On Adaptations, Remakes, Homages, and That New Footloose Movie

Last Friday afternoon, the husband and I met for lunch. Afterward, we bought two movie tickets, handed them over to the teen who mans the ticket pulpit, and then parted ways. The husband turned left toward Paranormal Activity 3, and I turned right, headed down the hall to suffer through watch Footloose (Craig Brewer, 2011). (Yes, we often go to separate movies; no, we don’t need counseling.) Having seen the trailer, I knew this new Footloose would resemble the old Footloose in terms of music, setting, and story; but surely, thought I, some things would change. Within the first three minutes, I realized I was sadly mistaken.

This update/remake/adaptation/homage (WTF was it?!) essentially repeats the original: same character names, costumes, dialogue, and cinematography. For Rusty, they even found someone whose hair and prominent facial features favor those of the young Sarah Jessica Parker (right). At this point, my mind reluctantly turned to Gus Van Sant’s 1998 (horrible and unnecessary) shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), and I prayed that I wouldn’t undergo the same torture. Sometimes prayers aren’t answered, y’all.

NOTE: At this point, I’m also supposed to warn you there may be spoilers ahead; but again, if you’ve seen the original, then you’re all good because the new Footloose is THE SAME DAMN THING.

My Observations in the Dark

I rarely take notes while watching contemporary movies in darkened cinemas, but for some reason, I felt the need. Here’s what I jotted down as I endured watched the story unfold before me.

1) Please. Please, Step Away from the Camera. After the opening credits, the first face we see is Rev. Shaw Moore’s (Dennis Quaid). And OMG, do we see it. Closely. Very closely. And for a long time. Brewer (the director) films Moore’s initial sermon in tight close-ups with Quaid’s worn face filling 70% of the frame. He does this in a subsequent scene as well.

We get it. We get it. This guy who dominates the entire frame is the authority figure who will dominate the church, town, and those poor teenagers who, to quote Freddie Mercury, only want to break free. Let’s just hope he backs up a bit so others can get into the shot.

With my eyes, I will smite the first teenager who dances in public.

2) Ren Calderone. When “sarcastic Yankee” Ren McCormick (Kenny Wormald) sauntered into town, I wondered how he’d compare to Kevin Bacon’s Ren. For example, would he befriend someone like Chris Penn’s Willard, and if so, would they have the same chemistry? Would he deliver the whole “time to mourn…time to dance” spiel with the same subtle confidence as Bacon’s Ren? And most importantly, if it was in the script (sure it was), would he be able to scream “LET’S DANCE!” at the end of the movie with the silly gusto that Bacon’s Ren did?

But the more I stared at Wormald, the more my mind turned away from Kevin Bacon and toward Lady Gaga. Lemme explain. With that hairstyle, those white t-shirts and jeans, and that scowl, Wormald’s Ren eerily resembles Jo Calderone, Gaga’s fictional male alter-ego. Weird. Don’t get me wrong. I loves me some Calderone and Gaga; in fact, I was mesmerized by his/her performance of “You and I” at the 2011 Video Music Awards. But viewing Ren McCormick as a drag king in the context of this narrative is a bit off-putting.

Something, something about this face... (Gaga and Wormald)

3) Girl, Get Some Grit. In the 1984 version of Footloose, Lori Singer plays rebellious preacher’s daughter, Ariel Moore. Throughout the film, Singer exudes a grittiness and a raw defiance that suit her character. Ever mischievous and daring, if not downright stupid (playing chicken with a freight train?), her Ariel owns those red boots, that fringe leather jacket, the “Dance Your Ass Off” t-shirt, and (I hate to say it) that shiner on her eye. In other words, Singer’s Ariel looks as though she’s lived a lifetime in three years of high school under the thumb of her frustrated, repressed, southern father/preacher.

In the new Footloose, Julianne Hough plays Ariel. Known primarily for her performances on Dancing with the Stars and as Ryan Seacrest’s arm-candy, Hough doesn’t quite fit the bill. In my notes, I wrote next to her name baby voice and missing rawness. For example, when she yells and curses in her father’s church it looks like a five-year throwing a temper tantrum rather than a high-school senior trying to make her father understand her. Similarly, when she prances around the race track and school in her daisy dukes and Ray-Bans, she comes off as a kid playing dress-up rather than a girl who ultimately wants attention in more ways than one. In short, Hough’s Ariel lacks grit.

