I came across this article recently about the prospect of filming “Catcher in the Rye”, and whether or not the book really is “unfilmable.” Salinger naturally refused to sell the rights during his lifetime, but with his recent death comes a renewed swirl of intrigue over the idea of a movie.
Personally, I think it would be a terrible idea — well intentioned and undoubtedly irresistible — but terrible nevertheless. I used to think that seeing Holden portrayed on screen would an interesting and satisfying experience, but since I’ve been re-reading the book, I’ve changed my mind rather drastically. How would Holden’s voice ever be captured on film? The bulk of the novel takes place inside his head, and the plot follows his thoughts as they ramble and meander across the pages — the beauty of the narrative lies in its rambling disorganization, its wonderful digressions. Most of the best lines in the entire book aren’t dialogue, but thought; with the novel, I feel as though I’m literally reading Holden’s mind. What would the result of that be onscreen? The only way to really capture most of the book would be through an actor’s voiceover, which is a tricky technique at the best of times; I suppose if it was really well done, it would work, but the film would run an awful danger of sounding grating and clichéd. And, of course, what actor could play a convincing Holden?
Perhaps I’ve just been burned too many times, watching some of my favorite books be turned into misguided and wrongly-cast screen adaptations (though, to Hollywood’s credit, there have been a few good ones). Or, maybe it’s the fact that it seems like sheer hypocrisy to put a character who despises movies as much as Holden does — “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.” — on the screen. With a bunch of phonies, no doubt.
That’s just my opinion, though (and I admit, I can be incredibly picky). How do you think a “Catcher” movie would fare? And who could play Holden?
I finally went to see the new Sherlock Holmes adaptation with no small amount of trepidation. For years, Holmes and I have been very well acquainted and I was afraid my clear, well-defined image of a character I so loved would be muddled and abused by watching the film. I walked into the movie theater slightly nervous, and came out…pleasantly surprised.
There is no doubt that Robert Downey Jr. plays a very different Sherlock — one without the hawk-like nose, questionable drug addiction and cat-like cleanliness of appearance. I knew within the first fifteen seconds of the film that this was not my Sherlock, the vision of which is very meticulously imagined in my mind. Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy Downey’s clever acting, or Jude Law’s surprisingly good turn as Watson, and the interesting banter between them, which I think was a bit limited and overshadowed by the looming heaviness of the action scenes. Downey was, as always, fascinating to watch, playing up Holmes’ eccentricity and lending his character a more whimsical air, which nicely counterbalanced Jude Law’s stolid but unstuffy Watson. I was also pleased to see that Law’s performance elevated Watson out of the dim and stodgy stereotype that has so plagued the poor fellow.
Despite the changes wrought in Sherlock by the film, I was surprised by the details that still rang true from the original stories. The deduction that a pocket watch with a scratched keyhole must belong to a drunken man was lifted straight from Conan Doyle’s pages, and the scene of Holmes engaging in bare-knuckle boxing had it’s roots in “The Sign of the Four”, in which Holmes greets a former boxing champ turned bodyguard with fond reminisces of their match against each other. There were even a few sprinklings of familiar Sherlock-isms; Downey lazes around his (uncharacteristically) sloppy Baker Street rooms and moans, “My mind rebels at stagnation.” Sadly, there were fewer lines in the script that allowed Downey to show the full extent of his character’s fierce intelligence, or the amusing mixture of arrogance and impatience with which Holmes often regards those of lesser intellectual powers.
I picked up Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood this summer and slowly worked my way through most of it, only to leave it lying unattended by my bedside for months.
Not that it isn’t a gripping tale. The non-fiction, which details the murder of a family of four in rural Kansas, often has the same appeal as a good horror flick. Before the bloody deed is done, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the suspense: the only question is how the victims, Mr. Clutter and his family, will be snuffed out.
My problem came after Kansas detectives bag Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, Mr. Clutter’s twisted assailants. Perhaps my disinterest can be blamed on having seen Philip Seymour Hoffman’s brilliant turn as the author in the 2005 film Capote. Unfortunately, I know how this story is going to end.
That aside, I’ve got a bigger bone to pick with Capote, and it has to do with good old-fashioned journalism. Capote’s claim to fame was his ability to conjure vivid, true-to-life scenes from actual events. The author himself called In Cold Blood a “nonfiction novel,” and laid claim to its total veracity.
This seems to be the year of John Keats: in July, his house was reopened to the public in Hampstead Heath, London, and this week, “Bright Star”, the new film about Keats’ brief love affair with Fanny Brawne, opens in theatres. Directed by Jane Campion, the movie got a lovely review in the New York Times and I hope that Campion will do for Keats what she did for Henry James in her wonderful adaptation of “The Portrait of a Lady”, one of my favorite books.
