Cinema Sequels And Remakes

Cinema Sequels And Remakes Preamble: The remake is both an industrial and a critical genre. Defined primarily in relation to a body of copyright law, the acknowledged or credited remake develops from being an ethical solution to the early practice of duping to become an economically driven staple of the Hollywood industrial mode of representation. Following the Hollywood recession of 1969 and the small-and-weird-can-be-beautiful-revolution of the early seventies, the remake (along with the sequel) becomes typical of the defensive production and marketing strategies of a post Jaws Hollywood. In the case of the unacknowledged remake, the absence of a production credit shifts attention from a legal-industrial definition to a critical-interpretive one, in which the remake is determined in relation to a general discursive field [that] is mediated by the structure of the [filmic] system and by the authority of the [film and] literary canon (Frow, Intertextuality and Ontology 46). In either instance, the intertextual referentiality between a remake and its `original is largely extratextual (Friedberg 175), located in historically specific technologies and institutional practices such as copyright law and authorship, canon formation and film literacy. In their almost one thousand page long Cinema Sequels and Remakes, 1903-1987, Roben Nowlan and Gwendoline Wright Nowlan devote not quite two full pages to explaining the selection criteria for one thousand and twenty five alphabetically listed primary films and the many more associated remakes and sequels that make up their reference volume. The brevity of Nowlan and Nowlans introduction is attributable to the fact that they make little attempt to define either remake or sequel, but rather take these as received categories, i.e., their principal criterion for selection is that a film has been previously designated as a remake or sequel in any two or more of a number of unidentified but reliable source[s], which list remakes and sequels of certain genres of films (xi-xii). While this type of lax definition makes for a wide selection of material and does not preclude the inferential reconstruction of at least some of the unspecified principles of selection (through an examination of th ose films that have been included), Nowlan and Nowlans intuitive approach underscores the extent to which the remake is conceived more through actual usage and common understanding than through rigorous definition.(1) While Nowlan and Nowlan put aside problems of categorization to list thousands of films, Michael B. Druxmans more modest (in scope) Make It Again, Sam, which sets out to provide a comprehensive dissertation on the remake practice by detailing the film life of [thirty-three] literary properties (9), attempts to ground its selection in some preliminary definitions. Druxman begins by electing to limit the category of remake to those theatrical films that were based on a common literary source (i.e., story, novel, play, poem, screenplay), but were not a sequel to that material (9). This seemingly infallible signpost is however complicated by those films that are obviously remakes [but] do not credit their origins (9). In such cases Druxman adopts a heuristic devicea rule of thumbwhich requires that a new film borrow more than just an element or two from its predecessor to qualify (9). This in turn allows Druxman to distinguish between nonfiction films of a single historical incident or b iography of a historical figure (e.g., the mutiny on the Bounty or the life of Jesse James) which differ because they are based around competing versions of the same incident, and those nonfiction films of a like historical incident which are similar even though they are based upon diverse literary sources (9). As might be expected from an approximate rule which arbitrates according to whether a films borrowings are significant or only amount to an element or two, Druxman ultimately admits that there were many marginal situations [in which he] simply used [his] own discretion in deciding whether or not to embrace [a film as a remake] (9). Although Druxmans recognition of unacknowledged remakes introduces a number of methodological difficulties, he funkier grounds his discussion by viewing Hollywood remaking practice as a function of industry pragmatism, driven by three major factors. Firstly, Druxman argues that the decision to remake an existing film is primarily a voluntary one based on the perceived continuing viability of an original story. However, industry demand for additional material during the studio-dominated era of the thirties and forties and attempts to rationalize the often high costs of source acquisition prompted studios to consider previously filmed stories as sources for B pictures, and even for top of the bill productions (13). As Tino Balio points out, the Hollywood majors had story departments with large offices in New York, Hollywood, and Europe that systematically searched the literary marketplace and stage for suitable novels, plays, short stories, and original ideas (99). Taking as an example story acquisitions at Warner Brothers between 1930 and 1949, Balio notes that the pattern of source acquisition demonstrates two often contradictory goals: (1) the desire to base films on pretested material, that is, low-risk material that was already well known and well received by the public and (2) the desire to acquire properties as inexpensively as possible, especially during declining or uncertain economic circumstances (Robert Gustafson qtd. in Balio 99). In practice this meant that while Warners often invested in expensive pre-sold properties, such as best-selling novels and Hollywood hit plays, it offset the high costs of pretested properties by using original screenplays written in its screenwriting