You’d think John le Carré books would be easier to adapt. Full of intrigue and elegant melancholy, they seem like ideal cineplex fare. But it takes a crackerjack team to translate the spy novel author’s carefully crafted cynicism onto a big screen without getting lost in his details. The best of the lot may be Fernando Meirelles’s sweeping 2005 take on The Constant Gardener or Tomas Alfredson’s 2011 adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, with Gary Oldman as a retired agent whose fangs have only mildly been filed down by time. “Our Kind of Traitor,” British television director Susanna White’s interpretation of le Carré’s 2010 Cold War rekindling and the latest addition to the le Carré canon, is a slicker animal – different but not necessarily inferior. Continue Reading →
Archive | Book Matters
The Problem With ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
“To Kill a Mockingbird” is mostly upheld for Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning portrayal of good daddy Atticus Finch, iconically clad in tortoise shell glasses and cream linen suits. But in viewing the adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel today, I am taken aback by its micro-aggression–by the racism it perpetuates and condemns in equal measure.
It was released at the end of 1962, which was the last year before the cultural upheaval that we associate with the 1960s. In 1963, John F. Kennedy was shot, and America seemed to not only lose its innocence but its self-assurance. The assassinations of Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X followed, as did the Vietnam War and Watergate and, well, you get the picture. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was filmed during America’s last year of post-World War II complacency. For better and worse, you can tell. Continue Reading →
Not a Misnomer: ‘The Shining’
The Shining may have been released 36 years ago, but it occupies as much real estate in our cultural imagination as when it first rolled in on a wave of blood and geometric wallpaper.
The documentary Room 237 explored the myriad theories and rumors surrounding the hotel horror flick to a groundswell of ballyhoo. News outlets recently reported that a paranormal expert claimed he’d seen two ghostly figures in a photo taken at the Colorado hotel where the film was shot. And a pivotal moment in this season’s finale of Girls referenced the film’s classic “Heeere’s Johnny” scene. There may be no clearer indication of cultural relevancy than a hat tip from Mz. Dunham.
Unlike many cult favorites (hello, “Lebowski”), The Shining knocked everyone’s socks off right out of the gate – even if the flaws were readily acknowledged . This adaptation was that rarest of things: an improvement, rather than a shoddy echo, of a Stephen King novel. It was also a Stanley Kubrick film that eschewed the director’s characteristically icy elegance for over-the-top violence.
The film vibrated, really, with a red, red rage. Or was that red rum? Continue Reading →