Investigation“The remakemania” (5/6). What makes certain countries, like Denmark and, above all, Israel, great exporters of adapted stories?
Smooth skull, three-day-old beard, from the other side of the computer screen, attached to Zoom, Hagai Levi lights a cigarette in his kitchen in Tel Aviv. This Israeli discovered cinema and philosophy at the age of 17, when he gave up studying the Talmud and deserted the kibbutz where he grew up. The series he created in 2005, BeTipul (“In process” in Hebrew), to date has eighteen remakes. “I can’t tell you how small and personal it was at first. The only thing I thought about then was: “How do I sell my project?” I was trying to do it as cheaply as possible. I never approached anyone for it to be adapted… It just happened like that. Maybe because BeTipul is like a dish that everyone can season in their own way. “
“I’ve always encouraged people to go further, to adapt the series to their story. The universal is in the particular “, explains Hagai Levi, the screenwriter of” BeTipul “
Welcoming a priest and an anti-mafia cop in its Italian version, scripted around various forms of violence in Argentina, marked by the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, probing the shock of the 2015 attacks in France, BeTipul is an intimate shot-reverse shot, which offers each culture the possibility of spreading its traumas on the couch. Without the right of veto of its creator on the variations: “First of all, I never sign a contract with people I don’t trust, explains Hagai Levi. Then, I always encouraged people to go further, to adapt the series to their story. The universal is in the particular. “
In this pillar of the industry that is the remake – also referred to by the term “format” by professionals – certain countries first appear as importers: United States, India, China, France, Turkey, Indonesia … Others like exporters: Denmark, United Kingdom, South Korea … And of course Israel, whose series have made clones all over the world: Hatufim / Homeland, BeTipul / In therapy, Kvodo / Your Honor…
“Global and overhanging vision”
“Israel lives off the format”, notes Olivier Wotling, who directs the fiction on Arte. In therapy, the French adaptation of BeTipul signed Olivier Nakache-Eric Toledano, is an exception in the policy of the Franco-German branch. Reluctant to the idea of producing remakes, the channel prefers to show original series. “It’s our DNA to show cultures from elsewhere”, insists Olivier Wotling. And from that point of view, Israel, again, is a nest. The series Shtisel Where Fauda a hit on Netflix, the filmmaker Nadav Lapid, at 46, is invited by all the festivals… His film The teacher (2014) became The Kindergarten Teacher, in its 2018 American adaptation, with Maggie Gyllenhaal. same for me Footnote, by Joseph Cedar (2011), which the French Bruno Chiche is preparing to transpose into the musical world, under the title La Scala.
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