Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don’t hate remakes. I think they can, in theory, offer up a fresh look at an older plot. Some movies just beg to be updated, especially futuristic movies dealing in technology that never came to pass. Or maybe the original movie starred a white actress playing a light-skinned black woman, and since sensibilities have changed so much, it now makes more sense to have an actual light-skinned black woman in the role. That sort of thing. (Remember those good old days, Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age? Whoooooole lotta white folk in those movies playing ethnical roles.)
Another reason to have a remake is to show a classic to a new audience. My barometer is one and a half generations, say 30 years or so. The people who saw the original in the movie theater are no longer the target audience that movie studios love to attract; they have their memory of the original, but they’re not exceedingly likely to see the new one, anyway. That target audience starts with the 18 year olds, and they weren’t alive when the original came out. Sure, we have home video now, but it ain’t the same.
Some of you might remember My Fair Lady (1964), the lavish Lerner-Lowe musical starring Audrey Hepburn as the Cockney flower girl turned into a elegant debutante by Rex Harrison’s Henry Higgins. MFY itself was a remake, of course, of 1938’s Pygmalion, which was based on the George Bernard Shaw play of the same name. Well, they’re gonna remake My Fair Lady, although they’re calling it an update – fillming on location instead of sound stages, that sort of thing. So 44 years after the musical, we’ll get a redo with contemporary stars trying their hand at 1912 London accents.
Keira Knightley is currently in talks to play Eliza Doolittle. I think she’d make a fine physical and characteristic match of the original Hepburn portrayal. She’s waifish, almost boyish in stature, the better to convey a dirt-poor guttersnipe. She has the voice already. And we’ve seen her dolled up in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. So this isn’t terrible casting from the outset.
I’m not entirely sure about the musical aspect, though. Musicals still aren’t popular, despite Enchanted and Chicago in recent years, but why bother going that route anyway? The story is a wonderful rags-to-riches tale as it is, so why not just remake Pygmalion? The Variety piece indicates that the remake will delve a bit more into the Shaw play and use things that weren’t seen in the musical. This could be good, if we get more in-depth characterizations of Doolittle, Higgins, and Col. Pickering, something that shades their actions with motives, but I have a feeling it’ll just lead to broader portrayals and longer songs.
No word yet on when the new MFY would be released.
