Remakes

Why do some films need to be remade? Why do they lose their lustre after a point?

Is there something left unsaid in stories told only once. Does this unsaid story float in the air like an orphan story, a story with no parent, no saving grace? Do stories become themselves only when they are told many many times over.

We want to propose a cinema that does not have any diversity on the storytelling front. There should be only one story told over and over again. If you want to demonstrate your skill and craft as a filmmaker, do it by telling a story that has been told a million times before.

You can't rely on the novelty of story line to get away with weakness in perspective or form.

If all cinema was a cinema of remake. If stories existed in singular.

Remakes try to reinvent the story. They work on the content too much. When all cinema is a remake, the craftsmen of cinema will be forced to withdraw and work exclusively on the lens as the force field of their practice. The lens is all that will remain after nothing else remains. The innovation of cinema will be reduced to the pursuit of the optical innovation of the lenses.

Lenses are elements of glass that allow you to see the world in different ways. Looking at the world in any isolated way is a function of the lens. Lenses do not necessarily need to be made of glass. They can be made of code, they can be mode of a perspectival bias.

Filmmakers can be craftsmen known in their cliques for the specialised lenses that they have in their collection. These lenses will be closely guarded like trade secrets and will become important tools for establishing a craft. A filmmaker's life will be spent in putting together an arsenal of lenses which can deployed as and when needed.

A filmmaker without lenses will be quite poor.

A filmmaker with enough lenses will be considered to be a magician.

Stories will remain the same, lenses will change.

When the lens changes suddenly everything seems anew, suddenly everything seems differently layered with meaning. The access is altered but easy.

There is no new story to be told, only new ways to look at existing stories.

So film are made again. A remake is another film but it is still stuck in a recursive frame of reference to the earlier film. The future film will not be stuck in such a frame. The future film will be able to deal with a gaze that is very fixed, very still and uninterested in wandering.

The future film will not need to be remade because that will not be possible. Lenses are unique and stories are same, so there will be nothing to do.

Once as a civilisation, we are freed from the need to tell stories again, we will be freed from the compulsions of narrative life. A lot of our energy will be freed up and we can dedicate ourselves to the fine task of crafting our vision.