A Single Man

     A Single Man is Christopher Isherwood’s commentary on the life of a single man in 1960’s America. “A single man” here means two things: just one man of millions (in this case George Falconer, a university English professor in his mid-fifties) but also a man who is not married nor has he any children. In those days, specifically L.A. in 1962, a man of George’s age was supposed to be married with a handful of kids. George is not married, lives alone, and despises children. He is the odd man out; he does not belong. It doesn't help that he is in fact gay and still mourning (after eight months) the loss of his lover Jim to a freak car crash. George wears a thin mask of sanity; under his calm, cool demeanor he is thinking about death, an eternity spent alone, and his future without Jim. He is a strong character though, dealing with the loss of someone precious to him in a society that wouldn't give a damn because he is not like everyone else.

     The book is masterful. It’s a sheer pleasure to read Isherwood’s prose. He writes so poetically about despair and loss. George is so wonderfully characterized that he feels very real to the reader. The major draw of the novel, though, is the fact that it all takes place in one day. It opens with George waking up, going through his daily routines, all the while sad and thinking about his Jim. It ends with his going to sleep at the end of that very same day. George meets many colorful characters along the way (the drunk divorced Charlotte, George's ever-curious and good-looking student Kenny, among others) that paint the scene with interesting interactions and different views on life in 60s So. Cal. Isherwood reminds me of Cunningham; the two authors write so beautifully about life, and in most cases it’s a life somehow lacking. Their characters, especially George Falconer, are missing something special and necessary to lead a happy life. It’s depressing stuff, but written with such skill and command over the language one cannot discount it. Please, read this book!

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     I wish I could say avoid the movie but I simply cannot. The film version, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, is adequate. It’s one of those novel-to-film adaptations that has almost every plot point included, almost a visual and audible translation of the book. Having read the book, a fuller, more personal experience, the movie feels hollow. You don’t get that extra information or emotion that you get from being inside someone’s head. Also, there is a heavy emphasis on visual storytelling in the film. Directed by fashion designer and first time filmmaker Tom Ford, A Single Man employs fanciful cinematography, clever visual tricks, and a haunting, sweeping score to color the emotional palette. When emotions get hot in the film, the colors are digitally brightened right before your eyes and reds, blues, yellows and other sharp tones pop. It’s a nifty trick and one used skillfully. It does somehow feel surface level though. As much as I enjoy a faithful adaptation, and often scoff at added bits, A Single Man is the exception. Never once in the book does George consider suicide, but the movie has him carry a loaded revolver around in case things get too heavy for him to deal. The most arresting scene in the movie, excellently acted by Firth, shows George putting the revolver in his mouth, trying different positions in which to end his life. He tries the shower, the bed, even climbs in a sleeping bag in order to leave minimal mess. It's a scene you simply can't look away from.

     A Single Man is a brilliant book, one you could devour in one sitting. The film honors the story as best as it can without digging too deep into George’s fragile emotional state. The film feels a bit showy like, well, like a fashion designer rather than a seasoned dramatist directed it. But that’s okay because it’s different. I strongly recommend the book. The movie is something to seek out if you are curious and want to experience something out of the ordinary as far as high-brow film making goes.

Malavita

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     September is a slow time at the movies. It’s stuck in the in-between surrounded by big action summer movies at its fore and heady, award contenders in the aft. Films that studios don’t really know what to do with come out around this time and they’re usually lacking. The Family, based on Tonino Benacquista’s Malavita, is a perfect example of September ho-hum movies. All the selling points are there (Robert DeNiro in a gangster movie sounds like box office gold, right?) but the final product leaves much to be desired. It’s too bad, because the book is superior in every way.

     We frequently find ourselves nose-deep in what we call a “page-turner”: a book with a plot and writing style that catapults us through the pages to the finale. Malavita is no such book. It’s not a bad read by any means, but it’s not thrilling or engaging enough to really make the reader need to know what happens next.

     The story is simple enough. Giovanni Manzoni was a New Jersey mob boss with a wife and two children; the elder Belle and younger Warren. Giovanni was arrested and tried and ended up turning in all his mob buddies and put into witness protection. Because he was so high up, he now has a 20 million dollar bounty on his head. Such a high profile target can’t live just anywhere, so Giovanni and his tough-as-nails family are sent to live in Normandy, France. The novel opens with the foursome moving into their Normandy home in the middle of the night. It’s your standard fish-out-of-water story. Just imagine any classic mobster from the movies trying to get along in a country he does not know, with a culture he does not care to learn about (the snobby French, no less!), all without resorting to his wise guy antics. Each chapter follows one of the four members of the family getting along in the new territory in their own unique ways. Of course the most predictable ending unfolds: some how the mob figures out Giovanni is in Normandy and a ten-hitman-team is sent to eradicate the snitch and his family.

     The book is a fun, leisurely read. The plot is predictable and familiar, with characters that don’t jump out at you, but are entertaining enough to keep you reading. The most inspired parts of the book concern Giovanni finding an old typewriter in the new house and attempting to write his memoirs. Which is ludicrous because he’s a wise-guy who uses the f-bomb to describe almost any experience, and his identity is top secret. He is reminded over and over that it’s a waste of time to write about his past because he isn’t even allowed to speak of it. He is no longer Giovanni; he is now Fred Blake.

