Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Fly

This is not a Fred Astaire film! That would have been great, though - Astaire tapdancing with six feet... I took a break in the Fredfest to watch The Fly, the original from 58. Scientist messes with nature and pays the price. Starring Vincent Price.

It's interesting when you watch a remake before the original film. Often you will prefer the remake, since you saw that first. The original The Thing seems weak when you've already seen the remake by John Carpenter. And the remake of The Fly, by Cronenberg, is such a strong film that the original seen today is slightly silly. It still has it's qualities. For one thing, it's not a cheap B-movie. It has an expensive look. One thing that is lost, though, is the mystery. You know what has happened, you know why the woman in the opening of the film has killed her husband and why she is obsessed with flies. Something I wondered about is, why is the film set in France? Is it based on a French book? It creates the strange situation where the supporting characters speak with a heavy French accent, but the main characters don't.

A central line in the film is "It's like playing God." As usual in these films, there is a warning against experimenting with nature, creating the iconic ending - the fly with a human head, about to be eaten by a spider. Heelp Meeee!

2 comments:

  1. Hm, I wonder if that's still a spoiler, since everyone knows about it? Anyway, I find I like both versions, but you're right, our expectations do change our perception of films, and seeing a good remake of an old movie may make the older one seem a little naive if you happen to see it after the remake.

    Oh, I got my copy of Werewolves of Montpellier yesterday, it's great! Keep it up, man!

    ReplyDelete