Confession: I was never a huge fan of DePalma's 1976 version. The whole "They're gonna laugh at you!" repetition was annoying, and the closing hand-out-of-the-grave shock-shot was cheap. The remake is more intelligently directed, Carrie's and the audience's understanding of her telekinesis powers is more subtly told, and (to complete the blasphemy) Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore, as Carrie and her mother, are more compelling than Spacek and Laurie. I respect Stephen King's message of not treating "evil" as abstract, and rather portraying people as its purveyors; when evil happens, everybody pays. But alas, it's a remake, and lacks originality.
Mo says:
Among remakes ,absolutely it is one of the best but versus original ? I wanna be loyal to Great De Palma ! and the main credit of both goes back to the writer.The plot is fantastic and had great potential to get updated for new generation by using high-tech in modern atmosphere . I was interested to know Depalma and Stephen king about the remake. Maybe it would be interesting for you too.
ReplyDeleteKing spoke with Entertainment Weekly on Thursday , May 2011 about the reboot:
"I've heard rumblings about a Carrie remake, as I have about The Stand and It. Who knows if it will happen? The real question is why, when the original was so good? I mean, not Casablanca, or anything, but a really good horror-suspense film, much better than the book. Piper Laurie really got her teeth into the bad-mom thing. Although Lindsay Lohan as Carrie White... hmmm. It would certainly be fun to cast. I guess I could get behind it if they turned the project over to one of the Davids: Lynch or Cronenberg."
***
Oct 2012-Director of the original Carrie, Brian De Palma, spoke with Fangoria about the upcoming remake and how he gave director Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don’t Cry) his blessings.
“I know Kimberly Pierce, I’ve known her for twelve years. I met her in Paris when she was on a press junket for Boys Don’t Cry. We spent some time in New York together, we used to go to the theatre together. She’s a bright, talented person. I tried to encourage her to make a movie very quickly after the success of Boys and it took her years to find right material…but anyway, she contacted me when she decided to do Carrie. We discussed the right way to approach it, who she was going to cast and we had a few discussions about it and basically I gave her my blessing. She’s a very talented girl and I’m really excited to see what she does. It will be more like the book, I think, which is Sue Snell’s testimony which puts Carrie in kind of brackets…”
Thanks for the great feedback on these two icons!
DeleteOn Stephen King, I believe he's the master storyteller, but his movie tastes (even in the horror genre) have always been ... strange, to me at least. I usually have major disagreements with his top 10 movies each year, and we all know he was vehemently against Kubrick's version of "The Shining" - one of the best horror movies ever. (He made his own TV version of the novel, and I've heard it was no good.)
On DePalma, well ... I don't know if you've heard his interviews. He always always sounds so angry. You can even feel that anger even in his movies. So I'm not sure what his "blessing" of Pierce's work means. Although I'm curious to know what DePalma says now that the remake is done.
;-)
Maybe he is always angry because he didn't get such a huge success as much as his old classmates-friends who sit over that table ! something he deserved . We have to admit that he has not made a considerable work since many years ago, something new like Marty's and steven's or high-Profit like lucas' . BTW I still think a new movie by him or Coppola : must see!
ReplyDelete