Friday, January 30, 2009
More Novel Ideas
Words Leigh Rastivo
Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
As I just told George, my point in the short article “Novel Ideas” was that literature is not removed from those who reject the genre. But I never meant to suggest that Hollywood truly loves books. Hollywood loves books like the wife-beater loves his family: he might think he does, but ego and insecurity have more to do with it than love.
And I agree that there’s a tendency to try too hard to be “artsy” during the film making, sometimes followed by a silly assumption that a literary adaptation has inherent prestige.
Here are my humble opinions on a few quick examples from recent years:
Last year’s Atonement, based on Ian McEwan’s novel, found ingenious ways to relay theme, like the tapping of the typewriter in the background as a reminder that the self-conscious idea of story is always in the story. It’s a beautiful movie; and it’s lyrical, and it’s smart. But like a lot of beautiful, smart entities – it’s a wee bit full of itself. The constant close ups on wide-eyed Briony, the repeated sweeping epic views, shots arranged not to capture character and action but to scream the theme – there are just too many for no reason, and the overall effect is slick. When the two lines of student nurses march away in opposite directions, slowly revealing Briony standing alone, the steps are so unified and choreographed, I thought they might break into song and transition to Atonement – The Musical. That’s self indulgent.
And in the end, self-indulgence is always boring to an audience.
But last year’s winner No Country for Old Men, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel, wasn’t much better. I still can’t figure that one. First of all, it’s nowhere near McCarthy’s best novel. Still, what made No Country for Old Men a mediocre book – action prioritized over character — should have made it a better movie. The film was a series of dark, stark images that viewers needed to connect for themselves. Again, it was trying too hard to be smart for my taste.
I still wonder: Why didn’t Juno win last year? That was a well-constructed, quirky flick with a narrative arc and understandable characters. That’s what I call “art.”
Then again: who am I? Would I sell my novel to Hollywood so they could butcher it while I have an easier time paying my son’s college tuition and car insurance? What do you think?
As for this year: why was Benjamin Button nominated for Best Picture? Somebody please tell me! Sure, it’s a nice story. But I’m not much for nice, nor is it the measuring stick for movies. I thought Benjamin Button was a runny tale, dismally edited. And I went to the theater with a good attitude. I wanted to like it. I’ve liked me some Brad Pitt movies in the past: Seven Years in Tibet, Legends of the Fall, Snatch, Burn After Reading. But this Benjamin thing should have been called Seven Years in the Movie Theater. My ass fell asleep. It took 45 minutes to show the first time Brad Pitt’s young-old character leaves the house. Wow. Best Picture? What are the criteria?
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George Booker | January 31, 09 @ 1:51 pm
mccarthy is kind of getting raided for movies right now, at least in the rumor mill…”the road” is in the can, adapted by screenwriter joe penhall, whom i’m not familiar with, and directed by john hillcoat, an australian who helmed nick cave’s nihilist western “the proposition”. and it stars viggo, who i think is the best literate action star going right now. he’s completely physically convincing as a badass, and an extremely subtle and powerful actor who can convey depths wordlessly or handle dialog with a masterful grasp of suggestion. he did an amazing job in his collaborations with david cronenberg, “a history of violence” (based on a graphic novel) and “eastern promises”, and in both cases he had to tackle characters concealing ambiguous pasts and motivations for most of the film. also, he’s buck naked for one of the best movie fight sequences ever in “eastern promises”. no cheating there.
“blood meridian” was rumored to be a ridley scott production for awhile, which i was iffy about. the director of “alien” “blade runner” and “thelma and louise” had a chance of doing it well, but maybe not the director of “gladiator” and “hannibal”. anyway, now imdb is reporting it as in production under the helm of todd field. i haven’t seen enough to know how i feel about him. loved “in the bedroom”, haven’t seen “little children” (one of those divisive modern novel adaptations starring kate winslet, much like “the reader”).
