The Exact Remake: a Statistical Style Analysis of Six Hollywood Films

The Exact Remake: A Statistical Style Analysis of Six Hollywood Films Barry Salt 5 Tadmor St., London W12 8AH, UK ABSTRACT The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Psycho (1960), and The Omen (1976), and the new versions made from the same scripts in 1952, 1998 and 2006 respectively, are given a detailed statistical analysis. This produces new evidence of stylistic differences between the originals and the form in which they were remade, and new conclusions are drawn from this. A new analytical technique for studying acting is also introduced. Keywords remakes, �lm style; statistical analysis, actor movement analysis; The Prisoner of Zenda, Psycho, The Omen. Introduction The shooting scripts of the �lms The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Psycho (1960) and The Omen (1976) were all re-used, with only minor alteration, to make new versions of these �lms in 1952, 1998 and 2006 respectively, and all these �lms will be analysed for their stylistic differences and similarities. CONTACT Barry Salt [email protected] B. Salt The Prisoner of Zenda The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) was a typical David O. Selznick production for his Selznick International production company, in that he took a middle- brow literary best-seller, and made an expensive and faithful �lm adapta- tion of it. Although an earlier stage version of Anthony Hope’s 1893 novel is mentioned in the �lm credits, the screenplay is actually adapted straight from the novel, with a good deal of Hope’s original dialogue left intact. The cinematography by James Wong Howe is striking, with a strong tendency to low-key lighting, allied with a number of distinctive compositions. The director of this version, John Cromwell, had previously worked for David O. Selznick on the �rst �lm Selznick produced for his own company, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936). Cromwell had never directed any action sub- jects, and indeed Zenda actually contains little physical action other than the big sword�ght �nale. The �lm was very successful at the box office. At some point in the ‘forties, Selznick sold the script and rights of the novel to MGM, and they remade the �lm in 1952 in Technicolor, directed by Richard Thorpe. Usually when Hollywood studios remade earlier �lms, they made substantial alterations to the previous script, but in this case there was very little change in the dialogue and action. The only real change was a little rewording of the dialogue and its phraseology to reduce Anthony Hope’s 1893 style of speech. Even more unusually, there was a real effort to repro- duce the scene dissection of the original, with Richard Thorpe consulting a print of the 1937 version on set. The two versions are almost exactly the same length, with 1952 version only seven seconds shorter than the original version. The 1952 remake was also extremely successful at the box office. The way John Cromwell’s original version is shot is fairly close to the general norms of the period, though with an ASL of 6.5 seconds, the cutting is appreciably faster than the norm for 1937. (The mean Average Shot Length (ASL) for a sample of 63 American �lms from 1937 is 8.4 seconds.) The main non-standard feature of the shooting is the use of Close Up shots on reverse angles with the actors looking straight into the lens. This trope was used ex- tensively by Cromwell in his Of Human Bondage (1934), but here it is re- stricted to two peak dramatic moments -- the �rst meeting of Rassendyl and Princess Flavia at his coronation, and then their next moment of intimacy at the subsequent reception. This choice of angle means that the shots concerned are classi�ed as both reverse angles (RAs) and Point of View (POV) shots. There is also some interest in creating bilaterally symmetrical compositions in the shots, which probably comes from the director, though it not impossible that they were pre-designed by the art director. The core statistical �gures for the two versions of The Prisoner of Zenda are as follows, and are contrasted with the average �gures for a fully analysed sample of American �lms from the nearest periods I have available; namely a New Review of Film and Television Studies random sample of twenty �lms from 1939 and 1959 respectively. This