department and by relying heavily on `the cheapest pretested material of allearlier Warner pictures (99). Druxmans second, related point is that the customary studio practice at the time of purchasing the rights to novels, plays, and stories in perpetuity meant that a company was able to produce multiple versions of a particular property without making additional payments to the copyright holder (15). Canonized classics of literature, such as Treasure Island and The Three Musketeers, not only had pre-sold titles, but because they were in the public domain, had the added advantage of requiring no initial payment for their dramatic rights (18-20). While the majority of recycled, previously purchased source material (particularly from those films that had done fair to poorly at the box office) made its way into B-unit production (Balio 100), high profile titles were sometimes remade to take advantage of new technologies and practices. Accordingly, Druxmans third and final point relates to the profit potential of redoing established films in order to exploit new stars or screen techniques, e .g., Michael Curtizs 1938 version of The Adventures of Robin Hood as both a vehicle for Errol Flynn and a sound and Technicolor update of the Douglas Fairbanks silent epic, Robin Hood (Allen Dwan, 1922) (15). Druxmans initial definition and the above factors of industry pragmatism allow him to posit three general categories of Hollywood remake: (i) the disguised remake: a literary property is either updated with minimal change or retitled and then disguised by new settings and original characters, but in either case the new film does not seek to draw attention to its earlier version(s), e.g., Colorado Territory (Raoul Walsh, 1949) as a disguised remake of High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1941); (ii) the direct remake: a property may undergo some alterations or even adopt a new title, but the new film and its narrative image do not hide the fact that it is based upon an earlier production, e.g., John Guillermins 1976 remake of King Kong (Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933); and (iii) the non-remake: a new film goes under the same title as a familiar property but there is an entirely new plot, e.g., Michael Curtizs 1940 version of The Sea Hawk is said to bear little relation to First Nationals 1924 adaptation of the Rafael Sabatini novel (13-15).(2) While Druxmans account of the remake raises a number of salient points, among them the role that credits and promotions play in the identification of remakes, the publication of Make It Again, Sam prior to the post-Jaws renovation of Hollywood and the transformation of film viewing through videotape and other recent technologies of storage and reproduction make the book somewhat backward-looking. In order to consider some aspects of the remake as a media-intertext, particularly in relation to new Hollywood remakes, it is helpful to turn to a more recent typology of the remake, Thomas M. Leitchs Twice-Told Tales.(3) Leitch begins his account by making a number of points about the singularity of the remake both among Hollywood films and even among other types of narratives: [t]he uniqueness of the film remake, a movie based on another movie, or competing with another movie based on the same property is indicated by the word property. Every film adaptation is defined by its legally sanc tioned use of material from an earlier model, whose adaptation rights the producers have customarily purchased (138). Putting aside for the moment the fact that this description immediately excludes those obvious remakes which do not acknowledge their previous source, the point Leitch wishes to make is that although adaptation rights (e.g., film adaptation rights of a novel) are something producers of the original work have a right to sell, it is only remakes that compete directly and without legal or economic compensation with other versions of the same property (138): [R]emakes differ from adaptations to a new medium because of the triangular relationship they establish among themselves, the original film they remake, and the property on which both films are based. The nature of this triangle is most clearly indicated by the fact that the producers of a remake typically pay no adaptation fees to the makers of the original film, but rather purchase adaptation rights from the authors of the property on which that film was based, even though the remake is competing much more directly with the original filmespecially in these days of video, when the original film and the remake are often found side by side on the shelves of rental outletsà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬than with the story or play or novel on which it is based. (139) Taking as an initial proposition the triangular relationship among a remake, its original film, and the source for both films, Leitch suggests that any given remake can seek to define itself either with primary reference to the film it remakes or to the material on which both films are based; and whether it poses as a new version of an older film or of a story predating either film, it can take as its goal fidelity to the conception of the original story or a revisionary attitude toward that story (142). Accordingly, Leitch outlines the following quadripartite typology of the remake: (i) readaptation: the remake ignores or treats as inconsequential earlier cinematic adaptations in order to readapt as faithfully as possible (or at least more faithfully than earlier film versions) an original literary property, e.g., the film versions of Shakespeares Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948; Tony Richardson, 1969; and Franco Zeffirelli, 1990) and Macbeth (Orson Welles, 1948; Roman Polanski, 1971 ); (ii) update: unlike the readaptation that seeks to