Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood PDF
Preview Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood
Film Sequels F i l m Carolyn Jess-Cooke S The film sequel has been much maligned in popular culture as a vampirish e corporative exercise in profit-making and narrative regurgitation. Drawing q upon a wide range of filmic examples from early cinema to the twenty-first u Film Sequels e century, this exciting new volume reveals the increasing popularity of, and l experimentation with, film sequels as a central dynamic of Hollywood s cinema. Now creeping into world cinemas and independent film festivals, Carolyn Jess-Cooke the sequel is persistently employed as a vehicle for cross-cultural dialogue and as a structure by which memories and cultural narratives can be circulated across geographical and historical locations. This book aims to account for some of the major critical contexts within which sequelisation operates by exploring sequel production beyond box office figures. Its account ranges from sequels in recent mainstream cinema, art-house and ‘indie’ sequels, non-Hollywood sequels, the effects of the domestic market C on sequelisation, and the impact of the video game industry on Hollywood. a r o The book: l y n • Situates the sequel within its industrial, cultural, theoretical and J e global contexts s s • Offers an essential resource for students and critics interested - C o in film and literary studies, adaptation, critical theory and o k cultural studies e • Provides the first study of film sequels in world cinemas and independent film-making. Carolyn Jess-Cooke is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sunderland. ISBN 978 07486 2603 8 Edinburgh University Press 22 George Square Edinburgh E EH8 9LF d i www.euppublishing.com n b u r Cover Design: Barrie Tullett g h Cover Photograph: The Godfather Part II, 1974 © [Paramount/The Kobal Collection] Film Sequels For Jared, Melody and Phoenix, with much love Film Sequels Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood Carolyn Jess-Cooke Edinburgh University Press © Carolyn Jess-Cooke, 2009 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN978 0 7486 2603 8 (hardback) The right of Carolyn Jess-Cooke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Contents Preface vi Acknowledgements ix Introduction: The Age of the $equel: Beyond the Profit Principle 1 1 Before and After the Blockbuster: A Brief History of the Film Sequel 15 2 Screaming, Slashing, Sequelling: What the Sequel Did to the Horror Movie 52 3 ‘It’s All Up To You!’: Sequelisation and User-Generated Content 72 4 Adventures in Indiewood: Sequels in the Independent Film Marketplace 90 5 Signifying Hollywood: Sequels in the Global Economy 110 6 Sequelisation and Secondary Memory: Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence: A. I.(2001) 130 References 153 Index 164 Preface ‘[I]n a sense no sequel is as good as its predecessor: sequels inevitably seem to fail us in some obscure yet fundamental way.’ Terry Castle, Masquerade and Civilization, 133 ‘Sequels equal money!’ Mr Dresden, Orange Film Board advertisement (2007) This book explores the film sequel from its origins in silent cinema to its phe- nomenal popularity in contemporary Hollywood and beyond with a view to challenging the two chief assumptions of this category, as indicated by the quo- tations above: that sequels are always disappointing, and that they always mean big bucks at the box office. Such broad assumptions may explain why film sequelisation has been largely overlooked by academic studies and scholarly research; despite a century of film sequels, this book provides the first sustained account of this structure. Existing accounts of the film sequel tend to describe it as no more than a vampirish corporative exercise in profit-making and nar- rative regurgitation. Why, then, is sequel production on the rise? What exactly is the sequel, and how does it differ from other categories of repetition, such as the remake, serial and trilogy? By exploring the practice of film sequelisation throughout a range of relevant contexts and critical approaches – including intertextuality, genre, industrial transitions, the impact of new technologies, the independent film marketplace, cross-cultural dialogues and psychoanalytic theory – Film Sequelsdefines the sequel as a framework within which formula- tions of repetition, difference, history, nostalgia, memory and audience inter- activity produce a series of dialogues and relationships between a textual predecessor and its continuation, between audience and text, and between history and remembrance. Such a consideration of these relationships offers a preface vii much more intimate understanding of some the most important contexts of film production and consumption in the twenty-first century, and it is precisely these broader contexts that motivate the intellectual enquiry of this book. Film Sequels was born of an abiding interest in how and why the sequel dissatisfies. Contemporary film production is dominated by varieties of textual repetition and commercial products, including adaptations, remakes, series, franchises, trilogies, appropriations, spin-offs, parodies, pastiches, homages and genre films. Yet none of these tends to receive the same volume and timbre of disappointment as does the sequel. Many remakes fail critically and com- mercially, as do ‘original’ productions, genre films, independent pictures, and so on. The reason why a sequel disappoints – and why the very concept of sequelisation is often met with a collective groan – seems to do with how the sequel re-imagines and extends its source in ways that impose upon our mem- ories and interpretation of the previous film. In creating a second ending of an ‘original’, the sequel conjures a previous viewing experience, and it is precisely this imposition of spectatorial memory, or this kind of enforced retro- interpretation and continuation, that appears to underline the sense of dissat- isfaction that the sequel often creates. Such dynamics are explored here with a view to understanding the contexts within which the film sequel is produced and consumed. No book is produced in isolation, and Film Sequels was no exception. I was fortunate enough to receive help, insight and nods in the right direction from the following people, to whom I owe debts of gratitude: Dominic Alessio, Barry Ardley, Jonathan Auerbach, Peter Burt at the University of Sunderland, Jennifer Cunico, Elizabeth Ezra, Jennifer Forrest, Rosemary Hanes at the Library of Congress, Scott Higgins, Joe Kember, Coonoor Kripalani-Thadani, Jessica Langer, Aditi Menon-Broker, Claire Perkins, Simon Popple, Ben Singer, Sanjay Sood, Colin Young and Josh Yumibe. A special word of thanks goes to Constantine Verevis for his collegial- ity and helpful discussions on sequelisation; to David Hancock for providing me with a copy of his Screen Digest Sequels Report and for regular sequel updates; to Glenda Pearson at the University of Washington for helping me access some tricky film databases and indexes; to my sister Michelle for initi- ating me into the world of online social networking (which facilitated Chapter3); and to Evita Cooke for help and assistance of a much more funda- mental nature. I am grateful to the University of Sunderland and for an award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, both of which provided me with research leave to complete this book. Thanks to the British Academy for a travel grant which facilitated a very productive visit to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. I was also lucky to discover the diverse range of films stocked at my local book/film lender, the Gateshead Public Library, which proved most helpful to my research. viii film sequels I began this project while I was pregnant with my first child, Melody Angel, and finished it after the birth of my second child, Phoenix Jared. Much of my sequels research has eclipsed time spent with both of them; one positive outcome of an otherwise guilt-laden routine was that I was compelled to think harder and work faster than ever before. It is therefore necessary to dedicate this book to my own bright little ‘sequels’, and to my husband Jared, for his love, encouragement and patience, and for his consolation when my computer wiped an entire draft of Chapter 1. Acknowledgements A version of Chapter 6 appears as ‘Virtualizing the Real: Sequelization and Secondary Memory in Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence: A. I., Screen 47: 3(Autumn 2006), pp. 347–66.
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