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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/04/2013 : 19:55:39
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Well, there's nothing that would improve this film so much as a crash course in structure, with a few classes in directing for Jason Reitman thrown in.
The film hardly gets going when some invisible BIG neon signs light up screaming Novel, Novel, Novel. And sure enough, the untidy screenplay is based on a novel.
About which I know nothing, and, now I've seen the film, I don't wanna!
Gosh, Beth, didn't you like anything? Well, yes folks, I did. I absolutely loved the relationship between Kate Winslett and Josh Brolin, both of whom have blossomed into truly fine screen actors. It's a shame the script reins them into a platform of predictability. The fact it's almost devoid of humor makes it all the more miraculous that you keep rooting for these two.
So, here's the set-up: she's a single mom in BIG emotional trouble, unable to adjust to her ex-hubby's seemingly happy-family choice, and increasingly channelling her pre-teen son Gatlin Griffith [he of The Changeling] into a quasi-man of the house role.
Into this uneasy stasis appears a desperate man - soft-spoken and tender and a goddamn saint, except he's on the run and regarded as dangerous.
How the three of them explore and recognize and cope with the various imprisonments of their lives and how they figure out what freedom means is the journey of the film.
Fair enough. But because the book's narrative line is so dogged and never as surprising as it thinks it is - Reitman feels duty- bound to introduce bypaths which are left uncharted. He abandons various storylines, and cannot find economical ways to reveal spurs to the main action. So it unfolds like some kind of fairytale.
And that diminishes the story. The ending scenes might as well be a book-reading with pictures. And the resolution should be a romantic tour de force. But it ain't.
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 12/04/2013 : 20:25:00
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| Um, if you "know nothing" about the novel, and "don't wanna," then how can you possibly assert, "because the book's narrative line is so dogged and never as surprising as it thinks it is -- [director Jason] Reitman feels duty-bound to introduce bypaths...abandons various storylines..."? Just curious. Sorry, but it's the kind of question a professional editor might ask. |
Edited by - randall on 12/04/2013 21:07:33 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 12/04/2013 : 21:38:08
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quote:
Originally posted by randall
Um, if you "know nothing" about the novel, and "don't wanna," then how can you possibly assert, "because the book's narrative line is so dogged and never as surprising as it thinks it is -- [director Jason] Reitman feels duty-bound to introduce bypaths...abandons various storylines..."? Just curious. Sorry, but it's the kind of question a professional editor might ask.
Thanks for your question.
I'm extrapolating from the screenplay, credited as being based on the novel - not adapted from it. I don't wanna know more based on Reitman's choices, because even if he's betrayed the credit and rewritten it - which I doubt - the predictability of his narrative sours the thought of any expansion. Well, it does for me.
Like many film assessors I'm rarely convinced by a cinematic process of squeezing the possibilities of prose into a couple of hours of screen-time. Sometimes authors "get it" - though most relinquish that transformation process to more experienced script writers. I had the great privilege once of script editing DM Thomas' The White Hotel for BBC TV. It took him about a month of steady re-writing, but in the end he gave me a big thank you hug and said, I get it, I get it. And he did.
Sadly Reitman didn't. Some of his scene choices regarding framing and editing speed are fine. He almost succeeds with his flash forwards - though not nearly so masterfully as Arthur Penn in Bonnie & Clyde, or Godard in several of his early 1960s films. What bothers me most is Reitman's lack of focus in telling the whole tale. A tale which has come from a novel.
Given the way the film skitters and scatters toward its telescoped ending, I feel I've almost read it anyway.
But then, I'm assessing films here, not books. 
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 12/04/2013 : 21:56:05
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How is "based on" different from "adapted from"? How can you "extrapolate" a book from its screenplay? Cinema has gotten its best ideas from books for at least 125 years.
Most of your words in the sentence past "Reitman's choices..." made no sense to me at all. "Squeezing the possibilities of prose," "his [the director's] choices regarding framing and editing speed..." do you REALLY believe actors control this "process"? I still have NO IDEA what you're trying to tell me!
Read CLOUD ATLAS -- not that you will, even though it was written by a Brit -- for a book whose film adaptation tore it apart. YET IT PRESERVED THE HEART OF THE NOVEL. Good luck with LABOR DAY. |
Edited by - randall on 12/04/2013 22:09:01 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 12/05/2013 : 00:03:02
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quote:
Originally posted by randall
do you REALLY believe actors control this "process"?
I have no idea what you mean by that - my post says nothing about what actors control in this film. The process I mentioned is that of the writer. I'm certainly not alone in my conviction.
Your cogent assertion about books long forming the basis of cinema merely proves my point. The least successful of these result from screenplays which are not adept at structuring cinema from literature.
So sorry I wasn't able to express that clearly enough for you. I'm not clear whether you have or haven't seen the film so we might have an informed conversation.
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Labor Day