subordinate itself to the essence of a literary classic, the update competes directly with its literary source by adopting an overtly revisionary and transformational attitude toward it, e.g., West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, 1961) and China Gil (Abel Ferrara, 1987) as transformed remakes of filmed versions of Romeo and Juliet (George Cukor, 1936; Franco Zeffirelli, 1968); (iii) homage: like the readaptation, which seeks to direct the audiences attention to its literary source, the homage situates itself as a secondary text in order to pay tribute to a previous film version, e.g., Brian de Palmas Obsession (1975) and Body Double (1986) as homages to Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo (1958), and Rainer Werner Fassbinders Fear Eats the Soul (1973) as a tribute to the Douglas Sirk version of Magnificent Obsession (1954); (iv) true remake: while the homage renounces any claim to be better than its original, the true remake de al[s] with the contradictory claims of all remakesthat they are just like their originals only betterby . . . combin[ing] a focus on a cinematic original with an accommodating stance which seeks to make the original relevant by updating it, e.g., Bob Rafelsons 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946), and Lawrence Kasdans Body Heat (1981) as a remake of Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) (142-45). Leitch concludes that, unlike readaptations, updates, and homages, which only acknowledge one earlier text (literary in the first two cases and cinematic in the third), true remakes [emphasize] a triangular notion of intertextuality, since their rhetorical strategy depends on ascribing their value to a classic earlier text [i.e., an original property such as James M. Cains novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice], and protecting that value by invoking a second earlier [film] text as betraying it [Garnetts version as a watered-down film noir, probably due to limita tions imposed by the MGM studio and the Production Code of the forties] (147). While Leitchs recognition of the significance of a literary property, and in particular the relationship of a film adaptation and its remake to that property, leads to what at first appears to be a more nuanced typology than that outlined by Druxman, further consideration reveals a number of difficulties, not only among Leitchs four categories but in relation to his preliminary suppositions. Firstly, while the ubiquity of the Hollywood remake might understandably lead Leitch to conclude that the remake is a particularly cinematic form,(4) we might question to what extent it differs from the remaking of songs in the popular music industry. That is, how does the triadic relationship between (i) the Pet Shop Boys long remake (of their earlier, shorter remake) of Always on My Mind, (ii) the 1972 version of the same song by Elvis Presley, and (iii) the original property (music and lyrics written by Thompson James Christopher, and published by Screen Gems/EMI), differ appreciably from the triangular relationship for the film remake as described by Leitch? Or, to take as another example a case that underscores Leitchs overestimation of the economic competition a remake creates for a former adaptation, the Sid Vicious remake of My Way (and even Gary Oldmans remake of the same performance for Alex Coxs Sid and Nancy [1986]) competes culturally, but not economically, with Frank Sinatras earlier adaptation of a property written by Reveaux, Francois, and Anka. These examples, and others from the popular music industry, adequately conform to, and so problematize, Leitchs initial claim that the film remake is unique because of the fact that its producers typically pay no adaptation fees to the makers of the original [version], but rather purchase adaptation rights from the authors [publishers] of the property on which that [version] was based (139). A second limitation is that while Druxman at least acknowledges the difficulty of identifying and categorizing those films that are obviously remakes [but] do not credit their origins (9), Leitch remains curiously silent in this respect. For instance, Leitch considers Body Heat a true remake of Double Indemnity, but he does not comment upon the fact that the films credits do not acknowledge the James M. Cain novel as a source; similarly, Leitch takes Obsession and Body Double to be homages to Vertigo, but he fails to note that neither of the films credit either the Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor screenplay or the Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narceiac novel, Dentre les morts, upon which the Hitchcock film is based. While I will return to the question of identifying unacknowledged remakes, Leitchs insistence upon the connection between three elementsa remake, an earlier version, and a literary propertypresents a further difficulty in that it marginalizes those instances in which a dyadic r elationship exists between a remake and a previous film that is itself the original property. Although it might be objected that a published original screenplay constitutes a discrete property, the point to be made here is that the remake of an original film property, such as John Badhams The Assassin [Point of No Return] (1994), does not compete directly and without legal or economic compensation with its earlier version, but (generally) pays adaptation fees to the copyright holder of the original film upon which it is based (in this example, Luc Bessons [La Femme] Nikita [1990]).