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     You would think Luc Besson, director of such quirky and excellent films as The Fifth Element and The Professional, would be able to breathe fresh cinematic life into a story like Malavita. This is unfortunately not the case. A decently good book becomes a tiresome, often uncomfortable, movie in The Family. All the elements of a good mafia farce seem to be in order (Robert DeNiro as the mob boss, Michelle Pfeiffer as his bitter wife, and Tommy Lee Jones as a tired old FBI agent) but the pieces do not equal a satisfying whole. The film has its laugh-out-loud moments but they are penetrated by tastelessly violent scenes, very few of which appear in the book. The book is funny and thoughtful, but the movie feels slopped together last-minute.

     Oddly the book’s plot stays intact, but it doesn’t hold up on screen. It seems to be the kind of story that isn’t mean to be taken in all at once. You notice the gaps in continuity regarding theme and pacing. It’s just an uneven story. One minute you sympathize with Giovanni, and the next you realize you would never want him as a friend because he committed the ultimate sin: betrayal. You don’t notice these issues when reading the book a few chapters at a time but they show themselves when seeing the whole thing play out on screen. The film is entertaining enough to fill a lazy afternoon on the couch, but don’t spend you money on this one at the theater. Read the book if you’re looking for something light and clever in its execution. 

Dreamcatcher

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     Dreamcatcher is one of Stephen King’s weirdest novels. It was written while he was in the hospital recovering from an accident that occurred in 1999. He was struck by a car and bedridden for weeks. He dealt with the discomfort by writing. Much of his sense of imprisonment bleeds through into the plot of Dreamcatcher. It’s a sci-fi/horror hybrid that will terrify and amuse with equal parts dread and hilarity.

     It’s about four foul-mouthed friends on their annual trip to a cabin in Maine to hunt, drink, and catch up on old times. A hunter claiming to be lost in the woods stumbles upon their cabin and he is taken in, given food and shelter, and promised a trip into town as soon as the storm dies down. Soon the lost hunter, covered in a blood-red fungus and feeling very sick, gives the guys a horrific surprise that I can’t disclose here because it’s the best moment in the book. King himself says of this infamous scene that he wanted it to do for the toilet what Psycho did for the shower. It will haunt your dreams.

     Basically an alien plot to take over the world (starting in upstate Maine, of course) unfolds and the four friends are caught in the middle. Oh, and they have a fifth friend, Duddits, who has “special powers” that they believe is the key in saving the world. Colonel Kurtz (a character modeled after Mr. Kurtz from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) is also a key player, becoming insane from secretly hunting aliens his entire life.

     The book is over 900 pages and packed with a plot that goes in so many different directions. It has elements of horror, science fiction, humor, fantasy, drama, tear-jerking sadness, and a pinch of vomit-inducing imagery. Only a pair of fools would attempt to fit all that into a 136 minute movie.

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     Those fools go by the names of Lawrence Kasdan as director and William Goldman as writer. Widely considered the worst movie of 2003, Dreamcatcher stretches itself too thin. What killed this movie for audiences was the poor marketing campaign. The trailers said almost nothing about aliens, only vague hints at horror and shots of a blizzard among pine trees. With an all-star cast (including Morgan Freeman, Timothy Olyphant, Jason Lee, Damien Lewis, Tom Jane, Donny Wahlberg, and Tom Sizemore) people assumed it would be an entertaining two hours. Many were confused and distraught when the first signs of aliens appeared.

     Having said that, the film found an audience among a few science fiction fans. Dreamcatcher is my favorite movie of all time. Watch this film in the woods, snow covered branches scratching against your windows, amid a freakishly strong blizzard, and you will be terrified, especially during the infamous toilet scene! Words can’t describe (because I don’t want spoil it and because I would have to use language not suitable for the lowest, most vulgar of company) how surprising and disturbing that scene is. The movie does it better, simply because…you can see it. Watch this movie if just for that scene. It occurs maybe thirty minutes in so if you hate it, just turn it of with not much time wasted.
     For a film that needed to condense 900 pages of story into two and a quarter hours, Dreamcatcher does a fine job. Certain plot points are changed, others omitted entirely. Even though the film is slightly confusing, muddled, a bit too long, and not what it was advertised as, I adore it. You might too. The ending is completely different in the movie and book, though I don’t mind at all. The film ending is more visually stunning, whereas the book’s ending is intellectually more stimulating and would look just plain cheesy if filmed. Check out the film if you’re feeling adventurous. Read the book if you want a great horror story with a heavy dose of science fiction.

