Out of Africa
Aug. 18th, 2002 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhYesterday afternoon I cleaned my apartment. This is a very good sign of my mental health, actually. My bathroom is very shiny.
Last night, went to the cinema with two friends, one of whom is recently back from three years studying primates in Zimbabwe. (I can never remember which ones, but I think baboons.) We saw Possession and then went out for Indian food. There are now almost as many ads before the movie in the US as there were in London. My zoologist friend got the cultural bends from all the media.
Possession was very satisfying. It's a very intellectual love story, set in London, about two literary scholars who are experts on 1850s poetry. The man discovers a connection between the poet he studies and the poet she studies, and together they find all sorts of hidden love letters between the two poets. Of course, they fall in love along the way, as they try to keep their discoveries out of the hands of his departmental rival (and her former lover) and an annoying professor from New Mexico. My friend S and I have both read the book by A.S. Byatt and were well satisfied with the film. It might seem a little slow (or, as The New Yorker said, "tepid") for those who have not.
Again, this is from the POV of one who read and loved the book. Gwyneth is a perfect casting choice for Maud, as she is supposed to be very beautiful, very intelligent, and a bit of a cold fish. She captures the fear that lurks beneath Maud's frigidity wonderfully, and manages not to rely on her usual bag of acting tricks. Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle bring the poets, Randolph and Christobel, to life in the flashback scenes (as in the book, they are interspersed throughout the movie). The poets are a bit melodramatic and overwrought, as they should be, but Northam and Ehle keep at least one foot in reality. (Also, Ehle gets to wear the most amazing green hooded cape.) However, as in the Pride & Prejudice miniseries, I was a little annoyed with the way that Ehle always seems to be on the verge of laughter. At least she dropped that attitude during Christobel's confinement in France, when she has bitterly given up on Randolph.
They did cast Aaron Eckhardt as the male scholar, and changed the character to be an American. I'm not sure why this choice was made; it certainly wasn't for box-office or funding purposes, as they already had Paltrow. Eckhardt is a regular player in Neil LaBute movies, so that may have been the connection, but it led to several stupid "American-hating Brit" jokes that were definitely unnecessary. That aside, he did well in showing what a loser Roland was, how he was flailing about accomplishing not much of anything until he happened upon this discovery, and that he had his own problems with intimacy.
It must have been a daunting task to take this very long novel, with its long intellectual conversations about the nature of poetry and its relation to life, and turn it into a screenplay. Maud and Roland, like Randolph and Christobel, fall in love with each other's minds more than their physical selves or even their personalities. But David Henry Hwang pulled it off. All of the crucial moments in the book were preserved, as was, more importantly, the atmosphere and tone. Yet, the story is altered enough to work as a film. (This is in marked contrast to, for example, the Harry Potter movie which played rather more like a book on tape.) What was cerebral in the book becomes visual in the film, as the emphasis shifts from words to actions. For example, in the book, the correspondence between the poets illustrates the slow build of their romance. In the film, this is shown by Christobel going from hiding the letters from her lover Blanche to, later, being so bold as to read a letter while Blanche is sleeping with her head in her lap.
If this recommendation sends you to the movie, I hope it also sends you to the book, which is one of my favorites.
Today I accompanied my friend W (whom I had visited in London) and her boyfriend to 125th Street. Boyfriend is from Brixton and wanted to go up to Harlem and eat soul food at Sylvia's and see the Apollo Theater and generally soak up the atmosphere. Which we did, but damn it's hot. I now have two meals worth of food in my fridge. We got all the classics: fried chicken, spare ribs, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, green beans, candied yams, rice, black-eyed peas and red velvet cake. I am not planning on eating again in my lifetime. I left them on the A train, on the way down to the b-ball courts on West 4th Street.
Now I sit in my nice air conditioned apartment, hair wet from the shower, eating a lime frozen fruit. Ooh, and you know what I saw at the bodega up on Malcolm X Boulevard? Caramel M&M's! They're not bad. Look for the maroon package.