(5) The example of the American remake of Nikita not only demonstrates that a triangular relationship fails to accommodate remakes of those films based upon original stories and screenplays, but highlights the difficulty of Leitchs suggestion that remakes compete with earlier versions and his belief that successful remakes supersede and so typically threaten the economic viability of their originals (139). To stay with the example of the French-Italian production of Nikita, it seems doubtful that, having successfully played an art-cinema circuit and having been released to home video (variously under the categories of cult, festival, and arthouse), the appearance of The Assassin, initially as a first run theatrical release and then as a mainstream video release would have any appreciable impact (either positive or negative) upon the formers economic viability. Admittedly, The Assassin was not promoted as a remake of the Besson film, but even a widely publicized remake such as Martin Scor seses 1991 version of Cape Fear(6) did not occasion the burial, or even diminish the cult following, of J. Lee Thompsons earlier (1961) version. On the contrary, the theatrical release of the Scorsese film (accompanied by press releases and reviews foregrounding its status as remake) prompted first a video release and then a prime-time national television screening of the Thompson version. The reciprocity of the two versions is further exemplified by Sight and Sounds running together of a lead article by Jim Hoberman on Scorsese and Cape Fear and a second, briefer article comparing the two versions ([n]ovelist Jenny Diski watches a video of the first Cape Fear and the Scorsese remakeand compares them) and giving details of the availability of the (then recently) re-released CIC video of the 1961 version (see Hoberman Sacred and Profane; Diski The Shadow Within). While reciprocity may not always be the casein the international marketplace a local remake may supplant an earlier forei gn language and/or culture version(7)it seems that contemporary remakes generally enjoy a more symbiotic relationship than Leitchs account would have us believe. While the above examples suggest that Leitch overestimates the extent to which some remakes compete with original film versions, his recognition of the impact that innovations in television technology, particularly home video, have had upon shaping the relationship between a remake and its earlier versions should not be underestimated. Leitch states that during the studio-dominated era of the thirties and forties it was at least in part the belief that films had a strictly current value that enabled studios such as Warners to recycle The Maltese Falcon three times in ten years (Roy Del Ruth, 1931; William Dieterle, 1936 [as Satan Met a Lady]; and John Huston, 1941) and release many unofficial remakes of its own films (139), although the re-release of successful features, particularly during the late forties and early fifties, gave some films a limited currency outside their initial year of release (see McElwee), the majority of films held in studio libraries were not available for re -viewing until the mid-fifties when the major studios decided to sell or lease their libraries to television. The release of thousands of pre-1948 features into the television market not only gave the general public the opportunity to see many films that had been held in studio archives since their initial year of release, but provided the possibility of seeing different versions of the same property, produced years or even decades apart, within weeks or even days of each other. Moreover, the television broadcasting of films provided the further possibility of viewing remakes outside of the temporal order of their production, i.e., the repeated screening of the same features meant that it was inevitable that the broadcast of a remake would precede the screening of its original. While Leitch does not address the impact of television, his recognition that a remake and its original circulate in the same video marketplace draws attention to the fact that the introduction of an informati on storage technology such as videotape radically extends the kind of film literacy, the ability to recognize and cross-reference multiple versions of the same property, that is inaugurated by the age of television. The ever-expanding availability of texts and technologies and the unprecedented awareness of film history among new Hollywood filmmakers and contemporary audiences are closely related to the general concept of intertextuality, an in principle determination which requires that texts be understood not as self-contained structures but as the repetition and transformation of other [absent] textual structures (Frow, Intertextuality and Ontology 45). Generally speaking, in the case of remakes these intertextual structures are stabilized, or limited, through the naming and (usually) legally sanctioned (i.e., copyrighted) use of a particular literary and/or cinematic source which serves as a retrospectively designated point of origin and semantic fixity. In addition, the intertextual structures (unlike those of genre) are highly particular in their repetition of narrative units, and these repetitions most often (though certainly not always) relate to the order of the message rather than to t hat of the code (45).