From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking challenges the categorical dismissal in film criticism of remakes, sequels, and franchises by probing what these formats really do when they revisit familiar stories. Kathleen Loock argues that movies from Hollywood’s large-scale system of remaking use serial repetition and variation to constantly negotiate past and present, explore stability and change, and actively shape how the film industry, cinema, and audiences imagine themselves. Far from a simple profit-making exercise, remaking is an inherently dynamic practice situated between the film industry’s economic logic and the cultural imagination. Although remaking developed as a business practice in the United States, this book shows that it also shapes cinematic aesthetics and cultural debates, fosters film-historical knowledge, and promotes feelings of generational belonging among audiences.
Hollywood Remaking How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture
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Reviews
"A must-read major achievement. Kathleen Loock deftly and refreshingly gets past the mountains of discursive junk piled on top of the concept of remaking and offers instead a superbly smart and highly compelling thesis for how to make sense of it as cultural practice."–Jonathan Gray, author of Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste“An ambitious and admirable undertaking, ingenious in concept and execution. Examining not only the industrial history of remaking but also its impact on conceptions of the self, generational communities, and cultural memory, Hollywood Remaking marks a major step forward in our understanding of remaking practices.”–Barbara Klinger, author of Immortal Films: Casablanca and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic