reading – Page 12 – Ripple Effects

The Quiet American by Graham Greene: Book and Movie

This is my first selection for the Graham Greene Challenge hosted by CarrieK at Books And Movies.

I watched the film The Quiet American some years back, but not read the book. And my memory is vague. Only remember Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser, the setting in Vietnam, in the early 50’s, a complex fusion of political thriller, murder mystery, and a love triangle.

But now that I’ve read the book I’m thoroughly intrigued, thanks to this Penguin Classics Graham Greene Centennial Edition (1904 – 2004), with the intro written by American novelist Robert Stone. Stone’s novel Dog Soldiers about the Vietnam war and its effects won the 1975 National Book Award. From his introduction, I’ve come to appreciate how intricate and multi-layered the conflicts are, and, how political the novel stands.

Interesting to learn from Stone about the joke embedded in the title: the only quiet American is a dead American. In the midst of a colonial war between the French and the communists in 1950’s Saigon, American Alden Pyle’s subversive brand of democracy satisfied none other than his own idealism. A Harvard grad, armed with naiveté and book knowledge, a CIA under the guise of the American Economic Attaché, Pyle’s involvement might well represent American meddling in other country’s affairs in the name of spreading democracy.

We see all these through the eyes of the narrator, the British reporter Thomas Fowler. Much older, more experienced, and having been posted in Vietnam for some years, Fowler has grown to love the humanity therein, but is plagued by bitter cynicism. He doesn’t take sides, he just writes his story as an observer, smokes his opium pipe prepared by his young mistress Phuong, and lies in bed with her. But Fowler’s noncommittal stance comes to a breaking point at the end:

… one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.

The Quiet American is noted for its divergent from Greene’s ‘Catholic’ novels. But the existential issues are very much in the forefront. Fowler is a man of conscience, albeit aloof in his outward stance. The climax comes as he resolves a moral dilemma. Guilt is his nemesis, regarding his wife in England, regarding Phuong, and much more acutely at the end of the novel, regarding Pyle. The book ends with this line:

I wished there existed someone to whom I could say that I was sorry.

And then there’s Phuong, manipulated by her older sister, weaves herself between the two foreigners whom she sees as her ticket out of the country and into a dream future. I find her reaction to Pyle’s death most disturbing.

In a short 180 pages, Greene has brilliantly depicted the political complexities of the conflicts at the time, and addressed the internal war waged within a man’s conscience, ironically, a man whose outward creed is noninvolvement. I’m thoroughly intrigued by the story that is told with depth, eloquence and skill by a master storyteller.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

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The Movie: DVD

I watch the film again after finishing the book. It has altered some characters, and taken a more sympathetic view of Phuong. But the overall story and perspective remain intact. Upon this second time viewing, I find several interesting facts that I wasn’t aware of before.

Michael Caine was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and Golden Globe in 2003 for his role as British reporter Thomas Fowler. He has portrayed the character convincingly. Brendan Fraser as the young American I feel is a miscast. If they’re making the film today, James Franco would be my choice for Alden Pyle.

Director is the award-winning Australian Phillip Noyce. (Rabbit-Proof Fence, 2002). One of the two screenwriters is Christopher Hampton who got an Oscar nom for his adapted screenplay Atonement from Ian McEwan’s novel. He is also the screenwriter for the current film A Dangerous Method. Executive producers were two personalities whom I highly respect, Anthony Minghella of The English Patient fame plus some more, and Sydney Pollack whose credits are too numerous to mention. It was a great loss that they both passed away within two months in 2008.

The DVD comes with a resource of special features. Other than all the interviews and making-of, there is a useful “Vietnam Timeline”, outlining the history of Vietnam from 1940 to 1980. Further, I appreciate the inclusion of original book reviews. One line particularly stands out. From the 1956 review of the book by John Lehman of The New Republic:

The Quiet American is one of the most icily anti-American books I’ve ever read.

Oh… the wealth of information one can gather from watching these special features.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

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Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden

This is my first selection for the 2012 Ireland Challenge at Books and Movies. Thanks to Litlove and Rebecca for the recommendation.

Molly Fox’s Birthday was on the long list of the 2009 Orange Prize. Despite the title and the look of the book cover, it’s not chic lit. It’s not about celebrating a birthday either.

The book is set on a single day, Molly Fox’s birthday, June 21st, the summer solstice. Molly Fox is a popular and gifted theatre actor. On that day, the narrator of the book is staying at Molly’s home in Dublin while Molly has gone on a trip to New York. Nothing much happens really on Molly’s birthday, a day that she doesn’t even celebrate.

The narrator is a playwright who has enjoyed acclaims at one time but is now going through a low period in her career. On this day, she is struggling with writer’s block. While she is staying in Molly’s home trying to start a new play, she is preoccupied with memories and pondering. She reminisces on her longtime friendship with Molly, who was initially propelled to fame when she performed in the narrator’s debut play.

800px-Gaiety_Theatre,_Dublin — Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

Through her quiet recollections, the narrator describes how their lives intertwine with two other significant characters, Molly’s brother Fergus and their mutual friend Andrew, who is from Northern Ireland. The political events that happend during the past decades had shattered his family. A successful art historian living in London now, Andrew is still haunted by disturbing memories. And Fergus is another personality which the narrator finds intriguing to discover slowly.

