The Prisoner is back in the Village
What would it take to have me blogging again? Something pretty big. Or something huge like the fact that I just learned about AMC’s remake of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, only TV’s cultest and most classic show before Twin Peaks. Not only that but it’s already slated for November.
And let’s not even get started on the cast of mostly brit-sounding unknowns (very good) headed by a seemingly excellent Ian McKellen (if you’re not from britain, a royalist or an Anglican cult follower, shut up with the “Sir”) as Number 2 and Jim Caviezel as Number 6. I’ve only seen Caviezel in a Z-movie being butchered by bearded dudes with a hard-on but he looks pretty good as a stoic american equivalent of McGoohan’s.
I’m also very interested to see how the producers are going to translate the English oddness of the original Prisoner into its Americana equivalent. So far what the visuals give away is promising. And the subtle change to the way people are adressed as “X” instead of “Number X” sounds good as well.
I was very surprised to see the Rover appear in the desert (again, having a desert instead of an ocean bay is a good counterpoint) and also intrigued by what appears to be Twin Towers of glass in the background. Some people may shout exploitation but I really enjoy when writers and producers not only adapt something to a new era but also to a new pop culture subtext. It’s really hard to have the same impact on the new audience as the original piece, and while you may receive applause from fine critics when you do a verbatim copy of the original much less talent is required than when you actually disassemble what made the original Prisoner so potent in everyone’s mind at the time and try to have a similar impact on the minds of people today.
People aren’t afraid of the same things today than in the 70’s, and their imagination also aren’t triggered by the same archetypes. Which is why I think the suburban design of the new Village is also a smart choice. In an era of Wysteria Lanes and “little boxes” making the familiar unfamiliar and disquieting again is necessary to establish something as special as The Village.
I’ll let you all form you own opinion by watching the trailer (in HD please) :
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FqQsaK5KpQ
Update: I forgot to put up the posters.
