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BETTER NOT SLEEP UNDER WATER A Comparison of Two Norwegian Films and their American Remakes By Ida Marie Jahr A Thesis Presented to The Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages The University of Oslo in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the MA degree Spring Term 2005 Dedication ...to Lånekassen for lending me the funds to complete this thesis ...to my supervisor Deborah Kitchen-Døderlein for making me realize that people actually has to read my writings ...to Ida Vaa and Ronny Strand for listening to my frustrations and making me listen to theirs ...and to my husband Magnus Rygh for indispensable proof reading and emotional support. ...same same but different... ii Contents Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1. Theory ....................................................................................... 3 Remakes....................................................................................................................... 4 When have remakes been (re)made? ........................................................................ 4 Why are foreign remakes made? .............................................................................. 6 What are remakes?.................................................................................................. 10 - Reading remakes .............................................................................................. 16 Adapting from one culture to another. Cross-cultural remakes as adaptations ...... 17 Cultural Theory ........................................................................................................ 20 Defining culture ...................................................................................................... 20 Norwegian vs. American culture ............................................................................ 22 Film as cultural mirror ............................................................................................ 25 - Art cinema vs. entertainment cinema ............................................................... 26 - Is Hollywood culture American culture? ......................................................... 28 Narrowing the field and explaining my choices. .................................................... 33 Chapter 2. Hodet over vannet vs. Head Above Water .......................... 35 Synopses and plot differences .................................................................................. 36 - Hodet over vannet, Nils Gaup .............................................................................. 36 - Head above Water, Jim Wilson............................................................................ 38 Character differences ............................................................................................... 40 Differences in form ................................................................................................... 51 Trying to place Head Above Water within Hollywood cinema.............................. 55 Are the differences born of Hollywood or America?............................................. 57 Chapter 3. Insomnia vs. Insomnia........................................................... 60 Synopses and plot differences .................................................................................. 61 - Insomnia, Erik Skjoldbjærg.................................................................................. 61 - Insomnia, Christopher Nolan................................................................................ 63 Character differences ............................................................................................... 68 Differences in form ................................................................................................... 77 Placing Insomnia (US) within Hollywood cinema.................................................. 81 Are the differences born of Hollywood or America?............................................. 84 Chapter 4. Comparisons and Conclusions.............................................. 86 Selected Bibliography ............................................................................... 92 Appendix A, Film Facts ............................................................................ 97 Appendix B, Scene Breakdowns .............................................................. 99 Appendix C, Films Mentioned ............................................................... 110 iii Introduction “…while some remakes are demonstrably failures, others are undeniably superb, and almost all interesting for what they reveal, either about different cultures, about different directorial styles and aesthetic orientations, about class or gender perceptions, … , or simply about the evolution of economic practices in the industry.”1 The remake, a film based on another film, is – as Jennifer Forrest and Leonard Koos note in the quote above – an interesting phenomenon for students of culture. Still, even more interesting for us who study another culture than our own, are films that have been remade across cultural boundaries. Andrew Horton and Stuart McDougal, the editors of the book Play It Again, Sam, claim that the remake tells us as much about the time it was made as it does about the originary text, when referring to remakes of American films made in the United States.2 When movies in addition cross an entire ocean, the possibilities for study are even greater. If we compare the originary film, and what that tells us about the society it came out of, with the remake and what that tells us, will we be able to see significant cultural differences between two societies?3 The title of this thesis: Better Not Sleep Under Water, alludes to the fact that there have been two Norwegian films remade in Hollywood: Erik Skjoldbjærg’s Insomnia (1998) and Nils Gaup’s Hodet over vannet (1993). Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia is not a superb work of art in its own right, but it is a good film. Jim Wilson’s Head Above Water, on the other hand, is not. One of the starting points for this thesis, then, becomes why not? What went wrong in making Head Above Water? And what did the makers of Insomnia do right? 1 Forrest, Jennifer and Leonard R. Koos. “Chapter One: Reviewing Remakes: An Introduction” in Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002) 4-5 2 Horton, Andrew and Stuart Y. McDougal. Play It Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) 7 3 I use the word ‘originary’ instead of the word ‘original’ because I feel that in certain contexts the word ‘original’ have qualitative connotations I would like to avoid. 1 Edward T. Hall and Mildred Reed Hall, in Understanding Cultural Differences,4 operate with an interesting term: ‘situational dialect’, by which they mean a vocabulary which will arise out of a certain situation, like the vocabulary we use to order at a fast food restaurant or the one we use to communicate with colleagues within the same field of research. I will try to show that film, in addition to being what James Monaco5 calls a language with syntax that needs to be learned, also has dialects for each genre, and for each national cinema. Do we need to learn the “dialects” of foreign cinemas in order to enjoy them? Can it be that Norwegians are so well versed in the situational dialect of Hollywood film, that when we – as we often do – attack American remakes for not being close enough to the originary text, we are not able to see that Americans, not having been exposed to the situational dialect of European film to such a large degree, simply need the stories translated into a “dialect” they can understand? In short, will the study of remakes from different culture perhaps tell us more about the countries respective film making traditions than about their cultures? With these questions in mind, I will, through an analysis of the two film pairs Hodet over vannet (Nils Gaup, 1993)/ Head Above Water (Jim Wilson, 1996) and Insomnia (Erik Skjoldbjærg, 1997)/ Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002), try to read both cultural differences and differences in film making style, between the country of the originary texts and the country of the remakes. 4 Hall, Edward T. and Mildred Reed Hall. Understanding Cultural Differences (Yarmouth, Me: Intercultural Press, 1990) 5 Monaco, James. How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia 3rd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 2000)152-227 2 Chapter 1. Theory The theories of why the American film industry chooses to use already existing material for their films are many and diverse. Some claim it is an evil plot by Americans to take over the entire world’s popular culture needs. Others see it as a complete lack of imagination on the part of the American film industry. Others again see it as a good way for an American audience to take part in an exchange of stories they otherwise would not be able to. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part deals with theories regarding remakes and the second deals with theories regarding culture. In part one, I will first look into when, and by whom, remakes have been done, before giving some explanations of why foreign remakes are produced and trying to define remakes in relation to other re-uses of artistic material. Finally I will discuss cross-cultural remakes – remakes where the originary film is from another culture than