Sometimes it’s just a gut feeling that you like a book. As you’re reading, there’s a gentle push that prompts you forward, reinforcing your favor as you slowly go along… even though ‘nothing much happens’. To go beyond feeling is what I need to do now. Let me try to organise my thoughts:

First it’s the voice. Often that’s the first thing that draws me into the story. Throughout the book, the narrator is unnamed. Her voice is casual, understated, and her tone is occasionally self-deprecating: “… I was in the supporting role: ever the stooge…” For some reason, I’m instantly drawn to such remarks.

But the self-deprecation only hides a genuine search for self-worth, and a deep longing for what is true in relationships and in life. I admire her sincere quest for that which is authentic in herself and others. Like a close friend relating to you her deepest thoughts, you want to listen attentively.

Author Madden’s strategy of keeping the narrator anonymous is most apt, for we are led to discover her inner world, and appreciate the substance that makes up who she is. A name only identifies the surface, the content within is what makes it worthwhile for readers to know in a character.

Intriguingly, this is exactly what the narrator tries to do. As she struggles with writer’s block, she is also sorting out the blockages of veiled personas of those whom she thinks she has come to know, to find out what they are beneath the surface.

What appeals to me is the narrator’s insightful point of view disguised as casual remarks. Like how she recalls the first time she recognized Molly in a café, sitting nearby her and reading a book:

I did not approach Molly — what could I possibly have said? I really liked you in ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’. And what could she have replied? Why thank you very much. What would that have amounted to? Less than nothing. There are forms of communication that drive people apart, that do nothing other than confirm distance. But there are also instances when no connection seems to be made and yet something profound takes place, and this was just such a moment.

On Molly’s birthday, the narrator talks to three people who come by Molly’s home, Andrew, whom the narrative has not seen for a while, Molly’s brother Fergus and a well-wisher. From interactions with them, the narrator is surprised to learn that people’s outward image may well be a front hiding a very different self or intent.

From reading the quiet ruminations, I’m delighted to discover gems along the way. Like the rest of the narratives, it seems that the author has strewn them about casually. We’re free to notice and pick up. Here are a few of them:

From the narrator’s oldest brother Tom, a Catholic priest —

Eternity is a priest’s business. But we all live in time. And what I’m doing is trying to make people aware of how the two coexist… keeping that sense of eternity while being in time; and trying to live accordingly…

How the narrator describes Molly’s acting —

There was always something unmediated and supremely natural about her acting, it was the thing itself. Becoming, not pretending.

About the self on and off stage —

Is the self really such a fluid thing, something we invent as we go along, almost as a social reflex?… so much social interchange is inherently false, and real communication can only be achieved in ways that seem strange and artificial.

And this —

Sometimes, on stage, not showing something can be more powerful than showing it.

Seems like this might well be the style Madden follows in writing her book. Subtle prompting, slow revealing… and we’re led to surprising discovery alongside the narrator.

Molly Fox’s Birthday reminds me of Somerset Maugham’s novel Theatre. But this is quieter. And after I’ve finished I wonder… what have I missed now… for there are so many layers, I haven’t explored them all. First off, what’s the significance of a birthday on the summer solstice…

~ ~ ~ Ripples

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Post of similar subject:

THEATRE by W. Somerset Maugham: In Search of Reality

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The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata

The Sound of the Mountain (山の音) is my book for Japanese Literature Challenge 5 at Dolce Bellezza, the only one this time and posting it before the Challenge ends this month. It is the first book I finished in 2012, at 1 a.m. January 1st. Truth is, I wanted to finish it by the end of last year, but couldn’t. I’ve been reading it for weeks in December. It’s a book that I had to read ever so slowly.

Yasunari Kawabata (川端康成, 14 June 1899 – 16 April 1972) is the first of two Japanese Nobel laureates in literature, receiving the honor in 1968 (Kenzaburo Oe in 1994). So far I’ve only read two of Kawabata’s books, Snow Country and The Sound of the Mountain. But from this limited experience, I’ve found that reading Kawabata is like watching an Ozu film. The camera is set low and mostly stationary to depict quiet expressions and gestures. Viewers are engaged by the nuanced dialogues as the director explores in depth thematic materials rather than presents plot-driven sequences. Both masters deal with intimate relationships, their characterization sensitive , their imagery poetic.

Ogata Shingo is in his early sixties, beginning to show signs of old age. Ever introspective and sensitive, he can almost hear the beckoning of death as sound that comes from the mountain to the rear of his house in Kamakura. As he lies in bed at night, beside his oblivious, snoring wife Yasuko, he can distinctly hear that sound:

It was like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth… The sound stopped, and he was suddenly afraid. A chill passed over him, as if he had been notified that death was approaching.

At most, Shingo feels a duty towards his wife Yasuko. His heart though is drawn to two women, one is his wife Yasuko’s older sister who passed away from an illness some time ago. Yet Shingo still cherishes memories of her. The other is his son Shuichi’s wife, his own daughter-in-law Kikuko, who lives in his house. Nurturing a crush on two women who are not his wife has troubled Shingo deeply.

But the guilt he wrestles with is only a part of the distress he faces so late in life. Shingo has to face the marital problems of both his son Shuichi’s and his daughter Fusako’s. Shuichi, who lives with his wife Kikuko in the house of his parents, has been seeing another woman, Kinu. And Shingo’s daughter Fusako has recently returned to her parent’s home with her two young children after her husband has deserted them. Despite their being adults now, Shingo feels responsible for the failure of his children’s marriage.

In a restrained bickering between father and son, Shingo is put on the spot:

I’ve been thinking a little,” muttered Shuichi. “About Father’s life.”
“About my life?”
“Oh, nothing very definite. But if I had to summarize my speculations, I suppose they would go something like this: has Father been a success or a failure?

