A question for the folks who live in the States

Born and raised in America and lived here my entire life (other than a year each in Denmark and China) and it is my carefully considered opinion that the vast majority of my fellow Americans think that they can't read subtitles. I say "think" because on the few times that I've convinced skeptics to try, I've had a 100% success rate. Within a short period of time they realized that reading them had become unconscious. (Obviously, I didn't pick difficult films.)

This is changing for the better, albeit slowly. Netflix, as has been cited above, is certainly helping. The On Demand feature of my cable provider has a decent number of subtitled films. And the local library system in northern NJ has almost everything in print, if you're prepared to wait for a particular title to come from another branch as they are scattered all over the system. I think Nordic Noir gets more credit for this than almost anything else. I know quite a few viewers of the American version of The Bridge (an unusually good adaptation, IMHO, I regret its cancellation) who were motivated to watch the Swedish/Danish version (which, of course, I saw first).

Although I usually get irritated at English language remakes, I am less so when they can be considered new/alternate adaptations of other works such as novels. I thought David Fincher's adaptation of Girl/Tattoo (a novel I love) was quite respectable, even though I still prefer Oplev's. And Matt Reeves did a decent adaptation (Let Me In) of John Ajvide Lindqvist's excellent vampire novel Let the Right One In. Again, I prefer Tomas Alfredson's earlier Swedish film, but Reeve's version wasn't bad at all. I fear that those are the exceptions, though, and I can't see the American "Secret" comparing to the original. Surely, the political theme had to be excised.

However, with regard to this particular situation, either imdb is wrong or the producers are being disingenuous about the original source novel. The imdb listing for the Argentinian film cites the source as Eduardo Sacheri's "La pregunta de sus ojos". The imdb listing for the American version lists it as a "remake" of the earlier film and no mention is made of the novel or of Sacheri in the writing credits. I'd like to think this was imdb's oversight and not deliberately done by the American film's producers, but I'm too cynical to be sure of that.

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Wow - these message boards have gotten nasty since the last time I participated in a conversation here.
I live in Seattle where we have a 3-1/2 week film festival every spring featuring many non-English language films (and smaller festivals throughout the year highlighting different countries) as well as a number of theaters that regularly screen films with subtitles. So I'm fortunate that so much is available in theaters where I live since I'm one of those people who still believes the best film experience is in a room with a group of other quiet people who don't check their cellphones.
That being said, I know a number of otherwise curious, interesting people who simply are not interested in reading subtitles and won't see films that aren't in English.
I think it's rare that an American remake is on par with the original - although I loved both Infernal Affairs AND The Departed and it's often better to just consider the American version a completely separate, new film.
That being said, and since I just finally watched El Secreto de tus Ojos a few weeks ago, I really can't imagine how the original can be improved upon or why one would try.
But I'm curious as this can't be the same story just from what's shown in the trailers and I find it interesting to see what studios think needs to be adapted for Americans.

I live in the U.S., and a large minority of folks like foreign films, but the majority won't deal with subtitles.

But most stuff is available, if you want it. I loved the original "Secreto" when I watched a couple of years ago. I won't watch the Hollywood remake, I'd rather just leave the original intact in my mind. One of my ten favorite films of recent years.

I love foreign films whether Asian, European etc. But honestly I didn't like the 2010 original. I wasn't engaged at all by the story or characters. And a lot of it came off as forced drama. Not a bad film, just not near as good as it was hyped up to be. And I probably won't watch the remake, unless I'm really bored.

Yes, most Americans reject foreign films with rare exceptions (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). I remember a guy picking up Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). Knowing it's the original version of Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, I told the guy it was a Spanish film with English subtitles. He immediately thanked me, and put the DVD back where he found it.

It's important to remember that the average American is an average movie-goer, not a die hard cinephile looking for a wide range of cinematic experiences.

Keep it civil. It's not that important.

I think your observation is fairly true. In the US, the movies are generally regarded as an entertainment form whereas they're approached from an art perspective in most other countries. But don't get confused in that there're many indie film makers in the US; thus my argument should be limited within LA. The basic target audience of Hollywood movies (according one of the producers) are 14 year old teenagers. If you look at today's box office chart and the IMDB all time 250 list, you can easily understand this concept.

There are only a handful of movie distributors controlling the quarters of movie theater, foreign/art films don't have as much opportunities as most Hollywood backed films. This explains why foreign films couldn't make a firm ground. If you ask "But what about British (sometimes Aussie) film?", I don't know how to answer since I ask myself the same. How come they enter the Oscar Award without any limitations (not a foreign film)? Do the workers even need a working visa to work in the US territory? There is a lot of double standard existing in the Hollywood (I know they're closely work together and it is hard to divide the nationalities). Does it hold true for any British/Aussie movie awards?

Coming back the movie, I saw the original film. I love the intensity and acting. I am curious how they adopted the plot in the remake film. Because of the differences of criminal justice system and the history, I am sure it wouldn't be possible to pass the story per se in the new film. I would be wrong if I say there is no corruption in the modern criminal systems but I don't think the plot sits well with the same level of intentions and background in the original movie. It would be interesting to watch that. (I would watch this film if it weren't two actresses taking the leading roles.)

I hope this remake file made a mend of some holes in the original one; especially the stadium scene (a bit too artificial) and the ending which I was disappointed by the editing. The movie should end at the house instead of cop's rambling (he wasn't even the original narrator of the story). That's my two cents.

Our theaters don't typically show them. Even when I lived in Chicago, I never found a theater that regularly showed foreign films. Most of the "art house" theaters showed documentaries (which I also love!), but not foreign films.

I saw the Argentinean original of this particular movie years ago (rented it from the library), and only went to see the remake because it was my parent's birthday and that's what they wanted to do. But then again, my spouse doesn't like subtitles because it's distracting for him. So really it just depends on the person.


What I've got in my head you can't buy, steal, or borrow. I believe in live and let live.