Crossing frontiers, staking out New Territories: Hollywood remaking British crime locations in Get Carter

Abstract

Artists have always borrowed from older works. The Hollywood film industry is no different in this respect. Its remaking practices, however, have met with much criticism. Remaking has been variably accused of cultural piracy, political imperialism and even American colonisation of national cinemas and cultures. Hollywood remakes of British films may be seen as exception to that rule. When language is no barrier and with the continued mutual cultural exchange between Britain and the United States, new elements of critical academic discourse arise, encouraging alternative means of reappraisal and comparison with filmmakers, producers and stars alike inevitably becoming part of a binary discourse of compare/contrast. Such remakes often proudly disclose rather than hide their roots, containing parody, pastiche, and/or homage. In 1999 and 2000 a cult British film, Get Carter (1971) directed by Mike Hodges, metamorphosed into the America of today. In the original, crossing borders literally and figuratively plays a vital part as the London gangster travels to Newcastle. The paper examines two alternative approaches to rewriting the original’s spatial and temporal relations and its geographically specific cultural identity into a new location on the basis of two remakes: The Limey and Get Carter, with the resultant different, sometimes even contradictory and conflicting, messages.