The 1970s saw the emergence of a new brand of filmmaking in Hollywood. The collapse of the studio system had given birth to the independent producer, who, in turn, was funding a new wave of firebrand directors educated in film schools and inspired by European cinema. The Hollywood remake of a European film is nothing new. Indeed, these days, Hollywood seems unable to do anything but recycle old television series or overseas films. However, the wunderkinds of the 1970s were genuine admirers of their counterparts and their work attempted to be homage to the original rather than a trashy copy.

Many people consider Henri-George Clouzot’s Wages Of Fear (1953) to be the greatest European film of all time. Four men from different ethnic backgrounds, a Corsican (Yves Montand), Frenchman (Charles Vanel), Italian (Folco Lulli) and German (Peter Van Eyck), who find themselves stranded in a Central American town run by the rapacious American Southern Oil Company, volunteer to drive two trucks laden with Nitroglycerin across dangerous rocky terrain to a site where a burning oil well needs to be sealed.

Clouzot patiently acquaints us with the men through ninety minutes of character exposition so that when the odyssey begins, we are transfixed. The journey itself is cinematic suspense at its grandest. It’s also an allegory for Clouzot’s jaundiced view of post-war Earth where capitalist America is swallowing up the globe. The ending is cynical and nihilistic, but still unforgettable.

When he made Sorcerer (1977), William Friedkin was at the summit of the Hollywood mountain after the success of The French Connection and The Exorcist- and had the ego to match. After firing almost all the Dominican Republic production crew and indulging himself artistically to the point where the film went way over budget, Friedkin christened the film with an inexplicable title consigning it to box office oblivion. That’s a pity, as it’s a fine work. The original storyline is left largely intact, although the men are fugitives rather than down on their luck. The suspense levels compare well and the film looks like a psychedelic nightmare, aided by the eerie soundtrack from Tangerine Dream. After convincing Clouzot to give him the rights, Friedkin confessed that Sorcerer would not “be as good” as Wages Of Fear. He was right, but I’m not surprised that it was his favorite work.  

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966) was landmark cinema. David Hemmings plays Thomas, a swinging hedonistic fashion photographer who we find in one of cinema’s most famous scenes at his studio writhing on the floor with a scantily clad model while he photographs her with his huge telephoto lens. On a casual walk through a park, Thomas photographs a young woman (Vanessa Redgrave) embracing an older man. When the woman anxiously demands the film, Thomas deliberately hands her the wrong film. However, when he examines the film, Thomas believes that he has witnessed a murder and goes to the park in search of the corpse.

Blow Up is a masterpiece, a film about nothing and everything at the same time. At one level, the film is a critique of a culture where people are becoming increasingly disengaged from each other and their world. However, the film can also be seen as a seminal post-modern work, a musing on the nature of perspective and the role of the artist. By the end of the film, Thomas is no longer sure about what he saw, nor does he care. He’s back in the park, looking for new images and ways of conveying them.

Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) is an insubstantial shadow of the original, but abundant in style. John Travolta plays a sound technician working on trashy horror films who accidentally stumbles upon what may be a murder while in the countryside at night recording noises. The plot thereafter is conventional and predictable, but De Palma was a Hitchcock devotee and the film is awash with visual flourish.

Few people who watched Martin Scorsese collect his Oscar for The Departed would have realized that the film’s template was a Hong Kong thriller. In Infernal Affairs (2002), Ming (Andy Lau) is a young man introduced to the trial by boss Sam (Eric Tsang) who trains as a cop and becomes Sam’s mole. At the same time, another member of Ming’s alumni in the academy Yan (Tony Leung) is expelled as a ruse to recruit him as an undercover cop to infiltrate the triad. When the Triad and the Department discover that they have a mole that must be exposed, Ming and Yan are entrusted with the task.

The plot is a blinder and the acting and direction are stylish. However, the characters are not fully developed and the film doesn’t pack the dramatic punch that it should. Nevertheless, Martin Scorsese knew that the ingredients for a masterpiece were there, morphing the plot from Hong Kong triad into Irish mafia to create The Departed (2006).  The plot and even the set pieces mirror the original, but Scorsese layers the film with meaning, nuance and cinematic references and also fleshes out the principal characters played with panache by Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson respectively. The Departed is a classic and a vast improvement on the original, but it could have never existed without that original- and Scorsese would be the first to concede the point.

Mal Byrne.