(8) While these factors yield some degree of consensus, any easy categorization of the remake is frustrated by (i) films which do not credit an original text, but which repeat both general and particular elements of the originals narrative unfolding, e.g., Body Heat as an uncredited remake of Double Indemnity and The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, 1983) as an unacknowledged remake of The Return of the Secaucus Seven (John Sayles, 1980);(9) and (ii) films based on a like sourcea literary work or historical incidentbut which differ significantly in their treatment of narrative units, e.g., The Bounty (Roger Donaldson, 1984) as a non-remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd, 1935 and Lewis Milestone, 1962). Furthermore, the intertextual referentiality between either non-remakes or unacknowledged remakes and their originals is to a large extent extratextual (Friedberg 175-76), being conveyed through institutions such as film reviewing and exhibition, for example, th e BFI/National Film Theatres programmed describes four films from Paul Schrader scriptsTaxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), Rolling Thunder (John Flynn, 1977), Hardcore, and Patty Hearst (Paul Schrader, 1979 and 1988)as updates of The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) (The Searchers: A Family Tree). In the case of Leitchs typology, we have seen that the remake is categorized according to whether the intertextual referent is literary (the readaptation, the update) or cinematic (the homage, the true remake). In the latter case, Leitch states that while homages, such as The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) and Invaders from Mars (Tobe Hooper, 1986), establish direct intertextual relations to their original films, these quotations or rewards take the form of throwaway jokes whose point is not necessary to the [films] continuity, and which therefore provide an optional bonus of pleasure to those in the know (141). While this may seem consistent with Umberto Ecos account of the intertextual dialogue (i.e., the instance where a quotation is explicit and recognizable to an increasingly sophisticated, cine-literate audience), what Leitch does not sufficiently stress is that his examples of the homage (and of the true remake)all drawn from the new Hollywood cinemasuggest a historically speci fic response to a post-modern (or post-Jaws) circulation and recirculation of images and texts. This does not mean that the classical Hollywood remake never takes an earlier film as its intertextual referent, but rather that, as the continuity system develops through the pre-classical period (1908-17), direct intertextual referentiality is displaced by an industrial imperative for standardization which prioritizes the intertextual relation of genres, cycles, and stars. Accordingly, as the classical narrative strives to create a coherent, self-contained fictional world according to specific mechanisms of intratextual repetition (or alternation), direct intertextual referentiality to either and/or both literary properties (novels, short-stories, plays, etc) and earlier film versions becomes an extratextual referentiality, carried by such apparatuses as advertising and promotional materials (posters, lobby cards, commercial tie-ins, etc), motion picture magazines, review articles, and academic film criticism. What seems to happen with the new Hollywood cinema, particularly in the case of remakes, is that while the intratextual mechanisms of classical continuity are mostly respected, extratextual referentiality is sometimes complemented by what is perceivedwithin specific interpretive communitiesas the explicit and recognizable intertextual quotation of plot motifs and stylistic features, peculiar to earlier film versions. To take a general example, the narrative of Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992) assumes as its primary intertexts the revisionist westerns of the sixties and seventies, and the Eastwood star persona, but (re)viewers additionally see the film as a kind of sequel (the Will Munny character as the now aged Man-with-no-name, from Eastwoods spaghetti westerns) and as a homage to the films of both Sam Peckinpah and John Ford.(10) More specifically, Martin Scorseses remake of Cape Fear may be said to work perfectly well as a conventional thriller (a psychopath attacks a normalin t his case, dysfunctionalAmerican family), but the new Cape Fear also assumes [in its reworking of the original Bernard Herrmann score and the casting of original lead players in cameo roles] that the viewer has seen the earlier one, perhaps even as recently as Scorsese himself (Hoberman 11). Another example, Jim McBrides Breathless (1983), not only quotes the Godard original (A bout de souffle, 1959) in its smallest detail (a characters name, a players gesture), but more generally embraces Godards enthusiasm for American pop-cultural iconography: the title song, Breathless, by the KillerJerry Lee Lewis; the Roy Lichtenstein-type lifts from Marvel Comics The Silver Surfer, the collectable American automobilethe 1957 Ford Thunderbird, the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. Finally, while it is possible to find similar examples in the classical cinema,(11) the point to be made here is that the type of intertextual referentiality which characterizes (some) contemporary American film circulates in a historically specific context, i.e., the identification of, and indeed the commercial decision to remake, an earlier film is grounded in particular extratextual, institutional, or discursive practices. As in Noel Carrolls discussion of new Hollywood allusionism, the question of intertextual referentiality needs to be related to the radical extension of film literacy and the enthusiasm for American film history that took hold in the United States during the sixties and early seventies. Partly made possible by the release of Hollywood features to television (which had come to function like a film archive) and the wider accessibility of new technologies (e.g., 16mm film projection), this re-evaluation, or legitimization, of Hollywood cultural product was underwritten by such additional factors as the importation of the French politique des auteurs, the upsurge of repertory theatre short-seasons, the expansion of film courses in American universities, and the emergence of professional associations such as the American Film Institute. Accordingly, and this is evident from the above examplesUnforgiven, Cape Fear, Breathlessthe selection and recognition of films, and