Ripe for a Remake: The Princess Bride

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. When Istanbul woke up yesterday morning from an equally disturbing slumber, she found herself changed into Greenland. And I don’t mean it in jest. Unusual weather (snow itself isn’t unusual here – snowstorms that would make a taun-taun think twice are) such as yesterday’s would compel regular people (read: those without a death wish) to stay in doors, and curl up on the sofa with a warm cup of chocolate and a thick book. Not me, though, I had errands to run, the most important of which was to take in Charlie Wilson’s War and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

I first had to travel halfway across the nival landscape to a friend’s place to feed their cat while they’re away. Not a problem – if I don’t count the half an hour I spent searching for the feline fiend, who, for some reason, had taken to hiding from me. Next, I had to switch my copy of House of Games with a new one as it won’t play on my DVD player. I had to get some food, too – again, no problem. But, by that time, what should have taken me an hour at the most had devoured the better part of my afternoon, and I had no energy left in me to go to the cinema. Thankfully, when I went back home, there were a few films on the telly that I had never seen before. The Princess Bride was one of them.

I only found out about The Princess Bride in the early nineties in Germany – until then I had not even known that it existed. If it had received a theatrical release in Turkey when it first came out, I didn’t know about it, or else cared. When friends started going on about the flick’s apparent awesomeness, my interest was piqued yet I never sought it out either in high school, or at uni, where quoting lines from the movie seemed to be one of the entry criteria (“No, I don’t want a peanut, but would you like a slap”). By the time I read about the film in William Goldman’s Which Lie Did I Tell?, it felt like I knew everything there was to know about it – the story, the jokes, the behind the scenes fun, the grosses, everything. So when I saw that the film was on yesterday, it was a great way to see what all the fuss was about without, literally, leaving the sofa (besides, the other option was The Doors, and I had no time to wallow in that mire).

It’s a good film, and I did like it. It has a quaint innocence that’s underscored by world weary sarcasm (the parachronistic gags are perhaps running commentary inserted by the Grandfather) – the charm comes from the way Rob Reiner devotes equal attention to both the fairy tale aspect and the comedy. As in This is Spinal Tap, the spoof never overshadows the story. It’s a nice little treat, perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Nonetheless, the film left me wanting – it would be unfair to call the production half-baked, but the film seemed to lack that final oomph, and the biggest reason was the way it was telling a much grander story than the one that had ended up on the screen. The visuals did not reflect the magnificence. Now what I am about to say will come as anathema, as blasphemy, to many of the film’s fans. But once they break the onerous shackles of nostalgia, even they would see that the film has summer blockbuster, maybe even franchise, written all over it. It’s a fine film, sure, but it has the potential to be so much more. The answer is simple: The Princess Bride simply must be remade.

I don’t believe that re-makes are intrinsically pestiferious. Nor are they – or sequels – commensurate with whore’s movies, as William Goldman argues in his typically irascible tone in many of his writings (David Bordwell has an excellent discussion on the history and merits of movie sequels here). The re-interpretation of an already-existing (and, at times, much lauded) work of art is not unique to American cinema. The practice is as old as human civilization itself, and encompasses all art. The Odyssey owes as much to the Epic of Gilgamesh as it does to the ancient tales of Asia Minor and Greece – in turn, Gilgamesh itself can be seen as the retelling of the Akkadian Atra-Hasis and the Sumerian Eridu-Genesis legends, both of which form the basis of all deluge myths. Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Goethe’s Faust are more modern examples. In Verrochio’s workshop where he was educated, not just Leonardo Da Vinci, but Boticelli and Perugino as well, were asked to do reinterpretations of existing works. In fact, reimaginings of classical themes and scenes form the basis of much of Renaissance art. Albeit less common, remakes can be found in contemporary painting, too: Last year’s Picasso exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art “included instances of American artists remaking, as new versions, particular works by Pablo Picasso, quoting passages of his paintings, or mimicking his style.” Covers are a dime a dozen in modern music, but keen listeners of Beethoven’s early work would find themes similar to Mozart, too. To quote from the aforementioned Picasso exhibit’s website, “a remake — by adapting, displacing, or just feeding off another film — not only generates something different and new, it reveals peculiarities of the original that we wouldn't otherwise see. Whether it is an homage or a travesty, a remake can be faithful to the original in changing it — or it can betray the original by imitating it.” In fact, as Matthew Gurewitsch wrote in the New York Times on April 4, 1999, and as today’s word of the day mailing from Dictionary.Com appropriately brings to my attention, “However we choose to define a classic, a sine qua non is that the material lend itself to reinterpretation in the light of changing circumstances.” So it can even be said that a classic is not truly a classic unless it can be (or is) reinterpreted.

Which brings us to why The Princess Bride needs to be remade. As I said earlier, the story is much more majestic than the film itself does it justice. It’s supposed to be a fairy tale, a grand adventure through many lands, an Odyssey of sorts, yet it feels like it was filmed in the emerald hills while the shepherds were keeping the flocks of sheep at bay – which they probably were. The scenery doesn’t have a commanding presence – and it should as this is a fairy tale, and the scenery is one of the most important parts of the story. Try to imagine the Lord of the Rings films without thinking of New Zealand…See, you can’t! The cliffs of insanity are not at all imposing, the soundstage where Westley duels Inigo too obviously a soundstage, the Prince’s castle, and its interiors, totally underwhelming. And the less talk about the risible sequences with the eels and the giant rats the better. Yet it’s not just what is lacking in the film that makes it deserving of a remake, but what’s already in it, too. The tongue in cheek, at times wonderfully meta humour, is currently very much a part of the pop culture zeitgeist. Just as getting involved in a land war in Asia is a bad idea still, so were swashbuckling action-adventure movies until a few years ago when Pirates of the Caribbean obliterated that particular axiom with panache.

Now imagine this. A visionary director, like Guillermo Del Toro, say, helming a page one remake of the story. While they keep what is great about the film – the characters, the humour, the heart – they completely overhaul the rest of the film. I am not just talking about better effects, which would be instrumental, but a rebuilding of the story from the ground up – a more fleshed out story, more formidable sets, luscious locations, new designs, etc.[1] The fact is The Princess Bride, however great it is, can be much better. They have the technology. They can re build it.

No – they SHOULD rebuild it. They owe it to the story.

[1] In fact, just as the original film is told as a bedtime story by the grandfather, this new version could be the director pitching the remake itself to an at-first oblivious studio exec. How’s that for meta!