Better In Your Head?--RABBIT, RUN

 

Spoiler Alert: he's bad, but he'll die. So I like it.

THE BOOK-Written by John Updike, released 1960

THE MOVIE-Directed by Jack Smight, written by Howard B. Kreitsek, released 1970

THE STORY-They call Harry Angstrom "Rabbit." Hates to think, loves to fuck. Any more questions? A pitchman unable to sell himself on the merits of domestic stability. Hey, come back!

MIND THE GAP-Unsurprisingly, the man considered the greatest novelist of his generation couldn't write a decent sex scene. 

Updike's second novel (and first of four in the so-called "Rabbit series") is loaded with short, supple sentences and infuriating ambiguity. The literary equivalent of a well-done steak. Or, if you aren't hungry, of gold-plated jewelry. 

James Caan as the self-centered sleaze Rabbit is...monumentally meh. Generally an actor of considerable charm, here he gamely recites dialogue and, ah yes, runs. Carrie Snodgress as the wife can't provide even a sliver of a personality, and Anjanette Comer as the mistress probably forgot she was in the movie while acting in the movie. 

Couldn't even get the soundtrack right! The tale of an immature young has-been cries out for minor chords. Instead audiences get pop songs. Lousy ones at that.

Everybody's got a hungry heart. But not everybody eats themselves sick. And not everybody's gonna cotton to Rabbit, Run. A riposte to Jack Kerouac's On The Road, it's an effective expose of the weak and wicked, a shattering glimpse at the havoc wreaked by the would-be heroically selfish. Reveal as it does the shortcomings of the Beat ethos, Rabbit nevertheless shares a proclivity for reductive portrayals of women. (Either receptacles to be filled or responsibilities to be avoided. Occasionally, both.)

Unsurprisingly, the Great American Novel concerns an adulation-starved coward whose motivations lead him to, among other unfortunate decisions, abandon two women pregnant with his child.

Look, the middle-class white guy's identity crisis can be told well or not, and I'm not so arrogant to say it shouldn't be told at all. The effects of cultural re-evaluation on the individual intrigues me. The multifaceted repercussions of steadfast belief fascinate me. Tell on, storyteller, tell on.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Rabbit, Run left me feeling like the protagonist: unsatisfied. The novel is the preferable experience, given Updike's indisputable skills as a prose stylist elevates what is essentially a soap opera. Pretentious as twice-toasted focaccia, mind, but memorable so far as ankle socks go. 

Also, I'll never forgive the movie for foisting the sight of Jack Albertson sans facial hair upon mine eyes.

Better In Your Head?--REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

 

Spoiler Alert: better to sell drugs than take drugs. But sell them quickly.

THE BOOK-Written by Hubert Selby, Jr., released 1978

THE MOVIE-Directed by Darren Aronofsky, written by Aronofsky & Selby, Jr., released 2000

THE STORY-A tragedy in four parts. Mother, son, lover, best friend. Dream-chasers. Drug-takers. Only the dead are beyond temptation, baby.

MIND THE GAP-Heroin, pills, Haman's pockets...timeless stimulants prone to misuse. Sara Goldfarb and her son Harry are addicts. So are his friends Marion Silver and Tyrone C. Love. They drug and dream and strive and fail. Degradation, incarceration, amputation, neural annihilation, the gang's all here. Harry, Marion and Tyrone I don't feel too bad for. They're young, dumb and full of comeback. Sara, though....she's an aging widow willing to demean herself for Channel Zero heroics. She'd hate my pity, and yet it's all I can offer. 

"Drugs are bad" is one message. "Dreams are bad" is another. The foulest deceit perpetrated by man unto man is the belief that financial wealth is synonymous with happiness.

The least rewatchable good movie ever? So bleak, it's just one hit away.

Hubert Selby's "as it comes, so it goes" writing style ain't for everybody. (Most bodies, honestly.) Skinless expression, thoughts and actions barely distinguishable, lumps of language ideal for unraveling coarse threads and fashioning a sneaky snare. I love the guy, but then again I love eating mayonnaise straight from the jar.

