TY - JOUR
T1 - Local flavors and regional markers : The Low Countries and their commercially driven and proximity-focused film remake practice
AU - Cuelenaere, Eduard
AU - Joye, Stijn
AU - Willems, Gertjan
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - The practice of Dutch-Flemish film remaking that came into existence in the new millennium quickly appeared to be of great importance in the film industries of Flanders and The Netherlands – and consequently of Europe. Inspired by methods used in television (format) studies, this article conducts a systematic comparative film analysis of nine Dutch-Flemish remakes together with their nine source films. Considering the remake as a prism that aids in dissecting different formal, transtextual, and cultural codes, and subsequently embedding the practice in its specific socio-cultural and industrial context, we found several similarities and differences between the Dutch and Flemish film versions and showed how these can be made sense of. More generally, we distilled two encompassing principles that administer the remake practice: even though a great deal of the remake process can be explained through the concept of localization – or, more precisely, through the concepts of ‘manufacturing proximity’ and ‘banal aboutness’ – we found that it should certainly not be limited to these processes – as both (trans)textual, such as the mechanism of ‘filling in the gaps’, and contextual elements were found.
AB - The practice of Dutch-Flemish film remaking that came into existence in the new millennium quickly appeared to be of great importance in the film industries of Flanders and The Netherlands – and consequently of Europe. Inspired by methods used in television (format) studies, this article conducts a systematic comparative film analysis of nine Dutch-Flemish remakes together with their nine source films. Considering the remake as a prism that aids in dissecting different formal, transtextual, and cultural codes, and subsequently embedding the practice in its specific socio-cultural and industrial context, we found several similarities and differences between the Dutch and Flemish film versions and showed how these can be made sense of. More generally, we distilled two encompassing principles that administer the remake practice: even though a great deal of the remake process can be explained through the concept of localization – or, more precisely, through the concepts of ‘manufacturing proximity’ and ‘banal aboutness’ – we found that it should certainly not be limited to these processes – as both (trans)textual, such as the mechanism of ‘filling in the gaps’, and contextual elements were found.
KW - transnational film remakes
KW - local-language film remakes
KW - Low Countries
KW - comparative film analysis
KW - European cinema
M3 - Article
VL - 44
SP - 262
EP - 281
JO - Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research
JF - Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research
SN - 0341-2059
IS - 3
ER -