com- parison is valid because I believe there were no signi�cant general stylistic changes in American �lms between 1937 and 1939, and also hardly any between 1952 and 1959. (The introduction of ‘Scope in 1953 produced only a small hiccup in �lm style for a few years, as recounted in my Film Style and Technology (Salt, 2009b).) The �gures for these comparative samples come from my previous articles (Salt, 2013) and (Salt, 2009a) ASL % RA % POV % INS Average of 20 �lms from 1939 8.8 30 7 5 The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) 6.5 41 1.5 4.5 US Average 1959 9.3 40 10 7 The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) 7.6 39 1 4.5 The respective quantities of reverse angles, POV shots and Insert shots for the two �lms are very close, as would be expected if the shot breakdown of the same script was the same, and the small differences indicate the small diver- gence in treatment. The 1952 version covers the scenes with less shots, and so its ASL of 7.6 seconds is larger, and closer to the period norm of 9.3 seconds. It is quite possible that this is because the director, Richard Thorpe, may have supplied pretty much the same coverage of the scenes as the original, the editor did not break the rushes down into quite so many separate shots for the cut. Both �lms use many less POV shots than the period norm, and the smaller number of POV shots in the remake is largely down to Richard Thorpe not copying John Cromwell’s use of looks straight into the lens, of the kind already mentioned. The other general style variables for the two �lm, as against the period norms, can be summed up by the comparative Scale of Shot breakdowns. (For a description of this stylistic framework, see my Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis (Salt, 2009b).) The Scale or Closeness of Shot is measured by the size of the human �gure relative to the height of the frame. They are as follows: Big Close Up (BCU) shows head only, Close Up (CU) shows head and shoulders, Medium Close Up (MCU) includes body from the waist up, Medium Shot (MS) includes from just below the hip to above the head of upright actors, Medium Long Shot (MLS) shows the body from the knee upwards, Long Shot (LS) shows at least the full height of the body, and Very Long Shot (VLS) shows the actor small in the frame. As usual, the �gures quoted are the number of each scale per 500 shots in the �lm concerned. An illustration of these scales can be found on the front cover of (Salt, 2006) and on the Cinemetrics website, at: http://www.cinemetrics.lv/salt.php. B. Salt Prisoner of Zenda 1937 Prisoner of Zenda 1952 n n 200 200 e e v v i i g g 147 h h 150 150 t t i i e 107 w e 104 w l 101 l 101 a s a 87 s 86 t 100 c t 100 78 c 75 o s o s h h 55 s s f f 50 29 50 o o 17 . 7 6 o o N 0 N 0 BCU CU MCU MS MLS LS VLS BCU CU MCU MS MLS LS VLS Scale of Shot Scale of Shot 1939 Average Scales 1959 Average Scales n n 200 200 e e v v i i g g h h 150 150 t t i i 119 110 e e w w l l 94 100 a a s s 87 82 88 84 t t 100 82 c c 100 81 o o s s h h s s f f 50 50 35 o o 19 . 8 12 o o N N 0 0 BCU CU MCU MS MLS LS VLS BCU CU MCU MS MLS LS VLS Scale of Shot Scale of Shot The obvious point about these statistics is thatZenda (1952) is much closer to the 1959 norm than Zenda (1937) is to the 1939 norm, as can be seen from simple inspection of the graphs. As part of that difference, Zenda 37 is shot markedly closer in than the 1939 norm -- with 36% of its shots MS or closer, whereas the norm has only 28% of its shots MS or closer. In the same way, Zenda 52 has 30% of its shots MS or closer, while the 1959 norm has 32% of its shots MS or closer, which not very different. Turning to camera movement, the number of camera movements of the different types per 500 shots are listed below for the two versions of The Prisoner of Zenda and the corresponding norms for 1939 and 1959 derived from my 20 �lm samples for those years. Pan w Tr w Total Pan Tilt Track Crane Zoom Tilt P&T moves Zenda 37 17 1 3 11 4 2 38 1939 Norm 47 5 16 20 29 3 1 118 Zenda 52 40 8 17 11 19 4 99 1959 Norm 38 6 15 21 27 3 1 110 As you can see, the 1937 Prisoner of Zenda has far less camera movement of all kinds (except for crane shots) than the norm for 1939, whereas the 1952 version is quite close to the period norm as indicated by the 1959 �gures.

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