…..

But whether or not a parent is a success would seem to have something to do with whether or not his children’s marriages are successful. There I haven’t done too well.

As I was reading this book, I thought of Ozu’s films. Like Ozu, Kawabata is bold to expose the breakdown of the traditional family and the threat to paternal authority in post WWII Japan. He depicts the shift from a parent-child emphasis to one between husband and wife. He is honest in revealing the common cracks of unfaithfulness which can destroy marriages. In the book, he openly describes the strain and alienation between generations and within a marriage.

Besides relationships, Shingo has to battle with something more inherent and spiritual. His son Shuichi neglects his wife Kikuko and often goes to his mistress, Kinu, who later becomes pregnant. Shingo not only takes upon himself to deal with Kinu, but is drawn into something even more difficult to confront, for in Shuichi, he sees himself:

Shingo was astonished at his son’s spiritual paralysis and decay, but it seemed to him that he was caught in the same filthy slough. Dark terror swept over him.

Shingo is a man afflicted on severals fronts, guilt, responsibility, spiritual decay. Author Kawabata instills relief for his protagonist as well as his readers by means of Nature.

Shingo is superbly in tune with the natural world, and in turn, nature is a mirror from which he sees himself clearly. The temperamental sky reflects his moods; the typhoon, his inner turmoil; stalks of bamboo broken off by the storm parallel the broken family relationships he lives with; the noise of locust wings spells restlessness; and yet the unseasonable buds on the great gingko tree splashes hope in a troubled time:

The gingko has a sort of strength that the cherry doesn’t,” he said. “I’ve been thinking the ones that live long are different from the others. It must take a great deal of strength for an old tree like that to put out leaves in the fall.

And thus comes the turning point in Shuichi and Kikuko’s marriage, though fragile, still a glimmer of hope, while Fasuko’s marriage comes to an abrupt end like an overnight storm. As for Shingo, we wish him well, like the unseasonable buds on the great gingko tree.

The Sound of the Mountain requires slow reading and quiet contemplation. Like a good film, I know I will go back to it as time goes by.

The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Edward G. Seidensticker, published by Vintage International, NY., 1996, 276 pages.

Note: ‘gingko’ in this book is spelt differently from our common spelling nowadays ‘ginkgo’

Ginkgo Tree photo from Wikimedia Commons

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Other related posts on Japanese Literature and Films:

Reading Snow Country in Snow Country

Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age by Oe

Yasujiro Ozu and the Art of Aloneness

Notes on the Synthesis of Film, Art… Life?

Midnight’s Children Read-A-Long

Midnight’s Children Read-Along has begun. Here are the post to:
Midnight’s Children Read-Along Begins
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, Book One
Midnight’s Children Book Two (Part A: up to ‘Alpha and Omega’)
Midnight’s Children Read-Along Book Two Part B
Midnight’s Children: Book Three

On Dec. 29 of last year, I posted “Year End Tally and 2012 Outlook“, and I thought that would be it. The two challenges I’ve taken up for this year, the Graham Greene and the Ireland Reading, would be sufficient in lieu of any new year’s resolutions. Further, there will always be movie reviews and other choices in reading on the spur of the moment.

Along came the new year and another opportunity. Thanks to Mrs. B of The Literary Stew, who suggested to me a read-a-long of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, I gladly accepted the idea. We’re excited that Bellezza of Dolce Bellezza and Colleen of Books in the City will also be joining us. I know that on Bellezza’s blog, she has a few who have shown interest. You’re invited to hop on as well.

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children won the 1981 Booker Prize. In 1993, it was awarded the Booker of the Bookers trophy, the best novel to have won the Booker Prize for Fiction in the Award’s 25-year history. I admit I haven’t read any Rushdie before, so I just thought this would be a good one to start. Do click on the link above to Booker’s website for the synopsis and bio.

Another major reason for my interest in reading it this year is that its film adaptation is currently in post-production. Acclaimed Canadian director Deepa Mehta (Water, 2005) is at the helm of the production. Rushdie is closely involved in the process with Mehta in condensing his novel into 130 pages of screenplay. Filming has already been completed in Sri Lanka. According to IMDb, it will be released this fall.

My copy is the 25th Anniversary Edition. It has 533 pages. Considering the dense writing and the historical backdrop of the novel, it sounds like a book that calls for reading camaraderie and dialogue. Also, we’ve decided to take it slow. By so doing, we can also pursue other readings or blogging activities while doing this.

So here’s our plan. The novel is divided into 3 sections, with the middle the longest, so we’ll split it in two. We’ll begin reading in March. One month for each part. Review posts are to be posted according to the following schedule:

March 31 — Book One
April 30 — Book Two (Part A ending with ‘Alpha and Omega’)
May 31 — Book Two (Part B starting with ‘The Kolynos Kid’)
June 30 — Book Three

You’re welcome to join us in this slow read. Just indicate in the comment section and leave a link.

And to everyone, Happy Reading in 2012!

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Year End Tally and 2012 Outlook

Lots to say on this post, but I promise you I’ll keep the pace swift. First off, a wrap-up of this my fourth year of blogging. I’m always amused to see what words people use to come to Ripple Effects. So, here are some of them over this past year.

