Brian's Song

This remake and I have no idea why they remade it, is good but not as powerful and less sad as the original. If ABC wanted to open the story again to a new generation why didn't they just show the classic film. The new version missed too many opportunies to break the audience into tears as the original did and still does so well. Sorry to say to younger generation this version is no classic and if want to view finer acting and have more tears watch the original thou the style of filmmaking has changed...meaning the classic has the 70's look, the 1971 film it still one of the best tv films made... Sorry, it's true.

Pic was a senior at Wake Forest when I was a freshman there. His last year at Wake was one for the ages. He led the nation in rushing & scoring. (As it was put in the original movie: "I mean I led the ENTIRE nation!") He even did the place-kicking.....scoring all 20 points in a 20-7 win over ACC Co-Champ Duke that year. Pic & QB John Mackovic (who led the ACC in total offense that year) led the Deacs to a 5-5 record. That may not seem like much to some people, but Wake Forest had gone 1-19 the previous two years.

Anyway, the original movie is one of the best movies I have ever watched. It is unbelievably heart-breaking at the end....particularly for all of us who knew Pic. And with less than 4,000 students, everyone knew everyone else at Wake Forest....at least a little bit. I have a DVD copy which I watch from time to time, and which still moves me to tears. I encourage anyone who wishes to see "Brian's Song"...and that should be everybody...to do whatever you have to do to find the original version, and skip this inferior remake. The original movie portrays Pic & Sayers the way they really were.

Because they're so different. James Caan and Billy Dee Williams WERE Pic & Gale. These two new guys, well, they just don't cut it. It'd be like re-casting "Star Trek" with total unknowns as the Enterprise bridge crew. Oh, wait. That already happened, and IT actually worked. This remake, however, didn't.

The main reason the original "Brian's Song" was so good was the way that Billy Dee Williams (Sayers) & James Caan (Pic) interacted, with Pic bouncing racist remarks off Gale left & right. This new, PC version waters the racism down almost to the point of non-existence.

Also, scenes that made the original so funny were completely omitted; for example, early in the film, the Piccolos & Sayers were at a pizza parlor, & Brian described a play gone wrong, ending with, "So, anyway, all the linemen go this way, and it's like I am lookin' at a team portrait of the Los Angeles Rams....Hey, Deacon! Merlin? How's the family, Rosie?" Then Gale pipes up, "It's like, I'm roomin' with a colored player again!" Again, I'm sure this scene was omitted due to its racial undertones, but it took away from the humor of the film.

I found this new version to be much darker, focussing more on Brian's illness and the consequences than on the relationship between he & Gale Sayers, which was the main thing that made the original so special. If you can find the original on VHS or DVD, get it. But, stay away from the remake.

Although this remake falls a little bit short of the original in several departments (that others have brought up, such as the casting and the watering down of the racially charged dialogue between Sayers and Piccolo), it stays fairly true to the core story, with some new parts about their families and a more extensive portrayal of Piccolo's illness. "Brian's Song" has often been described as a "Love Story" style tearjerker for guys, and the new version managed to pull this off with me, in the night scene where the two are talking alone on the field, and we hear just a few notes of the Michael Legrand theme from the original. This brings me to my main point. . .why not more of that music? That theme (called "the Hands of Time") is, in my opinion, one of the most poignant and emotionally touching bits of music I know. If one listens carefully, you can hear some examples of derivative composing in movies such as "Lilo & Stitch" where other composers try to cash in on the Brian's Song theme.

When I saw the original Brian's Song from 1971 with Billy Dee Williams and James Caan, I was entertained and very moved. I didn't see how they could have done a better job with a story like this. As it turns out, I was right, but I never thought it would be a portent of things to come. Remaking a masterpiece like the original begs the question, as Roger Ebert once said "Why are they remaking the good movies? Why not remake the bad ones?" This film is definitely a case in point.

This version is, in a word, terrible. The writing is extremely bad, the acting is awful, and the scenes are dramatically shapeless. Most notably, the film was overtly miscast. The original 1971 film was honest, but appropriate about the racial issues at the time. The remake is much too delicate and only seems to be worried about being politically correct and inoffensive. Sorry, but that doesn't make for a realistic portrayal of the time period that this film is trying to illustrate.

In the original, Brian Piccolo, played by James Caan, is a likable, fun-loving, nice, loose guy with a good sense of humor and who loved life. Sean Maher's portrayal is a disgrace. In his performance, he makes Piccolo look like an annoying, ill-mannered, judgmental jerk. Mekhi Phifer is almost as bad as Gale Sayers, who makes him look like an on screen version of Deion Sanders. As the players in the movie put it, he does indeed come across as "uppity," flashy, and seemingly avoiding contact with others because he thinks he's better than they are, not because he's shy.

The other lead in the 1971 version, Billy Dee Williams, played Gale Sayers as the man he truly was: a quiet, unprepossessing, gentlemanly, shy type who simply felt awkward around people because he had trouble relating to them. I would've liked to have seen actors with personalities more similar to the characters portray these two players: like Rob Brown as Gale Sayers, and James Vanderbeek as Brian Piccolo.

The coaches are portrayed as stiff, businesslike men with no affability, personality, or compassion for the players. Ben Gazzara is totally unconvincing as George Halas, and looks and speaks more like a priest than a pro football coach. The dialogue is truly insulting because it spells out what we already know about the players. Most of the time, the characters sound like actors reciting their lines and forcing information on the audience, instead of people who are speaking conversationally and expressing their true feelings.

When Joy Piccolo says to Brian, after seeing Gale's acceptance speech for his rookie of the year award, "He's not arrogant, he's shy," it's useless information we already know. Another example: when Brian and Gale are running together to help rehabilitate Gale's injured knee, they're both expressing their worries, strengths, and weaknesses, most notably Gale's anxiety about life after football, and Brian's aspirations about when he'll actually be able to make his contribution to the team. These things were wisely never expressed in conversation in the original because the writing was intelligent enough to allow the audience to figure it out for themselves, without unnecessary discussion. Good films never use dialogue when they don't need to.

Finally, the beautiful instrumental musical version of the song "The Hands of Time" elevated the mood and poignancy of the first movie, which the remake could've used more often. Why didn't they use the music again in more of this movie? This is an example of how music can magnify the illustration of a scene and ultimately enhance a story.

This movie left a lot to be desired, but a story as good as the first one needn't have been remade in the first place. I would recommend the 1971 film as a true timeless classic and one of the best sports movies of all time. The remake was just a bad idea that should have never happened.