Last night, went to the cinema with two friends, one of whom is recently back from three years studying primates in Zimbabwe. (I can never remember which ones, but I think baboons.) We saw Possession and then went out for Indian food. There are now almost as many ads before the movie in the US as there were in London. My zoologist friend got the cultural bends from all the media.
Possession was very satisfying. It's a very intellectual love story, set in London, about two literary scholars who are experts on 1850s poetry. The man discovers a connection between the poet he studies and the poet she studies, and together they find all sorts of hidden love letters between the two poets. Of course, they fall in love along the way, as they try to keep their discoveries out of the hands of his departmental rival (and her former lover) and an annoying professor from New Mexico. My friend S and I have both read the book by A.S. Byatt and were well satisfied with the film. It might seem a little slow (or, as The New Yorker said, "tepid") for those who have not.
Again, this is from the POV of one who read and loved the book. Gwyneth is a perfect casting choice for Maud, as she is supposed to be very beautiful, very intelligent, and a bit of a cold fish. She captures the fear that lurks beneath Maud's frigidity wonderfully, and manages not to rely on her usual bag of acting tricks. Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle bring the poets, Randolph and Christobel, to life in the flashback scenes (as in the book, they are interspersed throughout the movie). The poets are a bit melodramatic and overwrought, as they should be, but Northam and Ehle keep at least one foot in reality. (Also, Ehle gets to wear the most amazing green hooded cape.) However, as in the Pride & Prejudice miniseries, I was a little annoyed with the way that Ehle always seems to be on the verge of laughter. At least she dropped that attitude during Christobel's confinement in France, when she has bitterly given up on Randolph.
They did cast Aaron Eckhardt as the male scholar, and changed the character to be an American. I'm not sure why this choice was made; it certainly wasn't for box-office or funding purposes, as they already had Paltrow. Eckhardt is a regular player in Neil LaBute movies, so that may have been the connection, but it led to several stupid "American-hating Brit" jokes that were definitely unnecessary. That aside, he did well in showing what a loser Roland was, how he was flailing about accomplishing not much of anything until he happened upon this discovery, and that he had his own problems with intimacy.
It must have been a daunting task to take this very long novel, with its long intellectual conversations about the nature of poetry and its relation to life, and turn it into a screenplay. Maud and Roland, like Randolph and Christobel, fall in love with each other's minds more than their physical selves or even their personalities. But David Henry Hwang pulled it off. All of the crucial moments in the book were preserved, as was, more importantly, the atmosphere and tone. Yet, the story is altered enough to work as a film. (This is in marked contrast to, for example, the Harry Potter movie which played rather more like a book on tape.) What was cerebral in the book becomes visual in the film, as the emphasis shifts from words to actions. For example, in the book, the correspondence between the poets illustrates the slow build of their romance. In the film, this is shown by Christobel going from hiding the letters from her lover Blanche to, later, being so bold as to read a letter while Blanche is sleeping with her head in her lap.
If this recommendation sends you to the movie, I hope it also sends you to the book, which is one of my favorites.
Today I accompanied my friend W (whom I had visited in London) and her boyfriend to 125th Street. Boyfriend is from Brixton and wanted to go up to Harlem and eat soul food at Sylvia's and see the Apollo Theater and generally soak up the atmosphere. Which we did, but damn it's hot. I now have two meals worth of food in my fridge. We got all the classics: fried chicken, spare ribs, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, green beans, candied yams, rice, black-eyed peas and red velvet cake. I am not planning on eating again in my lifetime. I left them on the A train, on the way down to the b-ball courts on West 4th Street.
Now I sit in my nice air conditioned apartment, hair wet from the shower, eating a lime frozen fruit. Ooh, and you know what I saw at the bodega up on Malcolm X Boulevard? Caramel M&M's! They're not bad. Look for the maroon package.