Search Engine Terms

modern day insane asylum
stranger than fiction free will or predestination
Vermeer skulls
how many hunting license were sold before and after the movie Bambi
Toronto International Film Festival social impact
culture and imperialism in Mansfield Park
Shawshank Redemption sewer pipe
Hemingway beaten up by Canadian authors
what value in life if not together
how to get in touch with Diane Keaton

Give you a feel of what Ripple Effects is all about, right? Yes, it’s a mixed bag of ruminations on books and films, where crawling through a sewer pipe could be noted as an existential quest, and always, a lookout for the minutest ripples of current culture… while maintaining humor and sanity doing all that. And, if you know how to get in touch with Diane Keaton, do let me know.

Most Popular Post

Slowly heading towards half a million views, this turtle does not intend to win any races, but is glad just the same to see some posts maintaining their popularity. This is the all time most popular post:

Memorable Movie Love Quotes which I compiled and posted for Valentine’s Day 2008. I sure hope that the 24,000 views in 2011 have contributed to some consolidation (and conciliation?) of relationships.

My Personal Best Picks

There are posts people may like, there are also posts that I favour more. Books into films is Arti’s ‘specialty’, and it’s always fun to link the two, albeit I know they are distinctly different art forms. Some of my favorite posts in 2011 are:

Howards End by E. M. Forster (A book review framed by the movie)
Midnight In Paris – (A bookish imaginary scenario)
Can a Movie Adaptation Ever Be As Good As The Book?
You’ll Never Catch Up
As sequels to last year’s list: More Upcoming Books Into Movies and Upcoming Books Into Movies — List 3

And that leads me to the coming new year. From my upcoming book to movie lists, I look forward to reading the following titles, as they are in development with their film adaptations:

Books to Read in 2012 (before the film comes out)

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
Runaway (short story) by Alice Munro
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Book Challenges in 2012

I’m excited to sign up for two Book Challenges sponsored by CarrieK. at Books And Movies.

2012 Graham Greene Challenge — What better way to delve into books and movies than reading Graham Greene, who had almost all of his works adapted into feature film or TV series. I’ve selected these titles:

The Quiet American
The End of the Affair
Brighton Rock

2012 Ireland Challenge — I’m to pick four titles, including fiction and non-fiction by Irish writers with setting in Ireland. Now this is uncharted water for me. I’ve John Banville and Anne Enright in my TRB pile which I want to get to, and Deirdre Madden’s book suggested by litlove. I’m open to other recommendations.

Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden
The Sea by John Banville
The Gathering or
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

Most Anticipated Books to be Released in 2012

When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son by Anne Lamott

I’ll be reading screenplays too. Selections will likely be driven by spur of the moment, but these I’d like to get hold of:

Screenplays to Read in 2012

The Descendants (see how Alexander Payne adapts from novel)
Midnight In Paris (Woody Allen’s always fun to read)
Young Adult (Screenwriter Diablo Cody’s script after Juno)

Ironically, I find reading and blogging feed my procrastination. Finishing a book or a blog post is usually the best reason to delay, pulling me away from ‘real’ writing… I still have a screenplay half finished. 2012 looks like a good year to get that done.

And then of course…

The Awards Season 2012

Golden Globes – Jan. 15
SAG Awards (Screen Actors Guild) – Jan. 29
BAFTA Awards (British Academy) – Feb. 12
WGA Awards (Writers Guild) – Feb. 19
Independent Spirit Awards – Feb. 25
The 84th Academy Awards – Feb. 26

As we edge towards the end of the year, my thanks to all who have visited, and those who have stirred up ripples by leaving their thoughts. The pond is all yours.

Best Wishes to All for a Wonderful 2012!

Happy New Year!

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Reading The Season: Walking On Water by Madeleine L’Engle

It’s that time of the year when a quiet respite is probably the most precious gift. For the past four years since I started blogging, amidst the cacophony of December festivities, I would pick something to read that anchors me to the spiritual meaning of the occasion. I call these attempts “Reading The Season”. This year, I took down from the shelf a long-time TBR, Walking On Water: Reflection On Faith And Art by Madeleine L’Engle.

After reading it, I went straight to her Newbery Award novel A Wrinkle In Time (another long time TBR for me). Amazed at its wisdom and depth, once I finished it I went back to reread Walking On Water, appreciated all the more L’Engle’s intricate weaving of intellect and spiritual insights.

At the very beginning of the book, these words jumped right out at me:

I sit on my favourite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busyness, time to be. I’ve long since stopped feeling guilty about taking being time; it’s something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don’t take enough of it.

And just a few pages after that, I found this gem:

Leonard Bernstein tells me … for him music is cosmos in chaos. That has the ring of truth in my ears and sparks my creative imagination. And it is true not only of music; all art is cosmos, cosmos found within chaos.

Bernstein might have echoed a Jungian concept of the power of memory and the subconscious self, but there’s a spiritual reality in the thought.

It all began with the calling forth of light from darkness, splendor from void, life from nothingness, the Creation. Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life comes to mind… the cosmic light and galaxy clouds, the molten lava that spews out of the earth, the roaring breakers of the ocean deep, and my heart resounds: ‘day to day pours forth speech, night to night declares knowledge.’

But what’s most awesome is not just the forming of the cosmos, but the Creator incarnated, the infinite confined, the invincible made vulnerable in order to live the hurts, to share the pains. L’Engle writes:

To be alive is to be vulnerable. To be born is to start the journey towards death… We might paraphrase Descartes to read, ‘I hurt; therefore I am.’

The Creator demonstrated that behind the majesty, there’s the power of love, that driving force behind the willingness to stoop, to be made vulnerable, to be stripped naked, be born a babe. Utterly unfathomable. At one point in human history, Cosmos entered and lived among Chaos.