bodies of films, for quotation and reworking (the work of auteurs, Ford and Peckinpah; the cult movie, Cape Fear, the nouvelle vague landmark, A bout de souffle) can be located in the institutionally determined practice of film canon formation and its contributing projectsthe discussion and citation of particular films in popular and academic film criticism, the selective release and re-release of films to theatrical and video distribution windows, and (in circular fashion) the decision of other filmmakers to evoke earlier films and recreate cinema history (see Staiger 4). An understanding of the formation and maintenance of a film canon in turn goes some way toward explaining why remakes of institutionalized film noirse.g., D.O.A. (Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, 1988), No Way Out (Roger Donaldson, 1987), and Against All Odds (Taylor Hackford, 1984)are discussed with reference to their originals (D.O.A. [Rudolph Mate, 1949], The Big Clock [John Farrow, 1948], and Out of the Past [Jacques Tourneur, 1947], respectively), while films such as Martin Scorseses version of The Age of Innocence (1993) and James Deardens remake of A Kiss Before Dying (1991) defer, not to their little known, or (now) rarely seen, earlier film versions (The Age of Innocence [Wesley Ruggles, 1924 and Philip Moeller, 1934], and A Kiss Before Dying [Gerd Oswald, 1961]) but to the authority of an established literary canon: The Age of Innocence is based on Edith Whartons 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel; A Kiss Before Dying is adapted from a best-selling novel by Ira Levin. Indeed, and in accordance with the canonization of the work of Alfred Hitchcock, the more direct intertextual referent for the remake of A Kiss Before Dying is Hitchcocks Vertigoa clip from the film appears diegetically on a characters television screen, and in addition to the figure of the doppelganger there is allusion to Hitchcockian plot s tructure and motif: [l]iberally alluding to Hitchcock by killing off his leading actress in the first reel, Dearden includes subtler references like the washing out of hair-dye and the cop who just wont leave (Strick 50). The suggestion that the very limited intertextual referentiality between the remake and its original is organized according to an extratextual referentiality located in historically specific discursive formationssuch as copyright law and authorship, canon formation and film literacyhas consequences for purely textual descriptions of the remake, particularly those based on a rigid distinction between an original story and its new discursive incarnation (see Leitch 143). Aside from the questionable move of assuming that the unchanging essence of a films story can somehow be abstracted from the mutable disposition of its expression (see Brunette and Wills 53), demarcation along the lines of story and discourse is evidently frustrated by those remakes which repeat not only the narrative invention of an original property but seek, for instance, to recreate the expressive design of an earlier film (e.g., Obsession as a reconstruction of the mood and manner of Hitchcocks Vertigo [see Rosenbaum 217]) or to rework the style of an entire oeuvre or genre (e.

Legal Regulation of Corporate Governance in the Role of Auditors Essay

INTRODUCTION In recent years, general public start to raise questions about the level of audit independence and the quality of audit information, especially after corporate collapses such as HIH, Enron and One.Tel where independent audit reports showed that the companies were making a profit, when in fact they were heavily in debt. This essay is to provide a brief overview of the current regulation of corporate governance in Australia in the role of auditors, and illustrate some gaps in the regulation with examples. In addition, a few recommendations are given accordingly for changes. 1. Legal Regulation of Corporate Governance in the Role of Auditors 1.1 CLERP 9 reforms CLERP 9 reforms largely employed the law reform recommendations in the Ramsay report to address the audit independence controversy. CLERP 9 has significantly changed the way that audit work is carried out in Australia. The most significant changes were: ï  ¬ Improving the standards of auditor regulation through changes to the powers of the Financial Reporting Council and the reconstitution of the Auditing and Assurance Standards board; ï  ¬ Imposing statutory requirements for auditor independence and audit partner rotation; and ï  ¬ Providing proportionate liability in respect of claims made against auditors. 1.2 Performing the audit There is a distinction between the lead auditor and the review auditor. The lead auditor is primarily responsible for conducting the audit, while the role of review auditor is to review the overall conduct of the audit. It is auditor’s statutory right to access the books of the entity. Company officers must provide information and explanations that the auditors required to assist with the audit and to help auditors form more accurate a... ...04) ‘Auditing Handbook’, Prentice Hall, Sydney. "Audit Independence - Independence of Australian Company Auditors." Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014 . [29] section B of the Joint Code of Professional Conduct [30] Buffini, F. (2003) ‘Andersen’s independence tested’, Australian Financial Review, 14th January, pp. 11, 12. [31] (HIH Report, Vol III, pp 89-90) [32] (HIH Report Vol III, pp91-92). [33] (O’Malley 2000, p.91) "CHAPTER 3 – EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND FRAUD." Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014 . [34] O’Malley 2000, p.94 [35] CHAPTER 3 – EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND FRAUD, http://www.slideshare.net/MRicky/chapter-3-earnings-management-and-fraud (accessed April 24, 2014).