Intrigued by the recent Keats renaissance of sorts, I made a trip to the library in search of his poems – thus far, poor Mr. Keats had been rather overshadowed by Percy Shelley and Lord Byron in my modest study of 19th century poets. Reading Keats over the past few weeks, though, I’ve been struck by how beautifully fresh and almost modern his verse seems, unmarred by the dusty coverlet of nearly two centuries. His words have such a delightful elegance and I’m continually amazed just how much he matured in such a short life — his poems have a depth that’s remarkable when you consider that he was only 25 when he died.
As the Times stated, no movie can ever fully capture the exquisiteness of his poetry as it appears on the page, but I hope that “Bright Star” will at the very least encourage a new generation, like me, to pick up a volume of his work and appreciate the purity of his genius. I’m certainly inspired to read, in addition to his verse, the Keats biography written by Britain’s former poet laureate, Andrew Motion. And, as I have a weakness for both Romantic poets and romantic movies, “Bright Star” is definitely my must-see film for the fall (it comes to Stamford’s Avon Theater on Friday, Sept. 25).
Here’s a taste of the poem that, I assume, inspired the film’s title. Interestingly, a line from another of Keats’ poems, “Ode to a Nightingale”, provided the title for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender is the Night.”
BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
I checked out the newly opened Barnes and Noble on 86th and Lexington in New York this past weekend, gift card in hand. The store is so huge, I hardly knew what to look at first. I picked through the fiction, quirky non-fiction bestsellers and cooking section on the first level, giving the second basement level not much more than a glance. A friend tells me they have a THIRD level with an event space, which I’m glad I didn’t see. (One hour of mega store book browsing is enough, thanks!) Also, the place doesn’t have cell phone reception, so my husband and I kept losing one another in the cavernous space.
That aside, I picked up some good reads:
“On Beauty” by Zadie Smith
“Absurdistan” by Gary Shteyngart
“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
“The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, and Ambition” by John Delucie (for my husband)
I know, I know. I could have checked these off any bestseller list. To be honest, my picks didn’t stray from the “notable fiction” table. But I’ve been on a non-fiction binge for a few years, so I guess it’s time to catch up. I’ve read White Teeth by Zadie Smith and enjoyed it (up until the last few pages) so I’ll be happy to pick up Smith’s latest. But before I crack any of these, I’ll be wrapping up Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Stay tuned for more on that soon.
A couple film-related post scripts:
It seems there is a recent German film also under the title Absurdistan. Anyone know if this is based on the book?
It didn’t occur to me until writing this post that Delucie’s memoir borrows its name, The Hunger, from the Whitley Strieber novel and 1980s cult vampire film with David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. Is he trying to draw some blood-sucking allusions about the service industry lifestyle, perhaps?
My perusal of E.M. Forster’s classic novel began with such good intentions. With wholesome, faintly academic fervor, I embraced the prospect of reading the imperishable “A Room With a View” after several months of contemporary fiction. I love modern novelists, but I was ready to return, for a moment, to 1908, the year the novel was published. And, this was a book, I’d been told by many, that everyone must read, one of those timeless, inimitable pieces of literature that should not only be read thoroughly but absorbed with reverence for its merit and splendor. Settling on my couch, flanked by a cat and a cup of tea, I opened the book, fully prepared for merit and splendor.
Like Forster’s young heroine, Lucy Honeychurch, my initial reaction to the opening pages was pragmatic and studious. I strolled through the paragraphs much like Lucy strolled through the glorious churches of Florence, painstakingly searching for the praised frescoes of Giotto with the aid of Baedeker, her indispensable guidebook. I ventured into Forster’s prose with the air of a somewhat nervous tourist, armed for sightseeing. Ooh, look at his wonderful diction, succinct and yet so evocative! And how artlessly he deploys his humor! Ah, such skill and mastery. I chuckled with appreciative laughter over sentences like this one, describing the fussy British chaperone:
Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed armchair, which had the colour and contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr. Beebe, and as she spoke, her long, narrow head drove backwards and forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some invisible obstacle.
Oh, Mr. Forster. With deft strokes, he paints a sharp and accurate portrait of the British upper classes abroad — eager for a Fashionably Exotic Adventure, but priggish and suspicious of foreigners, unwilling to completely leave their comfortable Britannia behind.
For November, I'll be reading American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year. We'll update our book club selection for December and January shortly.
Marilyn Ramos is a partner at the Stamford litigation law firm of Silver Golub & Teitell. She is a member of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association and the Connecticut Bar Association. She is currently on the Board of Directors of the Fairfield County Bar Association and the Fairfield County Bar Foundation. She received her law degree from Pace University School of Law in 1989 and is a member of the Connecticut and New York bars. Prior to her career in law, she was a teacher with the Greenwich Public Schools and worked for the Stamford Human Rights Commission. Her views expressed on this blog are completely her own and do not represent those of Silver Golub & Teitell.
Roy J. Nirschel is president of Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. He grew up in Stamford and his father was a firefighter on the West Side. He received his bachelor's degree from Southern Connecticut State University and went on to receive a master's degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Miami. He has traveled around the world, visiting 35 countries, but said, "I can’t credit on the road with getting me on the road."
