As pointed out by David Novak’s article “Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood”, there is an appropriate and inappropriate way to reuse and reproduce images from another culture in another cultural setting, that does not necessarily rely on the artist’s intentions. Novak describes two interpretations of the Bollywood number “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” from the movie Gumnaan, one in which the number was shown in the opening of the American movie Ghost World and the other when it was performed by a San Franciscan pop band named Heavenly Ten Stems. While it’s use in Ghost World was seen as an appropriate artistic use, Heavenly Ten Stems was seen as using the song and other Asian songs in a racist and enterprising way. By using my own example of remakes of Japanese films in Hollywood, I will explore what makes reuse of a one cultures art appropriate, and what does not.
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| The Magnificent Seven From IMDB |
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| Seven Samurai From IMDB |
The Magnificent Seven, an American cowboy-Western film, is a remake of the Japanese Akira Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai. Both the American and Japanese films are seen as classics in their own right, and are both fondly remembered by critics as hallmarks of both American and Japanese cinema. Kurosawa, the director of the original movie, actually enjoyed the remake so much that, according to one IMDB movie buff “ Kurosawa gave John Sturges a sword in appreciation after seeing his film” (IMDB 2003) The artistic interpretation of the film is acceptable in this instance, and both are seen as expressing something useful about their respective cultures, although the concept initially came from one only.
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| Gojira From IMDB |
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| Godzilla From IMDB |
In contrast to this is the 1998 American remake of Gojira. Although no one was accusing the remake of being racist, the American, Godzilla was charged by many critics of being bombastic and campy, almost to the point of insulting the original. The original Gojira was about a giant reptile awakened by American nuclear testing, and according to Susan Napier fulfilled a particular function to the Japanese viewer: “it demonizes American nuclear science… it [allows] ‘good’ Japanese science to triumph against the evil monster. The film thus offered its immediate postwar Japanese audience an experience that was both cathartic and compensatory…” (Napier 1993: 332) When Godzilla came out, it contained none of the nuanced social commentary (ironically, aimed against America) and was a full-throttle action flick. It was panned by the critics and fans of the original as being over-the-top, unbelievable and too far a departure from the original movie to be a legitimate interpretation.
To me, comparing The Magnificent Seven with Godzilla, the first criteria in interpreting another cultural expression is taking it seriously. The Magnificent Seven offered a fully American version of the original, but that still respected the original storyline and developed an artistic enough vision. The American Godzilla was mostly aimed at entertainment value, rather than adding a commentary on nuclear war. Secondly, the remake has to have something interesting to say about the original – it can’t just be remaking it “for fun”. This is described when Novak says “what is at stake here is not just the loss of original meaning in a landscape of mediated cultural signs. It is a question of equivalence… between two sites of remediation whose relations to the original hang in the balance between ‘mockery’ and ‘tribute’” (Novak 2010: 60)
When reinterpreting media from another culture, based on David Novak’s article and the case of American movie remakes of Japanese films, it is important to recognize that there is a line between culture and kitsch, artistic interpretation and artistic license. It was not a case of whether the song “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” itself was being reinterpreted, or if a Japanese film was being remade, but what this reinterpretation added to the original, and how much it respected it as a significant cultural expression.
Works Cited and Movie Trailers
IMDB
2003 The Magnificent Seven. User Comment. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054047/ Accessed February 16, 2011
Napier, Susan J.
1993 Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira. In The Journal of Japanese Studies 19(2): 327-351
Novak, David
2010 Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood.” In Cultural Anthropology 25(1): 40-72
Youtube
2009 Godzilla (official 1954 Japanese trailer). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSk-i1UFJWA Accessed February 16, 2011
2008 Godzilla 1998 Official Trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwf2fqcS3mk. Accessed February 16, 2011
2006 Magnificent 7 (1960) trailer 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWIlGnJDR zw Accessed February 16, 2011
2006 Criteron Trailer 2: Seven Samurai. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNqQXC8 Tv8U Accessed February 16, 2011
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