Dr Constantine Verevis
- B Comm St (Murdoch), BA (Curtin), PhD(La Trobe)
- Deputy Head of Film & Television Studies
- Honours Coordinator
- Contact details
- Full Curriculum Vitae
(PDF)
Background
Constantine Verevis is the author of Film Remakes (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and co-editor (with Carolyn Jess-Cooke, University of Sunderland) of the forthcoming Second Takes: Critical Approaches to the Film Sequel (State University of New York Press, 2009). His work moves between a number of disciplinary locations, spanning both film theory and cultural studies, and takes a special interest in genre and adaptation theory. Verevis began his academic training in English, Communications and Cultural Studies at Curtin and Murdoch universities in Perth, Western Australia before he undertook a Ph.D. in film at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Verevis’s Deleuze-inflected dissertation sought to understand the relationship between theorises of repetition and contemporary film theory, and the legacy of this work can been seen in his contributions to The Deleuze Dictionary (2005) and ongoing interest in cinematic remaking. Since 1996 Verevis has taught film and television studies at Monash University, initially in the Visual Culture program and (as of 2007) in a dedicated Film and Television Studies program. He has published widely in the areas of film and cultural studies, and his essays and reviews have appeared in journals such as Antithesis, Australian Studies, Framework, Film Criticism, Film Studies, Hitchcock Annual and Media International Australia. A recipient of a recent Australian Research Council grant, Verevis is presently working (with co-investigators Noel King and Deane Williams) on a project that looks at the development of Australian Film Theory and Criticism in the decade long period 1975–85.
Selected Publications
In this groundbreaking study [Film Remakes], Constantine Verevis explores an aspect of commercial film production interesting to the scholar and movie enthusiast alike: remaking. Film remakes can be profitably viewed from a number of perspectives, and this book provides an intriguing and revealing anatomy of the phenomenon. Verevis writes with verve and insight; an important feature of Film Remakes is the series of individual analyses that sparkle with revealing and intelligent comment as they clarify general points about remaking.
— R. Barton Palmer, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University
Constantine Verevis’ new book Film Remakes joins this already-impressive body of work [that is, scholarship developed over the last twenty years that examines the remake in a serious way] and indeed makes an important contribution to the field. Synthesizing and productively modifying numerous other theorists and critics, Verevis provides the most sustained and systematic study devoted exclusively to film remakes that exists in English […]
The author advances a polemic regarding the theorization of remakes that is worth repeating; although remakes may engage in particular kinds of intertextual relation with other texts, purely textual approaches toward remakes are insufficient. Rather, the complex interpenetration of culture, economics, media technologies, and institutions in historically-specific circumstances demands that the remake be considered within a broader theoretical matrix. […]
[T]he broad scope, firm theoretical grounding, and salient insights found throughout this book will, in all probability, make it a common point of reference for future studies on the topic. It could certainly play a central role in any course on film remakes. […] Elucidating a number of theoretical issues as well as clarifying many specific cases, Film Remakes marks a strong addition to the literature on film remakes.
— Daniel Herbert, Film International 24 (2006)
[W]hat do we mean when we talk of a remake? There is surely some real confusion about the use of the term. Why, for instance, do we think of Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) as a remake of J. Lee-Thompson’s 1961 film? Or should we simply think of both as adaptations, made in different social climates and production circumstances, of John D. MacDonald’s novel The Executioners (1957)? Is Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989) a remake of Laurence Olivier’s 1945 version of Shakespeare’s play? Does the status of the original film and/or of its literary precursor determine audience identification of a film as a remake? Remakes have sometimes stirred controversy as when, for example, the prints of Thorold Dickinson’s Gaslight (1940) were said to have been destroyed so as not to compete with George Cukor’s lush MGM version in 1944, both of course derived from Patrick Hamilton’s play.
Con Verevis’ stimulating book raises just these sorts of issues – and many others – from the outset. His approach is nothing if not ecumenical, drawing on an almost bewildering range of views on the matter as he pursues the central question, “What is film remaking?” which he properly asks in his opening paragraph.
[…]
The excellence of Verevis’ book lies partly in his way of cutting through the thickets of films clamouring to be considered as remakes of one kind or other – and through the prolific, if not always clear-headed, discourse on the subject. He proposes in his introductory chapter three ways of considering the concept of the film remake: as an industrial category, as a textual category and as a critical category. He makes a persuasive case in his Introduction for the centrality and comprehensiveness of these three approaches and they provide the framework for the rest of the book.
— Brian McFarlane, Senses of Cinema (Oct-Dec 2006)