And artists, those who write, who paint, who sing, who dance, who act… they are birth-givers. “An act of art is an incarnational activity,” L’Engle writes. Artists partake in the continuation of creation, bringing wholeness to a fragmented world, hope in the slough of despair.

As well, true artists live the vulnerability as the One who first took that cosmic plunge, taking the risk of birth because of love.

Here, take a 3:44 minute respite to enjoy some Seasonal reflections. Click on the video to listen to the music as you read Madeleine L’Engle’s poem:

The Risk of Birth

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a nova lighting the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by greed & pride the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

Madeleine L’Engle

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Walking On Water: Reflections On Faith And Art by Madeleine L’Engle, Commemorative Edition, published by Shaw, 1998, 227 pages.

CLICK HERE to Reading the Season 2012: Surprised by Joy

‘Reading The Season’ posts in previous years:

Reading The Season: C. S. Lewis

Reading The Season: Fleming Rutledge

Reading The Season: Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season

Reading The Season: Luci Shaw

All The Year’s Best

All the year’s best are coming out now: Best books, best movies, best… whatever. And I admit, I’m one who’s always on the look-out for such lists. Hundreds of books and movies in a year reduced to a list of 10, definitely makes one convenient Christmas shopping list.

Here are some of the best book lists:

Publishers Weekly Top 10 Books of 2011

NPR 10 Best Novels of 2011

New York Times 10 Best Books of 2011

Best Fiction 2011 from “The World’s Toughest Book Critics”

The Globe 100 Best Books of 2011 shopping list

Books of the Year 2011 The Telegraph

A list of indispensable books from Harvard Gazette, not your usual best-sellers

And here’s a one-stop shopping lists for The Top 10 Everything of 2011 from TIME Magazine.

Movies? Year’s best lists are everywhere. Of course, all lead to the ultimate finale of the Award Season: The Oscars. But for Christmas shopping suggestions, here are several lists, albeit some of the current releases may not have come out in DVD or Blu-ray yet:

American Film Institute’s Best Films 2011

Critics Awards for 2011 Best Films

Roger Ebert’s Best Films of 2011

NYT Stephen Holden Best Films 2011

NYT A. O. Scott’s & Manohla Dargis’s lists

Metacritic’s Best Films 2011

Toronto Film Critics’ Picks

Time-Out London

And more lists are coming out even as I type.

But of course, the most important to readers/movie viewers is whether they agree or not, whether what the critics say happen to be their own favorites. If not, there’s really not much relevance to all these lists, is there? No? I’d like to hear from you… Do you read movie reviews first before heading out to the theatre? Do you depend more on film critics or ‘user-reviewers’? Herein lies another subtle (or not so subtle) battle between the critics vs. the reader/movie watcher, and… alright, the blogger.

So, from one POV, here’s Arti’s year-end tally. Yes, I happen to have written down, if I remembered to do so, all the movie titles I’ve watched this year. There are about 90 that I’ve got down, not including those I previewed for a film festival.

If I’m to choose the best film of this year from all that I’ve watched, I’ll have to say The Tree Of Life by Terrence Malick. It’s a film by far the most unique, cinematically gratifying, cerebral, transcendent, and a showcase of excellent talents. I hope the young actor Hunter McCracken can get some recognition for his sensitive and intelligent performance.

Other titles I should mention for my list of best 2011 films include The Artist, Midnight In Paris, Drive, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, My Week With Marilyn, and The Descendants. I’m still waiting for the screening in our city of some titles which I highly anticipate, including A Dangerous Method, Carnage, Take Shelter, Tomboy, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

And for older films I’ve seen this year, some I rewatched, others are my catch-up on acclaimed titles I’ve missed in the past. I’ve a few favorites (in no particular order):

Animal Kingdom, My Life As A Dog, Truly, Madly, Deeply, Autumn Sonata, Play It Again Sam, Interiors, Marvin’s Room, Shine, Badlands, Days of Heaven, Fargo, The Makioka Sisters, Radio Days, Anne Hall, Manhattan, Match Point, Pickpocket, Howards End, The Third Man.

As a slow reader, much slower than my movie-watching speed, the ratio of film to book for me this year is about 2:1. My picks for my favorite reads this year (not all published in 2011), and in no particular order:

Then Again by Diane Keaton, The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes, Blue Nights by Joan Didion, Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann, The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, True Grit by Charles Portis, Howards End by E. M. Forster, The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos.

What about you? What are your year’s best in books and movies?

Upcoming Books Into Movies — List 3

For an update of this post, CLICK HERE to Great Film Expectations.

What makes a book movie material? I’m not thinking of the plot-driven page turners. I mean literary fiction, albeit the term is open to debate. Anyway, what baffles me is, how do filmmakers determine whether a book is good for a movie adaptation? Just let me give a few examples.

The English Patient. Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize winning novel that reads like poetry and leaves me swirling in nostalgic daze. When Anthony Minghella finished reading it in one sitting late one night, he knew right away that he must make the movie. Well, he did and won 9 Oscars for his film. But for another equally poetic work that I’ve enjoyed, Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, its movie adaptation just didn’t work that well for me.

I can name many others. Muriel Barbery’s philosophical novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog stirred up deep resonance in me, but its movie adaptation Le Hérisson failed to produce such impact. Booker Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day delves into the internal worlds of the two main characters, and is turned into film effectively, thanks to the fine performance of the actors, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Ishiguro’s more recent work, Never Let Me Go is both cerebral and emotionally charged, it too enjoys a good film transposition.