No grit vs. true grit

4) Hey, Craig Brewer, Make It Your Own! The remainder of my notes is essentially scenes, characterizations, etc. the director repeats from the old Footloose. [Script of the original]

• Ren works in a cotton gin (Why’s the only black man in town gotta own the cotton gin?)
• Ariel wears tight jeans and red boots.
• Ren drives a yellow Volkswagen bug, blasts his music.
• Willard, still a numbskull who can’t dance, wears a cowboy hat and overalls.
• When Chuck, the antagonist, first meets Ren, they clash. Chuck: “I thought only fags were dancers.” Ren: “I thought only assholes used the word faggot.” (In the original, Chuck: “I thought only pansies wore neckties.” Ren: “I thought only assholes used the word pansy.”) Either way, same display of machismo…
• The two couples go line-dancing across the state line.
• The four return from dancing across the bridge on which the classmates died three years earlier. Reciting Chris Penn’s lines to a T, “the new Willard” confesses, “I hate this bridge. Gives me the creeps.”
• Blaring his music some more, Ren takes out his frustration in a rundown warehouse. As he sees his nemeses in his mind, he swings from chains, executes his gymnastics skills, and dances fiercely down that same enclosed space in which the light is filtered through the slats. [In case you've forgotten, here's the original.]
• Willard learns how to dance with some little girls and to the song “Let’s Hear It For the Boy.”
• Before beating the crap out of her, Chuck tells Ariel she’ll “wrap those skinny little legs around anybody.”
• Ren wears a jacket and skinny tie when he appears before the town counsel; Ariel flashes her “Dance Your Ass Off” tee.
• Ren informs us that there’s a “time to mourn and a time to dance” and that, as seniors in high school, this is “their time.”
• After he realizes his repressed ways, Rev. Moore invites his congregation to “join [him] to pray to the Lord… to guide them in their endeavors.”
• At the school dance, Hough’s Ariel wears the same damn dress and wrist-corsage Singer wore except the former’s about a foot shorter.
• Wormald’s Ren dons the same maroon tuxedo jacket, black tie, and spiked hair as Bacon’s.
• Ren’s car door sticks when he goes to let Ariel inside.
• Upon (re)entering the dance, Ren shoots glittery confetti into the air and screams, “LET’S DANCE!” All oblige, and perform to Kenny Loggins’ song “Footloose.”

Okay, so all of this begs the question, what is Craig Brewer doing here? Is he paying homage to the original version? Is he updating the original for a new audience? Remaking it? Adapting?

Adaptations, Remakes, and Homages, Oh My!

Based on the time and energy I spent writing my dissertation — on film adaptations, for cryin’ out loud — I should be able to answer this question. Let’s see.

An homage is a show of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but also by a more oblique reference, artistic or poetic. I think, for instance, of Casablanca‘s “La Marseillaises” scene (1941), a tribute to a similar moving scene from Jean Renoir’s prisoner-of-war film, Grand Illusion (1937). More broadly, the entire movie Down with Love (Peyton Reed, 2003) would be considered an homage to the Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedies of the ’60s.

A remake is a movie or piece of music that has been filmed or rerecorded and released again; (successful) film remakes usually have noticeable changes in character, plot, and/or theme. For the most part, these remakes adhere to the rules: The Karate Kid (2010), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), The Italian Job (2003), Ocean’s Eleven (2001), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Cape Fear (1991), Scarface (1983).

Finally, an adaptation is a movie, television drama, or stage play that has been adapted from a written work. Virtually any Shakespeare film you’ve seen fits here (Branagh’s Henry V, Olivier’s Richard III, Welles’s Othello) as does anything Jane Austin ever wrote that made it to the big screen (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice). But this category also contains theatre-to-film adaptations like Guys and Dolls, Pal Joey, and West Side Story, the latter of which, you know, is adapted from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Also adapted into movies are video games, the Bible, television shows, individual sketches from Saturday Night Live, and comic books. That said, I’ve also recently heard Batman (1989) and Tron (2010) described as reinterpretations (rather than adaptations) of their original source material.

My postmodern head hurts.

So what, then, is this new Footloose? USA Today claims it’s “a remake that pays homage to the original,” NPR and the NY Times label it a remake exclusively, and the LA Times and US Magazine reference it as both a remake and an adaptation. Sigh.

Technically, this new Footloose is an adaptation since it has been very closely adapted from a written work, in this case, a 1984 screenplay. And technically, it is also a remake, but arguably a shoddy one. Aside from a few scenes/situations (the opening crash, a few black folks thrown into the mix, Ren’s family situation, the bus chase), virtually nothing — dialogue, characterization, plot, themes, costumes, dance numbers, dance moves, location, props, lighting — feels different, new, updated, or modernized like, for example, Father of the Bride (1991), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), or The Magnificent Seven (1960), all remakes of earlier films. To this end, the new Footloose is a poor remake and, I submit, a poor adaptation. I sure wish the director hadn’t stopped “punching that card.”

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