Lord of the Flies :: essays papers

Lord of the Flies Artificial Restraints in Lord of the Flies "GOLDING PUTS SO MANY ARTIFICIAL RESTRAINTS ON HIS STORY IN ORDER TO EMPHASISE HIS POINT, THAT THE WHOLE THING COMES OUT TOO NEATLY AND, IN FACT, REDUCES THE POWER OF HIS MESSAGE." I think that, while the boys experience immense bad luck due to the author, the story still proves its point. It is still possible though, that the bad luck of the boys could have been experienced in real life. I think that without this bad luck, the point of the story wouldn’t be as great, because without the restraint’s Golding placed on the boys, life on the island would have been too easy for the boys. The major constraint that Golding puts on the boys is the personality clash between Jack and Ralph. From the beginning, when Ralph is elected leader, Jack hates Ralph, and towards the end of the book, the feeling becomes mutual. Without Jack and Ralph’s problems, life would have been easy, and the ‘darkness of man’s heart’ would not have been conveyed to the reader. Jack shows ‘the darkness’ and if he and Ralph had just been friends, there would never have been an opportunity for Jack to show this darkness which lurked beneath the surface. Golding also uses the dead pilot conveniently against the boys - the way in which he is caught in the trees just in the right position to be caught by the wind and look like the beast and the way the wind picks up after Simon has let him down from the trees and carries him out to sea, so that the other boys cannot see that it wasn’t a beast. The author uses the boy’s fear against them, and although this could possibly happen in the situation, Golding uses it as a weapon against them, their morale and their companionship. I think that the boys split up and go to Jack because of the fear - he can kill the beast, he can get them meat, and if they ever get upset, he can start a dance and all will be fine.

Hunger in Richard Wrights Black Boy :: Wright Black Boy Essays

Hunger in Black Boy Have you ever experienced real hunger? The kinds of hungers that Richard experiences in Black Boy are not evident in the society where you and I reside. The present middle class citizens cannot really relate to true physical hunger. Hunger for most of us is when there is nothing that we desire to eat around the house and therefore skip one meal. This cannot even compare to the days that Richard endures without food. Physical hunger, however, is not the only hunger apparent in Richard's life. Richard suffers from emotional and educational hungers as well. He yearns for such things as mere association with others and simple books to read. Both of which are things that most people take for granted. This efficacious autobiography, Black Boy, by Richard Wright manifests what it is like to desire such simple paraphernalia. From a very early age and for much of his life thereafter, Richard experiences chronic physical hunger. "Hunger stole upon me slowly that at first I was not aware of what hunger really meant. Hunger had always been more or less at my elbow when I played, but now I began to wake up at night to find hunger standing at my bedside, staring at me gauntly" (16). Soon after the disappearance of Richard's father, he begins to notice constant starvation. This often reappears in his ensuing life. The type of hunger that Richard describes is worse than one who has not experienced chronic hunger can even imagine. "Once again I knew hunger, biting hunger, hunger that made my body aimlessly restless, hunger that kept me on edge, that made my temper flare, that made my temper flare, hunger that made hate leap out of my heart like the dart of a serpent's tongue, hunger that created in me odd cravings" (119). Because hunger has always been a part of Richard's lifestyle, he cannot even imagine eating meat every day. This simple privilege would be a miracle to him, yet to most it is nothing. These weakening and piercing hungers are frequently evident where poverty dwells in the Jim Crow South. Furthermore, emotional hunger also represses much of Richard's life. Richard desires attention from people. However, since he does not

The Progressive Era Essay examples -- American Reform Movement

The Progressive Era was a period that exposed the contradictions found in American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Theodore Roosevelt summed up the Progressive/Reform feeling in his "Square Deal" speech - that it was all about morals, not economics. His goal was the "moral regeneration of the business world." He preached that it was wrong for some people to get ahead in business and politics by tricks and schemes, while others were cheated out of the opportunity. This was the kind of talk that millions of Americans from all areas of society could understand and respond to. Roosevelt simply acted in the interests of the common working man, fixing things that they found unjust. For years, the poor and immigrants were unhappy with treatment from their big-business employers. Their long working hours and exploitation of children were, among other things, exposed by the Muckrakers. The Muckrakers were journalists who exposed corruption in business and politics and made many of their readers angry. These new reformers took over the old Populist idea that the government should work for the public's economic well being.