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Michel Gondry on Be Kind Rewind
By Fred Topel | Image property of New Line Cinema.
Be Kind Rewind
Gondry Reminds Us to Be Kind Rewind
"I already had this philosophy to think that people could enjoy better movies if they made them themselves, because you're in it," said Gondry. "So it's fun to watch and your friends are in it and you made it. There is something about fabricating or building something and then enjoying it. I think people forget about that because everything is already fabricated for them."
Since Be Kind Rewind is a New Line film, they do reference many of the studio's movies, including showing Snakes on a Plane at a modern day video store. But the boys did not remake my favorite motherf***in' movie.
"No, it's too recent and it doesn't exist on VHS. They don't film on VHS [anymore] and I think there's not really nostalgia about that. We wanted to have the new King Kong. In fact, we wanted to show it on VHS and they said, 'No, you can't show it on VHS because you have to show it on DVD.' And it would not work because you cannot erase a DVD by magnetic fields. And I think it goes further than that. I'm not nostalgic from film or video or whatever. I don't really care for that. One, you can't erase DVDs. Secondly, the DVDs are a little complicated for people from generations like my mother has difficulty to operate her own DVD player. So that is an explanation why a man like Danny Glover's character would continue to rent [VHS]."
Rush Hour 2 is the most recent film they remake, so that must have been the cutoff point. More importantly, it just came highly recommended. "Some of the films like Rush Hour 2 or Boyz N The Hood were suggested by Dave Chappelle when we were working on Block Party. I told him about my concept and he told me, 'Oh, you should do this movie and this movie.' He was pretty excited about this idea. So I took those ideas from him."
It was important to Gondry that he not remake films starring his actors, so with Mia Farrow in the cast, Rosemary's Baby was off the table. "I wanted to avoid to be too self reflective. That would have taken people out of the reality I was trying to create. Even though it's a world that's constructed, it wasn't constructed to me. To me, it's realistic. But Mia, if you think of her as being part of the movie in the store, then they would not think of her being this lady she's portraying. So I didn't want to interfere too much with that."
Jack Black did star in a 2005 King Kong, but that remake was more inspired by the older films. "King Kong you could argue that and there's not a logical reason behind the decision. Many of them are contradictory."
The only film Gondry was not able to spoof was Back to the Future, only because he could not get the rights to the video box artwork. Imagine the possibilities of that one.
"I wrote it on five pages, and I tried to just remember, I think I'd seen the movie five or 10 years ago last time. But I've seen it many times. I love this movie. I tried to find how I could tell this movie in five minutes without really missing important parts of the plot. It's a very good exercise because you're really down to what's essential or what you remember and I think by doing that, even if you reproduce a movie that exists, you find yourself in a way, it's your memory and you're attached to one part or another part because it corresponds to something you have."
Ultimately, Gondry wants viewers to focus less on the humorous remakes within Be Kind Rewind and get the message that they are supposed to make their own, original films. "I did those little films but I was thinking of myself doing that too and I think I didn't make remakes and I don't like remakes in general. I don't want to advocate remakes too much. Even though we really advertise the film on [that] because it seems catchy and it's easy to talk about and they have a good reason to do it, out of necessity. They want to replace the stock. Ultimately, they don't do remakes anymore and I think that's important to me that people don't try to do remakes. It's a little bit of a mistake. Young kids who do movies try to reproduce instead of creating. I think if you go all the way to the trouble of shooting a whole movie or even a small movie, you better do your own story because that's the fun part of it."
Be Kind Rewind opens to theaters on February 22nd.
For the trailer, stills and more movie info, go to the Be Kind Rewind Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of New Line Cinema.
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