Or, how about short stories like Alice Munro‘s “The Bear Came Over The Mountain”, about an elderly couple dealing with the wife’s Alzheimer’s. When 28 year-old Sarah Polley finished reading the short story on the plane, she decided she would adapt it into film and who she would get to play the main character. The result is Polley’s directorial debut, the Oscar nominated film Away From Her, with Julie Christie getting a nom for Best Actress and Sarah Polley for Best Adapted Screenplay.

I’ve learned to appreciate books and movies as two distinct art forms. While I used to delve into the ‘loyalty’ issue, how close the film is to its source material, now I’m more accepting to new interpretations and diverse visual representations as long as the work holds up to its artistic values. But one thing still baffles me: How does a filmmaker decide whether a book is movie material?

The following are my recent findings on some literary works that are or will be adapted into films (ie, movie rights sold). On the top of the list, generating a lot of buzz these days is Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot. Now, it’s on my TBR list, as I’m still no. 213 in the hold lineup at my local library. But for those of you who have read the book, what do you say? Do you think the book makes good movie material? And the most intriguing for me, as always, how do you transpose philosophical ruminations into a visual medium? How do you dramatize intellectual angst?

Here’s Ripple Effects generated Upcoming Books Into Movies — List 3. If you’ve missed List 1 and List 2, just click on the links. Some of the works mentioned on those previous lists have already been shown on screen. Arti will continue to furnish you with updated info on future books into films. And all ye book group members, here are your 2012 suggestions:

Upcoming Books Into Movies — List 3

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (2015, Scott Rudin producer, who will also bring you Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections in 2013. Impressive record as a producer of modern literary works into films: Revolutionary Road, Doubt, No Country for Old Men, True Grit… and soon Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud (Keira Knightly, Richard Gere, Eric Bana, Emma Thompson, Rachel McAdams will be directed by Scott Cooper, who did Crazy Heart, 2009)

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (From producer Ileen Maisel who’s bringing you a new Romeo & Juliet in 2012. I’m curious to see how they approach this adaptation, a sequel to Midnight In Paris?)

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (TV movie. The Pulitzer Prize winning novelist cited the HBO series The Sopranos as her inspiration.)

The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink (2013, Schlink has a previous work The Reader adapted into film.)

Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson (Ridley Scott has got the film rights, and it’s going to be “a blend of the popular and the literary.” What’s popular may well be the subject matter these days, memory and the loss of it.)

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (2012, A Musical in “good old-fashioned 2D”, directed by Tom Hooper of The King’s Speech. Anne Hathaway, Huge Jackman, Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter, Geoffrey Rush. Sorry, no Colin Firth singing here.)

Runaway by Alice Munro (short story, screenplay by Jane Campion. Like I said earlier in this post, a short story can be turned into a deep feature film. I await this one from Campion, who won a screenwriting Oscar as well as the Palme d’Or for her 1994 film The Piano. Her more recent Bright Star on the poet John Keats reaffirms her literary style in the visual medium.)

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Then Again by Diane Keaton

It’s interesting to read Diane Keaton’s memoir after Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. In contrast to Tony’s hazy past in Barnes’s novel, here we have memories strung together with clarity and adequate documentation. Take a look at these insert photos. I admit, they were the very reasons the second I opened the library copy that I decided I must get my own to keep.

These are journals belonging to Diane’s mother Dorothy Keaton. She first started with a series of letters she wrote from her California home to her eldest daughter Diane, who had moved to NYC at age 19. Letter writing developed into full volumes of family journals and scrapbooks. Further, she had kept detailed documentation of Diane’s career from 1969 to 1984. With the onset of Alzheimer’s, Dorothy still kept close contact with her daughter through letters and phone calls, leaving phone messages which showed the signs of a mind quickly sliding down the slope.

Diane has poignantly interwoven her own thoughts and memories with her mother Dorothy’s, a daughter’s attempt to capture life that was THEN in order to relive the moments AGAIN. Diane’s father Jack Hall died of cancer in 1990, only a few months after the diagnosis. Dorothy died of Alzheimer’s in 2008. This memoir is a joint endeavor of a daughter with her mother who has passed on, yet whose presence is strongly felt:

Now I’m alone, juggling with a memoir that’s also your memoir.

Diane Hall grew up in California and had enjoyed a vibrant suburban family life before she moved to NYC to study at The Neighborhood Playhouse. She kept close contact with her family through letters. I admire her courage to reveal these correspondences, for through them, we see the private side of Diane Keaton, a persona with all the insecurities and non-glamorous aspects of a real life human being. After the Neighborhood Playhouse, she decided to change her name from Hall to Keaton. She got her first break in the musical Hair. This is her letter home:

Hi, Everyone,

Well, I’m in a hit, we opened the 29th… A real job, and on Broadway. Big stars have come to see it, like Warren Beatty (remember my crush on him from Splendore in the Grass) and Julie Christie, who is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and Liza Minnelli… Apparently Hair is the in thing to see. People stand in lines every day to get tickets.

Things are pretty much the same. I’m certainly the same. Will I ever change? I’m still the dumbest person alive. One apparently does not grow out of stupidity. Oh, also I’m on a diet…

And on that note, Diane goes on to reveal her past battle with bulimia in the next chapter, a piece of private history that has been kept secret until now.

