The Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film is to be remade as a Hollywood movie. German espionage drama The Lives Of Others will be revamped as an English-language film with moviemakers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella coming together for the project. Pollack tells trade paper Daily Variety, "We would just desperately love for that film to be something that reaches more people. We haven't gotten locked into making it yet, but we're working hard at trying to get it going." The film's writer/director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck claimed Oscar gold for the film in February.
NONONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The Lives of Others is amazing and fantastic just the way it is. Americanizing it will do absolutely nothing to its benefit. In fact, it will be detrimental. It will cheapen it to an unbelievable degree. That is not to say that American films are not good, but the Lives of Others is not an American film and it never will be. No one can make it one. Part of the beauty of The Lives of Others is that it is a window into a different time and a different culture. I can't imagine watching it in English.
I am having trouble finding un-profane words to describe how I feel about the absolute mockery of filmmaking that is this proposal.
And as for trying to reach more people - come on! Making a big-name, English-language version of this movie is like making a coloring book line drawing of Starry Night. The people who see the English-language version because it is in English are not going to a) go to the movie with the intent of taking away what the original filmmakers wanted or b) take that away at all, because it will be painfully absent in the dumbed-down version. Heck, maybe we can make it really fun and cast George Clooney and Angelina Jolie in the lead roles. Please, production companies, why don't you just go ahead and advertise it as a way to rip off one country's art and market it to a popcorn-film-loving audience?
What a horrible upon horrible idea. I hate big business sometimes. Now is one of those times.