and finally a tangent that will end up somewhere close to relevant. are there any non-fiction writers you like? how do you feel about non-fiction narratives centering around the creative process and showbiz itself? i really enjoy peter biskind. he’s definitely non-objective. he likes to write era-spanning epic books about the movie business that are way overheated, full of personal bias, caricature, and tall-tale telling. they are to me, nonetheless, engrossing, as he finds big themes and satisfying, if depressing, story arcs to attach a series of mini-dramas (and outright tabloid dirt) to, and typically picks a few central real-life characters to develop into almost elizebethan tragic figures. his masterpiece is definitely “easy riders to raging bulls” which charts the new hollywood golden age from 1967-1981, starting with the emergence of new hollywood in the wake of the studio system collapse in the late-60s to new hollywood’s own collapse under its own hubris and the emergence of the blockbuster age in the late 70s and early 80s. he also wrote a pretty great psuedo-sequel called “down and dirty pictures” covering the rise and fall of american independent film culture from the early 80s to the early aughts. while detailing many of the diverse players throughout this period, he does a wonderful job of tethering it all to two main plotlines and contrasting oversized characters and ideologies. one has robert redford, hollywood golden boy with a social conscience developing the sundance institute and the film festival that emerged from it. his tragic flaws are an inferiority complex (redford never finished college and struggled with a perception as a prettyboy vacant movie star) and mercurial, pathological inability to follow up on his promises or hand over control. this is interestingly contrasted with the saga of the weinstein brothers, tough jew concert promoters turned shrewd art film flippers turned moguls and the biggest producers on the independent scene as heads of mirimax (the studio that released all of your favorite movies in the ’90s). their tragic flaw (mostly harvey’s) are insatiable appetites on every level and a desperate need for control and recognition and power to the point of obsessively butchering their own productions and acquisitions.
anyway, one of the most fascinating stories in the book is that of the first mccarthy adaptation, “all the pretty horses”. there are tons of similar stories in the book, but this one is particularly memorable due to the scale of both the production and the characters involved. harvey weinstein’s particular brilliance has to do with publicity and promotions, and he managed to make many of his trademark hits in the ’90s more than movies, but mythic human interest stories about the filmmakers. two you probably remember were the legend of matt and ben, which led “good will hunting” to big money and a slew of oscar nominations, including the mainstream coronation of gus van sant (the mirimax oscar machine in the ’90s was legendary). another myth was billy bob thornton and “sling blade” (amusingly, biskind seems to have utter contempt for thornton, one of the most talented actors of his generation and the creator of iconic performances in “the man who wasn’t there” and “bad santa”, but depicted in this book as a frothing violent redneck who speaks in phonetic redneck threats). “all the pretty horses” was, according to this book, matt and ben’s favorite book ever at the time and matt was willing to throw all of the star power he gained behind it. billy bob was just as passionate, and they threw their hearts into adapting it. this turned out to be, very usual for harvey, one of those abusive spouse battering and butchering scenarios you accuse hollywood of doing to books. it was a bitter and vociferous battle, clearly something star matt damon and director billy bob thornton cared about more than anything else in their lives, and the 3-hour-plus epic that they made was mercilessly and viciously sliced repeatedly by harvey weinstein into a moribund, thematically muddled, and unappealing western that was short enough to cram another daily showing in. so at least “no country” wasn’t that compromised. who knows if the epic original cut of “all the pretty horses” was good enough to compare to the book, but this is one case where hollywood adamantly stepped in and said “we’re going to fuck up your vision and make this movie suck.”
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Leigh Rastivo | January 31, 09 @ 4:38 pm
I haven’t read Biskind, but I will definitely put EASY RIDER TO RAGING BULLS in my Amazon cart. Sounds down-n-dirty. So, yeah – I do read/ like non-fiction. My most recent non-fiction read: Julian Barnes’ NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF. Barnes is a 62-year old- British novelist, an atheist turned agnostic who rabidly fears death although he knows that his fear is not a logical extension of his belief system. I’m not sure why I chose to read this bizarre memoir – I’ve never read Barnes’ fiction, although that’s on my list now too. The book is truly funny – sometimes in a grumbling way and sometimes kinda slapstick – quite a feat since it’s all about the stark, dark reality that nobody wins the life game despite the careful construction of spiritual systems and material measures to convince us we are winners. The first line of NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF: “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him.”
