Peeking in on Makeovers for True Grit, My Fair Lady, and maybe The Third Man

I understand the knee-jerk revulsion we sometimes feel when hearing of older films being remade, whether it’s our favorite horror or science-fiction films, or a cherished classic. Studios love projects that come with built-in name recognition, and yeah, more often than not they screw it up. Though that’s not entirely to blame on the act of remaking itself. The big secret? Two-thirds of all movies are mediocre at best. Remakes break along about the same lines. (Redo or not, Tony Scott’s Taking of Pelham 123 is no better or worse than most Tony Scott films.)

Not all remakes are bad, not all are created purely out of lazy Hollywood greed. Sometimes filmmakers want to revisit a beloved film from their own favorites list and sometimes a fresh combination of director, writer, and actors can bring something new and exciting to a familiar tale. (Not that good intentions are always enough—Peter Jackson made his King Kong purely out of love for the original, and while the end result was fine, it was also a bit weighted down by that genuine devotion. And the less said about Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, the better.)

All of which is preface to the following slew of remake news and rumors. All of which I find exciting, not dismaying.

A rumor floated around last week, posted by CHUD.com, that Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire might be attached to a remake of the classic 1949 Carol Reed film, The Third Man—aka, the “Orson Welles film” non-film-school-geeks actually like to watch. The rumor set off the usual gagging noises from film critics and classic film lovers. After all, the original Third Man is a nearly perfect film, a mystery thriller set amidst the physical, economic, and moral ruins of post-WWII Europe. Written by the British novelist Graham Greene (a personal fave), It stars Joseph Cotton as Holly Martins, a pulp writer who comes to Vienna to find out who killed his old friend Harry Lime. The film is sometimes best known for the wonderful, now-iconic zither theme by Anton Karas.

More over the jump about The Third Man, plus My Fair Lady and True Grit.

Now before we talk a bit about possibly casting a new Third Man we have to weave into slight SPOILER territory if you have never seen the original film and no nothing about it. So if you haven’t, first skip down to the end of this section, and second get out there and find a copy to watch!

SPOILER: Of course the big “twist” of The Third Man is the identity of  "the third man." As most people know, Orson Welles plays Harry Lime, who is not actually dead. In fact because it’s one of his best-known roles (other than Citizen Kane, of course) often people think The Third Man is an Orson Welles film—it’s not, he technically only acts in it, though there were rumors he "helped" Reed direct. But Welles did probably write one of the great soliloquies in film (right up there with Quint’s telling of the Indianapolis story) in which the corrupt black-marketeer Lime, by way of rationalizing his own amoral post-war profiteering, tells Martins:

“Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

If this production and casting rumor holds out to be true, speculation is DiCaprio would play Lime and Maguire would take Martins, simply because Leo comes with a bit more of an edge, the sort of vague menace Lime needs, while Maguire tends to play more wide-eyed naifs, as in Spider-Man and Seabiscuit. Makes sense, but it’s in exactly these sorts of situations that actors love to swap roles just to break out of their typecasting boxes. END SPOILER

In other remake news, there are rumors that Keira Knightley has beaten out Scarlett Johansson to try to walk (and talk) in Audrey Hepburn’s footsteps as Eliza Doolittle in a remake of My Fair Lady. This one may have more purists howling—after all, it’s Audrey freakin’ Hepburn, for Pete’s sake. But again, a remake of a classic doesn’t necessarily have to somehow top the original in every aspect—it can be enough for it to bring its own fresh take to the material. I happen to like Knightley quite a bit—I think she can do great things when given good material and handled by a decent director. (And yep, I do enjoy her in the Pirates movies—she holds her own amidst quite a bit of noise and competing actorly show-boating.)

The good news here might be that with Knightley attached to My Fair Lady, director Joe Wright may also be on board. (Rumors have Wright attached, then not attached, then attached... There was also talk, after Slumdog’s Oscar, that Danny Boyle might handle the project, but that has fallen apart.) Wright has gotten some of Knightley’s best performances out of her, in Pride and Prejudice and Atonement and he certainly knows his way around a British period piece. Wright might be even a bit too stuffy artsy—here’s hoping if he does do Lady, he loosens up enough to let a big, treasured musical like this move and jump and soar. (Wright's last dalliance with the mystical magic of music, The Soloist, was somewhat hit and miss.)

And we mentioned last summer that the Coen Brothers are making their version of Charles Portis‘ Western novel, True Grit. The Coens are being careful to spin this as an adaptation of the book, not a remake of the tremendous 1969 John Wayne film—they know the kind of lumps they’re going to take anyway for daring to re-do Wayne. As I said before, I think with the achievement of No Country for Old Men, the Coens have earned a shot at True Grit and so far their casting has been very encouraging.

Jeff Bridges will take on the Wayne role of Rooster Cogburn, and before you start trying to picture The Dude playing The Duke, remember that Bridges is not only one of our best working actors today, but he’s also beautifully played a worn-down gunfighter before, as Wild Bill Hickok in 1995's Wild Bill.

Mattie, the young girl who hires Cogburn to find her father’s killer has not been cast yet. But the Coens are hoping to add their No Country star, Josh Brolin, as the killer Cogburn is tracking and Matt Damon as the young lawman assisting Rooster (originally played by Glen Campbell in the Wayne version.) If the talks work out, it will be Damon's first project with the brothers, joining the Coens club with his Oceans co-stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

As if this isn’t enough remake news, I’ll be back later with my takes on the new Dune and Mad Max films!

Comments

[Matthew S.]

Slightly on/off topic, I'm really excited for V on ABC tonight!