From Hair, to Play It Again, Sam, and later from stage to screen. Thanks to Woody Allen, we have many fabulous movies but the most memorable probably is Annie Hall (1977), which brought Diane Keaton the Best Actress Oscar, and Woody Allen the Best Director and Best Writing Oscars. It also won Best Picture. Here’s Diane’s memory of the production:

Woody’s direction was the same. Loosen up the dialogue. Forget the marks. Move around like a real person. Don’t make too much of the words, and wear what you want to wear. Wear what you want to wear? That was a first. So I did what Woody said: I wore what I wanted to wear…

And her choice of ‘costume’ became a classic:

And yes, there was a real life Grammy Hall. She was Jack Hall’s mother Mary Hall. She could have given Woody the idea of the movie character, for she was just as nasty. Regarding Diane winning the Oscar, this is Grammy Hall’s response when interviewed in the local paper:

People say I’m in the clouds, I ain’t in no clouds. I’ll tell you one thing about the Academy Awards. It’s something big for a small family. That Woody Allen must be awfully broadminded to think of all that crap he thinks of

As for Woody Allen, he didn’t even attend the Awards ceremony nor did he talk about it afterwards.

Diane is also candid about her ‘romantic failures’, beginning with Woody Allen, then Warren Beatty whom she co-starred in Reds, and Al Pacino as they worked together on Godfather II & III.

At age 50, Diane stepped out to make a most courageous move: she adopted a newborn baby girl, Dexter, and five years later a baby boy, Duke. Her role as a single mother bringing up a daughter and a son is probably the most gratifying.

In between some serious skirmishes–like when he refuses to have his diaper changed, or when he starts crying because he’s been put down or Dexter has stolen his waffle, or when he bangs his head on the sidewalk… –in between these scuffles, there are moments that feel like an eternity of bliss.

The final pages of the memoir are the most moving for me. Diane Keaton as daughter who ultimately had to say farewell to both parents, writing at 63 and as mother to a 14 and 9 year-old, she could hear as if Dorothy is telling her: “Dear Diane, my firstborn, take a deep breath, be brave, and let go…”

Here’s her reply:

I’m trying, Mom, but it goes against every instinct I possess. I promise you one thing though. I promise to unleash Duke and Dexter from the stranglehold of my need before it’s too late. I promise to give them their freedom no matter how much I want them to hang on. I promise to let go of you too, the you I created for the benefit of me…

Through her memoir, moments Then are relived Again. It is also a catch and release, the challenging process of gathering and letting go.

~ ~ ~ ~ Ripples

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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

When we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.

How reliable is our memory? How accurate are our thoughts, analysis of situations, perception of people? Yet we live by them and interpret our experiences through their lenses.

The winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending plays with these subjective faculties and crafts a scenario that’s captivating and with a touch of surprise at the end. A man in his 60’s looks back at his life, focusing on what he can remember about his relationships and their aftermath.

In the first part of the book, we see three school buddies in the upper form, the narrator Tony Webster with his classmates Alex and Colin, happy to befriend a newcomer, Adrian Finn. Obviously superior in brain, insight, and self-composure, Adrian soon becomes the model they look up to. Apart from the pretentiousness of youth in intellectual matters, Tony has to concede that Adrian is indeed superior material. When asked by the teacher “What is history?”, while Tony gives the relatively pat answer “History is the lies of the victors”, Adrian articulates this thought:

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

With these words at the beginning pages of the book, Barnes has quietly laid the enquiry of his story.

Post-secondary life leads them to different paths. Adrian, not surprisingly, gets into Cambridge on scholarship, while Tony goes to Bristol to read history. There, he starts to go out with Veronica Ford. One weekend, Veronica brings him home to meet her family. In Tony’s memory, that is a humiliating episode. He leaves with bewilderment: Veronica’s aloofness, her father’s joking insults, her mother’s mysterious gesture, and her brother’s silent wink.

After that, Tony introduces Veronica to his friends. Naturally, she strikes up a good rapport with Adrian right away, with a common tie of Cambridge where her brother also attends. Later, Tony and Veronica break up. Adrian soon starts to date Veronica. As usual, Tony seems resigned to his circumstances and moves on with his own life, and assumedly, others too with theirs… until later he hears the shocking news about Adrian. Time flows by, Tony marries a less mysterious Margaret, has a daughter Susie, and years later, his marriage ends in divorce.

Tony is now retired in his 60’s, expecting a life that’s bland and uneventful. Retired life for him is a natural drift of time, flat and oblivious. But he’s roused by an unexpected letter from a solicitor one day, naming him to receive £500, a bequest in the will of someone he has only met once forty years ago, Veronica’s mother. What’s more intriguing is together with this money, he is to be left with Adrian’s diary.

Life to Tony now is a quest for finding out what had actually happened to these people. His investigation has cast fearful doubts on his own memory and sense of personal history. In his retirement, Tony is awakened to re-interpret his past.

… the history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest, and yet it’s the most deliquescent.

It will take his whole remaining life to solve the mystery of how real his perceptions are, and what has taken place in the lives of those he once knew as close friends. Such queries only lead to a more taxing question: “Does he play a role in other people’s fate?”

In just 150 pages, Barnes has opened a floodgate of inquiries into our subjective mind, carrying us through with a tantalizing story, towards an ending that, I feel, is a tad bit sensational, however reserved the tone. Nonetheless, I come out of the reading experience marvelling at the power of the economy of words in the hands of a master storyteller.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes, published by Random House Canada, 2011, 150 pages.

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Book Trailers: Ads, Lure, and Paradox

Watched any good book trailers lately? No, not movies, books. Book trailers… they’ve been around since 2003. You might be aware that more and more publishers and authors are embracing this marketing tool in recent years.

If you type in the term ‘book trailers’ on YouTube, you can find many of them cater to the mash and morph generation. Quirk Books, publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has produced some popular trailers of their modern takes on classic works. Amazon named their “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” book trailer as the best book trailer of 2009.