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Raised in the suburbs of Long Island, Leigh moved 14 times to other suburbs before she finally found her rural home on a few acres in the woods of Virginia. She has two sons, one daughter, one son-in-law, and one amazing grandson. (Danger REALLY is his middle name.) Leigh holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington, and writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She works as an Adjunct Assistant Professor and a Grant Writer at Old Dominion University. She also teaches at TCC and at The Writer's Studio of Virginia Beach. And she occasionally shows up at http://leighrastivo.com.
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Why did you have to open up that “No Country For Old Men” can of worms? Now I need to read Cormac McCarthy, and i hear that guy does unconventional sentences and is full of grim themes…dammit! I think it might be interesting if I read “The Road” before the movie (starring Viggo!) gets here and we collaborate on a book/movie comparison.
Haven’t read the book of course…I’m going to have to make that disclosure a lot with you. As for the source material being not the best (and you did point out that the book’s flaws should have made it a better movie than book, which I think is probably correct even if you didn’t care for the result), I think that may be a commonality in successful adaptations.
Taking a dense, subtle work of literature and trying to cram it as best you can into a movie often comes off, even if handsome and artsy like “Atonement”, as somewhat hollow yet full of itself. An example where I’ve actually read and seen is screenwriter Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols’ attempt at Joseph Heller’s “Catch 22″, which came off like pretty much every Kurt Vonnegut movie after “Slaughterhouse Five” (which is a pretty great overlooked film by George Roy Hill) in having an adventurous ambition and being intermittently brilliant but failing to capture the intoxicating tone and scope of the novel. Sort of a mad rush to cram the most significant actions and images into them without the time or tools to develop their significance thematically (hence the use of way over-explanatory imagery to hammer the themes into it, which you are very keen in bringing up).
The best results often come, as is the case with Eastwood’s “The Bridges of Madison County” and many of Kubrick’s works, from taking a clumbsy, brief and under-thought source novel as a blueprint to build a more profound work of sound and vision.
But did you really not care for the film “No Country For Old Men”? That was the kind of profoundly shaking theatrical experience that left me confused but invigorated and eventually finding it one of the most enriching of my life (the closest example of a movie affecting me like that in the theater that I’m pulling up right now is Todd Solondz’s “Happiness”). I understood my friends’ frustrations with it, but the protagonist confusion and subliminal transition from raw depictions of violence to resigned everything’s gone to shit suggestion and the ostensive heroes either giving up or being annihilated left me pondering the inevitability of violence and evil for months afterward, best of all because it didn’t offer easy resolutions or answers. Fuck, what a movie.
I felt confused by OLD COUNTRY too, but the difference is I don’t WANT to be confused by a movie — or a book. It’s a bias of mine, I guess. I’m old school about that, and I’m hardly ever old school. I think, as a writer, it’s my responsibility to be clear about what I’m saying overall. I can experiment and I do like crazy in my fiction, but even then: the overall message needs to be clear. It isn’t the readers’ (or the viewers’) job to figure out what I meant. That standard is a pain in my ass. It means I can’t skip steps in basic logic, and yet I have to still try to be interesting and original. And I fail at this A LOT. So I get pissed off when I see a work not even try for clarity. It’s probably immature of me on some level — like a little kid resenting the neighbor kid who doesn’t have the same tough chores.
Plus, it’s all a matter of taste. Obviously, lots of folks smarter than me liked NO COUNTRY.
I have to confess that I have not seen the adaptations of Vonnegut, but I read ALL of Vonnegut voraciously, so maybe I need to rent these flicks . . .
I know a lot of great writers and savvy readers who HATE Cormac McCarthy. I LIKE McCarthy – some books better than others – but I like him, in general. The way his sentences ramble in ALL THE PRETTY HORSES drove a mentor of mine insane, but I thought it fit with the theme – rambling, adventurous – and it was musical to me. Again, it’s a matter of taste. His style is simpler in THE ROAD.
You SHOULD read THE ROAD. That would be great if we collaborated. Let’s do it. It’s a short book – a fast read. I liked it. But I do wonder how the movie will be made, since so much of the story is internal. But the casting of Viggo — BRILLIANT. A great choice – and not just cause I’m a Viggo fan. He fits the character perfectly. So I have high hopes again . . .
BTW – if you want REAL Cormac McCarthy violence: read BLOOD MERIDIAN.