(Mintz, 2015) Reform groups near the turn of the century were interested in the moral changes of the way the government and businesses were run. They wanted the government to be more open and listen to the people. Also, they wanted the government to put more effort into protecting the well being of all citizens. This would require government action to regulate business, improve public health and safety and make sure that every citizen had the chance to succeed and to be happy. Today there are also many reform groups. Just like the progressives of the early twentieth century, modern reformers are trying to change things for the better. One modern reformer is Ralph Nader. Nader is a leader in the consumer-protection movement. He organized investigative teams of young lawyers, consumer specialists, and students, popularly called Nader's Raiders, to conduct surveys of numerous companies, federal agencies, and the U.S. Congress. Nader is a controversial man; his investigations have at times been criticized as biased against big business and government.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cesar Chavez was another modern reformer. The issues that he dealt with included: Women Farmworkers, Farmworker Health Issues, and Migrant Labor. Many issues th... ...nion. He held the vice-presidency for less than a year, succeeding to the presidency after the assassination of President McKinley on November 14, 1901. In 1904 Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president. The ideals of the twentieth century were built on the work of reform groups. Reform groups still play a large part in changing the way large corporations and the government are run. Because of the constant need for change and reform, the turn of the twentieth century to the twenty-first could be called a progressive era just like the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century was.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Works Consulted Barbuto, Domencia. American Settlement Houses and Progressive Social Reform. New York: Orynx Press, 2009. Buenker, John. Progressivism. Chicago: Schenkman Books, 2007. Cohen, Miriam. "Women and the Progressive Movement" Gilderlehrman.org Web. 25 April 2015. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/essays/women-and-progressive-movement Mintz, Steven. "Reform Movements of the Progressive Era" Gilderlehrman.org Web. 25 April 2015. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/resources/reform-movements-progressive-era

The Legacy of Russia and the Soviet Union - Authoritarian and Repressiv

The Legacy of Russia and the Soviet Union - Authoritarian and Repressive Traditions that Refuse to Die There circulated such a Soviet political anecdote: The ghost of Nicolas II visited Brezhnev to inquire about the conditions of his Mother Russia, only to be told that nothing had changed since his reign except for that the vodka was now 20 percent instead of 15. Shocked, the dead czar exclaimed: "I lost my head only for that 5 percent difference?" This was, of course, only a humorous exaggeration, a case of political satire. Yet beneath the humor, there lies a very profound testament to the belief that Russia's political culture has been inherited from its czarist days and manifested throughout its subsequent development. The traditions from the pre-Revolution and pre-1921 Russia, it seems, had left its brand on the 70-years of Communist rule. The Soviet communism system was at once a foreign import from Germany and a Russian creation: "on the one hand it is international and a world phenomenon; on the other hand it is national and Russian†¦it was Russian history which determined its limits and shaped its character." (Berdyaev, "Origin") Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati... ...oved to be singularly influential and daunting. This is, perhaps, the greatest obstacles to achieving true democracy in Russia—the authoritarian and repressive traditions that refuse to die out with the passage of time. Works Cited Berdyaev, Nicolas. The Origin of Russian Communism. London: Saunders, 1937. Cohen, Stephen. Rethinking the Soviet Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Hosking, Jeoffery. The First Socialist Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Tucker, Robert C. "The Mortal Danger". Course Reader for World Culture: Russia Since 1917. New York University, Spring 2001. Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.

Antigone :: essays research papers

In our society today, movies and television shows are being broadcast all over the world to many genders, races, and ages. Some of these shows involve many violent topics and situations. For example, the news qualifies as a violent shows because three fourths of every broadcast involves a violent situation. The next generation of adults is exposed to this violence everyday, thinking it’s cool or acceptable. I think that if teenagers witness the violent actions in person they would react differently than seeing them on TV. The violent scenes in Antigone are much like crimes that occur everyday. For example, a gang related crime can be compared to one of the many deaths in Antigone. The public views these crimes as normal. Most often violence in the news is ignored or called normal. If more people witnessed violence then maybe more actions would be taken to stop it from happening. I think the violence told in Antigone was very low-key compared to the things we see today on the news. Today, our society likes to take time off to relax and watch a movie. Do you think it’s relaxing to watch people die and constantly be injured? Well most of the movies out today are violent. Even thought here are strict rating rules put on these movies, children are still seeing them. For example, The Power Rangers Movie. In this movie, five teenagers take on the roles of fighters. When kids view this PG rated movie they see how cool it is to kill other creatures and human beings. About three weeks after this movie was released in Chicago, two kids were playing power rangers; they decided to take the game a step further by involving pencils used as swords. This game ended with one of the two kids with serious incisions from the pencil. This situation could have easily been avoided if some of these movies were not so violently oriented.