Crown vs. Crown

I had a conversation with some friends the other day about remakes, and the lack of originality in Hollywood. Scary though the prospect may be, its entirely possible that we'll someday see a new version of films like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and It's a Wonderful Life. As it is, how many times have we seen spoofs of these movies in sitcoms and cartoons? Meanwhile, Planet of the Apes has been remade, Walking Tall was remade, and a remake of King Kong is on the horizon. Even Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was recently recycled and updated to create the film Guess Who. I'd have a hard time thinking of films from within my lifetime that will endure in their originality. Star Wars®, The Godfather, and Raiders of the Lost Ark are the first ones that spring to mind, yet it borders on blasphemy to put those modern epics in the same class as Casablanca and company.

One of the things I try to do in my quest to see everything is watch the originals as well as the remakes. So when I rented 1999's The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, the 1968 original with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway was not far behind. The films share many similarities. Both tell the tale of a bored and wealthy man who decides to mastermind the perfect crime. Each Thomas Crown has a beautiful and crafty woman acting as both nemesis and love interest. Each woman is torn between her duty to an insurance company and her weakness in the face of Crown's charms. The films have their differences as well. McQueen masterminds a bank robbery, while Brosnan is an art lover, planning a much more elaborate theft of a painting from a museum. As a result, the “twist” ending of each film differs as well, and while I applauded the resolution of the remake even as I figured out precisely what it would be, the original managed to surprise me since I was expecting something else. The original has a certain ‘60s flare and style, with funky music and split screens that would make Jack Bauer envious. The remake is polished and modern, with technology playing a major role.

When the remake first hit theaters, the biggest buzz I heard involved the amount of nudity Rene Russo displayed. Many critics praised the over-40 actress for her bravery. Indeed, she was in very good shape for her age, as was her older co-star. In a high-energy scene, the pair roll around naked on nearly every surface of Crown's apartment. I don't envy his butler. Russo's nudity goes from sensual to casual, and she wanders around topless on some tropical island as her rigid by-the-book character surrenders her inhibitions and learns to loosen up. While McQueen and Dunaway's encounters aren't as borderline pornographic, they engage in the single most erotic chess game I've ever seen. With barely any lines of dialogue, the two square off in front of a crackling fire, with close shots of their faces and the playing pieces as the score underlines the game beneath the game. I realized why some of this sequence, including Dunaway fondling one of the bishops, seemed so familiar to me at one point: it had been spoofed in one of the Austin Powers films. As a result, I found myself snickering during some of the more ridiculously extreme close-up head shots during a scene that was intended to be serious. Dunaway's sensuality is enough of a distraction to put McQueen in check, at which point he pulls her to her feet, suggests they “play a different game” and kisses her passionately. The camera whirls around as the image blurs into some trippy psychedelic mash of colors indicative of the era.

The relationship between the characters in the new version is so explicit and physical, that it almost seems like that's all there is to it. In the original, since so much is suggested rather than shown, it seems like the involvement is more emotional. Thus, there's more at stake, and each have more to lose if betrayed by the other. Both are good films in their own right, but I think I marginally prefer the original. I definitely won't look at my chess set the same way ever again.