Now, I don’t want to digress and start talking about the morphing of the classics with contemporary culture, or things like getting the news from The Colbert Report, I’ll leave those to another post. But since book trailers have piqued my interest lately, let me show you their more recent release: The Meowmorphosis, a contemporary twist on Kafka’s classic. Here’s the book trailer (If you can’t view the videos on this post, click on the link to watch them on YouTube. And, do come back):

But of course, book trailers are for all. When you spread your net, you want to catch as wide a multitude as possible, don’t you? Look at this one promoting an upcoming book by the popular crime fiction writer Michael Connelly:

You probably think you’re watching a movie trailer. And that’s what I speculate, book trailers just might well be prompts for potential movie adaptations. Film option, anyone? And for Connelly, he already has two of his books turned into popular movies: ‘Blood Work’ (2002, Clint Eastwood), and ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ (2011, Matthew McConaughey)

But really, book trailers are an attractive bunch, most of them. They appeal to the digitally savvy and visually driven. While some readers may not appreciate the visualization of the literary, leaving little room for imagination, others welcome these dramatizations and animations. Their stunning effects can be just mesmerizing. Look at this trailer with over 1 million views, Going West by New Zealand novelist Maurice Gee:

What a marvel of video production, don’t you agree? Now, here’s a more important question: Will you go and buy this book to read after watching the trailer, or, are you more likely to just add another view count to the video and a click on ‘like’?

This last trailer just about sums up the apparent paradox: It takes the visual to sell the word. I’d held Lane Smith’s appealing hardcover children’s book It’s A Book in my hands in a bookstore, marvelled at its conception. Look at this adorable trailer:

In this eWorld of ours, we need a real hardcover book to explain to children what a book is… or used to be, if you take the apocalyptic view. We’re told a book isn’t something you scroll, tweet, or text, and no need to charge up. But the fact is, those are the very functions you do to view and share the trailer.

And it’s a book trailer, with all its visual images and special effects, uploaded and viewed online and hopefully gone viral, that helps boost book sales. Another mash? Or simply an inevitable paradox nowadays?

And, speaking of paradox, can you imagine the eBook version of It’s A Book?

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Blue Nights by Joan Didion

I woke up at 1:30 am last night and couldn’t get back to sleep. Casually grabbed Joan Didion’s new book Blue Nights I got from the library and started reading, thinking I could read myself back to sleep. But I was kept awake the next few hours until I finished it. I simply could not put it down.

Blue nights are the span of time following the summer solstice when the twilights turn long and blue… and over the course of an hour or so, this blue deepens, becomes more intense even as if darkens and fades… Blue nights are the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but they are also its warning.

A poignant ‘sequel’ to The Year of Magical Thinking, which is about the death of Didion’s husband of 40 years, the writer/screenwriter John Gregory Dunne. That all happened in December 2003. John had a heart attack right in the living room of their home as Joan was preparing dinner in the kitchen. That was also a few days after their daughter Quintana Roo was hospitalized with septic shock and a coma.

Blue Nights is a memoir of Quintana, who died of her illness twenty months after her father’s passing. To say it’s a memoir is sanitizing it. In her sensitive and moving voice, Didion describes a searing separation. She recalls the memorable moments, and the mementos around her NYC apartment that prove so futile in evoking a life, a daughter adopted since birth.

Didion remembers the leis Quintana wore at her wedding in NYC’s St. John the Divine on July 26, 2003. Thus begins the book. The wedding reflected Quintana’s yearning for her childhood in Brentwood Park, California. In the garden were stephanotis, lavender and mint. And it was stephanotis that she wore on her braid as she walked down the aisle.

All the deaths that Didion had encountered among friends and all the ICU visits of others seemed to foreshadow the ultimate fate of her own daughter, dead just 20 months after her wedding.

But nothing can prepare one for the death of one’s child. In fact, Didion painfully states that, time and time again in the book:

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

Deaths of friends since had only reinforced the looming weight of a blue night. In the spring of 2009, upon a short notice, one of those phone calls everyone dreads, Didion went to say farewell to Natasha Richardson in a NYC hospital, transported there from Montreal. It was only a minor fall on a bunny slope of a Quebec ski hill, but she succumbed to a brain injury soon after. Didion had known Natasha since she was a young teenager, daughter to Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson, among Didion’s closest friends.

She is particularly disturbed by those who label her and her family ‘privileged’. As I read the book, I can see why she rejects such a term. Death befalls all, even the ‘privileged’, and spares no one with the subsequent pain. It is the starkest common denominator. And with both her husband and only daughter passing within months of each other… she has a reason to rage. But the pathos lies in the muffled cries she lets out.

And to say one still has memories to cherish is the most ironic euphemism ever to console the grieving:

Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs…

Alas, Blue Nights is exactly that book, an attempt to capture memories before they slip away, and a grief made public so others can share and maybe by so doing, preserve a life.

This is not just a grief observed and incisively expressed, it is also an attempt at keeping the momentum to live. Writing down the pain and loss could well have a certain therapeutic effect as we see the slight humor sprinkled towards the last chapters in an intense and poignant recollection. And yet the end is still the loss, albeit now is shared and hopefully a suffering lightened, however minute the relief.

~ ~ ~ 1/2 Ripples

Blue Nights by Joan Didion, Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 2011, 188 pages.

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Other related posts on Ripple Effects:

Natasha Richardson, Nell & the White Countess
Reading the Season: C. S. Lewis