels from the Scottish mainland to a remote island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a young girl - was by the numbers.
A folksy musical score, composed by Paul Giovanni, created a feeling of merriment and innocence, even as Sergeant Howie encountered a shockingly lustful, secret society. The unlikely islanders, celebrating May Day with naked dancing among their Celtic-inspired rituals, included a gyrating Swedish beauty, Britt Ekland. Then came veiled suggestions of human sacrifice, during a slow descent toward trouble.
Such idiosyncrasies of style and content were part of the charm that lured the writer and director Neil LaBute into making a contemporary “Wicker Man,” which will be released in the United States by Warner Brothers on Sept. 1. But it has been no simple matter to honor the film, which was written by the late Anthony Shaffer, while upgrading it for a new audience, even as fans and at least one of the original filmmakers watch warily from the sidelines.
Reached in London recently, Robin Hardy, who directed the original, sounded annoyed by the idea that his picture was being remade at all, and said he was waiting impatiently for a copy of the new script. “The simple fact is that I asked to see the script last August, and they said they would send it to me within two weeks,” he said.
When they finally catch up with the remake, Mr. Hardy and devotees of the original will learn that Mr. LaBute - the 45-year-old playwright whose debut film “In the Company of Men” examined male cruelty toward women - has rediscovered the gender wars in his new version.
Set off the coast of Washington State (and shot near Vancouver), Mr. LaBute’s film stars Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn, along with Kate Beahan, Molly Parker and Leelee Sobieski in an ensemble cast. It transforms Sergeant Howie (Mr. Cage) into a suave, right-leaning California motorcycle cop, while changing the original’s weird community from patriarchy to matriarchy. With the exception of Mr. Cage’s character, the men live at the beck and call of their calm leader, Sister Summerisle, played by Ms. Burstyn.
In a telephone interview in mid-July from Los Angeles, where he was overseeing the final mix of sound elements (the music was composed by Angela Badalamenti), Mr. LaBute said he was interested in probing the assumed white male authority position that Mr. Cage’s character represents, and the inevitable power struggle between men and women. As for the original, Mr. LaBute expressed admiration for its “singularity” but made no apologies for his departures. “It’s like a child leaving home,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of, ‘I’ve come to this as a fan of what you’ve done, but I am going to have to depart from it.’ ”
He added: “There are people out there who say, literally, ‘I don’t care if it’s good or bad, I hate the fact that they are doing it.’ So, that’s a difficult audience to work with. You have to forge yourself ahead and say, I’m making something which, if people are fair with, I think they’ll see that you’re coming to this with good intentions, and trying to retain the spirit of the thing without being slavish to it.”
Mr. Hardy said he had nothing in principle against movie remakes but insisted that “The Wicker Man” was not the most inspired choice for source material, given its unique qualities. “The main thing is that under European law, and also under the rules of simple courtesy, when you remake somebody’s film, you are supposed to give them an idea of how you are going to do it,” he said.
Andrew Hurwitz, a founding partner of New York law firm Epstein, Levinsohn, Bodine, Hurwitz & Weinstein (who does not represent anyone involved with either version), said the laws to which Mr. Hardy referred, known as Droit Morale, or Moral Rights, are distinct from the economic rights that come with owning a copyright. Mr. Hardy said he would be entitled to pursue an injunction against the film in Europe if he doesn’t get to read or see the film before it is released, though he stressed that he would not do so. A spokesman for Lionsgate, which is among the film’s distributors abroad, declined to comment on the potential effect of an injunction.
Mr. Hurwitz said that while it is true that European courts, particularly in France, give greater respect to the moral rights of authors than do American courts, he does not think an injunction would be likely, “unless the remake,” he said, “once viewed, radically distorted the integrity of the underlying film, the way colorization of a black and white film has been found to do.”
Norm Golightly - a partner in Mr. Cage’s Saturn Films, which is one of the movie’s producers - said in any case that he would be delighted to show Mr. Hardy the film prior to release.
In a separate telephone interview, Mr. Cage said there would have been no reason to remake “The Wicker Man” if Mr. LaBute hadn’t approached it from a new vantage point. “I think it’s a homage,” Mr. Cage said of the new film. “It’s a way of us saying this is a wonderful film. It’s not us saying that we are better. If anything, it is a tip of the hat, and perhaps it will inspire people to look at the original again.”
The new movie is likely to bring additional viewers to the original: Anchor Bay Entertainment expects to re-release “The Wicker Man” on DVD on Aug. 22.
Mr. Cage said seeing the original for the first time several years ago left him with a profound feeling that he couldn’t shake for weeks. And Mr. LaBute, who first saw the film while working at the Magic Lantern theater in Spokane, Wash., in the 80’s, said he set out to do “exactly what I felt like the first one had done to me: it took me to a place that felt entirely new, and also entirely worth it.”
Mr. Shafer, who before writing the script had immersed himself in accounts of Druids and their sacrifices, and Celtic fertility rights, once called “The Wicker Man” an “anti-horror film,” for it was conceived as a reaction to the tongue-and-cheek Hammer horror films including “Scars of Dracula,” “Dracula A.D. 1972,” and “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed” that were made in England from the 50’s through the 70’s.
“We thought it was time to make a film based on a lot of the real background to those Hammer films,” Mr. Hardy explained. “We wanted to turn it on its head and have a real pagan society.” The appeal of that world, he added, was as responsible as the suspense for the movie’s continued impact.
“I personally think it is because we were able to create a society, an imaginary society, which was very attractive to people,” he said of the success of “The Wicker Man.’’ “These people were classless and happy in their religion and their lives, able to express themselves through music and song and dance, and that was very beguiling to the audience.”
Mr. LaBute said the new film probably has a number of scenes that are bloodier than anything in the original. Still, he said, he deliberately exercised restraint in using special effects that, as he put it, provide only a “moment’s pleasure.”
“Even if there are a few people who are pushing you in saying, ‘We would love it if this movie was “Saw” for the first weekend, and it was “The Sixth Sense” for the next five weeks,’ ” he said, “you ultimately have just one film that you can create.”
The movie he finally created, he said, will echo its forebear’s intelligence, even if that means making the contemporary audience work a little harder than usual: “If ‘The Wicker Man’ is a thinking person’s horror film, that’s great.”