Chris Cawsey (The rat catcher): " Their dyin' is my livin', you might say. Smell a rat, see a rat, kill a rat. That's me, that's Chris Cawsey! Mr Sumner![Dustin Hoffman] Rats is life!"
The main reason I bought one of the first Beta-Maxes way back when, was so that I could own movies like 1971's "Straw Dogs," and study the genius of director Sam Peckinpah shot by shot. Well, the beta machine has gone the way of the Dodo, but "Straw Dogs" has aged amazingly through the years. It still packs an emotional wallop, and remains one of the best studies of violence ever put to film.
I heard a rumor this morning that a re-make is in the works. I pray it's not true. There is no way any director today could match Peckinpah's classic, and why try? What about this masterpiece film could possibly be improved upon? And what the execs always forget, when they are contemplating a re-make, is not just the film itself, but the particular time in history it was originally released is just as important to its overall effect as any other aspect- the cinematography, music, etc.
1971 was smack in the middle of the most pacifistic era America has ever known. Largely due to the war in Viet Nam, objection to violence of any kind was at an all-time high, which proved an irresistible lure to Sam Peckinpah, who viewed violence as a sometimes absolutely necessary cathartic act.
So, now you want to re-make this statement on violence in an era where the public's attitude is so blase about it that a war in Iraq, replete with car-bombings and suicidal attacks on innocent citizenry, can't drag folks away from texting each other over "American Idol" results? Please, don't do this.
Here's an idea, you lazy jerks. Put down the phone, sit at your keyboard and write something original to be filmed! Or do like Peckinpah did when he made the literary "The Siege at Trencher's Farm" into "Straw Dogs." Take a book that's never been filmed, and translate it for the screen. There's plenty of material out there to choose from.
Jay Amicarella
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