Ethan Frome

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    Ethan Frome by Edith Warton is a classic for many reasons. First of all it’s old. Classics have to be old to stand the test of time. Frome was published in 1911 and quickly became popular. People still read it today. It’s a short little novel that takes place over a few days in a run down cabin in the fictional Starkfield, Massachusetts. Ethan Frome lives in that cabin with his sick wife Zeena and her cousin Mattie Silver. The novel is depressing to the point of actually affecting the reader. You start to feel like poor Ethan in that freezing old house with his even colder wife and helpless cousin Mattie. No book does a better job of making the reader feel trapped; trapped like Ethan in eternity with a perpetually sick wife and a desire to break free. Things get weird when Zeena goes to Bettsbridge to see a doctor and Ethan and Mattie discover their true love for each other. It basically goes downhill from there; downhill like a sled on a cold winter’s day.

     The movie dropped on the scene in 1993, over 80 years after the novel. This gave people some time to think the book over, decide whether it was a classic or not. It was in ’93 and it still is today. Directed by John Madden and starring Liam Neeson as Ethan and Joan Allen as Zeena, the film gets casting down pretty well. Neeson has the right amount of rugged manliness with a side order of charm to fill those lumbering shoes of Ethan’s and Allen is wonderfully wretched as Zeena the hypochondriac. Patricia Arquette creates likeable innocence in the role of Mattie Silver. As far as casting goes, the film gets it right on the money.

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     Where most book to film adaptations cut, cut, cut in order to squeeze the story into a couple of hours, Ethan Frome has the opposite problem. At less than a hundred pages, the filmmakers needed to add, rather than take away. What they added usually works to flesh out the story. Zeena is more of a character in the film, showing more emotional dimension. This is a pleasant surprise. I can’t imagine any actress playing her with as much stiffness and indifference as the way she is written in the book. However, the narrator from the beginning and end of the novel becomes a preacher and a bit of a religious tone is introduced, needlessly in my opinion. He isn’t a character in the meat of the story so I don’t see why he needed to be in the film as much as he is.

     The nice part about John Madden’s Ethan Frome is that it stays true to the novel. With only four or five major scenes in the book, staying true seems unavoidable. It’s a nicely plotted book and the filmmakers took advantage of it, and rightfully so. But all in all, what do we really talk about when we talk about Ethan Frome? The ending. Why is Ethan the sad, crippled man that he is. I’m happy to say the movie does it right. The book does it better if only for one detail (Zeena’s face appears before Ethan, blocking his vision, causing him to lose control of the sled). Still, the ending is so shocking and depressing that it works on both accounts. Whether watching the film or reading the book, no one wants to be Ethan Frome when it’s over. No one.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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     “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is one of America’s first fairy tales, told and retold for over two centuries. Everyone knows of the headless horseman. He’s a staple in American literature. How can something so simple (a headless body riding a horse) strike fear into so many generations of readers? And in his dead palm, a flaming jack-o-lantern no less! How odd, how dreadful, how spooky! Seriously, what would you do if you saw that image whilst alone in the woods? Can you blame Ichabod for abandoning his pupils in Sleepy Hollow? Surely not!

     Ichabod Crane, the lanky, beak-nosed schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow, Connecticut, is also a legendary figure in American literature. From his desire for the lovely Katrina Van Tassel (only for her inheritance) to his famous encounter with the galloping Hessian, he’s the admirable underdog in all of us. Irving spends so much time in the story on description; some of it delightful (descriptions of characters) some of it tiresome (descriptions of landscapes).

     The ambiguity of the legend is what allows it to last. Ichabod’s tear through the forest with the headless horseman afoot is a scene of tension and horror. Although we know how it ends, we still feel Ichabod’s fright in coming face to face (err…face to shoulders?) with the legendary Hessian.

     The screenwriters of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow were tasked with creating a genuine mystery around a mess of descriptions that lead up to one climactic scene. This could have gone horribly wrong (before Burton got involved, it was conceived as a slasher film) but it goes wonderfully right. In this case, although not a novel-to-film adaptation, the movie is better.

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     Sleepy Hollow could be Tim Burton’s best movie. Everything comes together to create a perfect atmosphere, dazzlingly dark imagery, and thoughtful characters. Never has a source material been so perfectly matched for a director’s style. Sleepy Hollow just screams Halloween. The score alone is makes your skin crawl, the cinematography is ghostly; something of nightmares. The art direction (for which an academy award was given) is wondrously twisted. Johnny Depp plays Ichabod only somewhat like he is in the story. He nails the scaredy-cat nature of Crane but everything else is made-up, but not uninspired. Depp’s Ichabod is a constable from New York sent upstate to investigate three murders, all by decapitation. He is not the choir-singing, money-loving, schoolteacher from the story. All the essential bits of the Irving’s tale are on display, but made to be bigger, bolder, and bloodier.  The violence is not mindless, rather it is stylish and gritty, some of the best gore gags in any movie. As the marketing campaign suggests: heads will roll.

     This is an unfair comparison, but so much fun to explore. Tim Burton has made some adaptations that are just rubbish, but Sleepy Hollow is a wonderfully horrifying movie that gets it right. We always say “That’s not how I imagined that character” or “it looked different in my head”. The imagination is more powerful than any special effects device Hollywood can create, but I’ll be damned if Burton’s headless horseman doesn't look exactly as he should barreling through the fog and the trees toward his next victim.