The pinnacle for every major actor in the credits. Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, never better. Julia Roberts beat out Ellen Burstyn for the Oscar? Complete shit out a bull's ass. Sara Goldfarb is fictional, and indelible. Erin Brockovich is real, and who cares.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-For his second film, Darren Aronofsky chose to adapt a near-impenetrable novel. With a rookie's lack of restraint, he extracted the essence of Selby's work--miserable, yet musical--and produced a frantic squirmfest that solidified his reputation as a brash, brainy filmmaker. But is it better than the book?

Yes, she said. Eventually, haltingly. Both the editing and the soundtrack have aged beautifully. But those are advantages every movie has by virtue of being a movie. Like Selby, Aronofsky recognized the heart-crushing banality of self-destruction. His visual distillation of Requiem For A Dream is so good, I'm angry at myself for watching.

Better In Your Head?--A SUMMER PLACE

 

Spoiler Alert: people who live in glass houses should consider relocation.

THE BOOK-Written by Sloan Wilson, released 1958

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Delmer Daves, released 1959

THE STORY-Summer love on an island resort. The fortunes change, but the feelings do not. 

MIND THE GAP-Sloan Wilson saw the Fifties out with a pair of bestsellers: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Summer Place. Both received the big-screen treatment.* And who remembers any of it? The lasting legacy of ASP is one of those songs people recognize but can't name and a campy GIF relevant one month out of the year. 

Step-siblings falling in love isn't somehow less creepy if they first met as teenagers. 

Percy Faith's version of "Theme From 'A Summer Place'" topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks in 1960. This tidbit bisects my mind thus: 

                          Fine song, thin blue and thick green handsomely strung along the earth's curves.

/

                                      The Beatles couldn't crash these shores fast enough.

Squares caught up in the circle import unintended wisdom. Keeping up appearances means keeping down morale. The spouses of Ken and Sylvia are representatives of the hardcore repression scene, misery merchants struggling to reconcile fate's fickle fists, kept alive by a durable shame and an adamantine confidence in the rightness of their opinions. Rebellion is parallel to Hell, per these scornful, sanctimonious hypocrites, and they've the gall to play appalled whenever someone torpedoes their meticulously constructed futures. Ken and Sylvia, and by extension their children, represent the new wave, progress in hot pants, proponents of love over logic. 

It's all really very admirable, but I didn't walk away convinced by these forbidden love connections. I didn't really sense the, um, love. Sloan Wilson sold me on the abstract, but the concrete needed a lot more time to harden.

The movie sold me Snakes In A Can. Richard Egan's perma-grimace is intended to convey Ken's internal turmoil, I guess? Arthur Kennedy fumbles the dream role of cynical drunken dandy despite a big speech about how all the men in his family are cursed from crib to casket. The wives, played by Dorothy McGuire and Constance Ford, are ready for someone else's close-up. The young lovers are a mess. Sandra Dee puts the "act" in "actually unwatchable", while Troy Donahue is just a drab pork chop of a man. Oh, I know, the kids back then all swooned at the sight of their idols locking lips, but I rolled my eyes so many times they eventually changed color.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The filmmakers hit all the obvious attractions, but passed up a wealth of worthy stops: boat mishaps, tormented school chums, deadly falls, frenzied canines, timely motorists, teenage poetry, fights in the snow with wrench-wielding husbands. Wilson's sordid saga deserved better than a one-note melodrama punctuated by performances perfect for an educational short film on the evils of shoplifting.

*The film rights for A Summer Place went for $500K--that's $4.9 million in 2022 money.

Better In Your Head?--SOPHIE'S CHOICE

 

Spoiler Alert: evil cannot be understood. It can only be withstood.

THE BOOK-Written by William Styron, released 1979

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Alan J. Pakula, released 1982

THE STORY-Aspiring novelist flies north for the summer. He nests in Brooklyn. A charismatic scientist and his captivating girlfriend sit on a nearby branch. Instantly, the young writer falls in love. Gratefully, he listens. Regretfully, he learns.

MIND THE GAP-Sophie's Choice is a masterpiece--in theory. William Styron stuffed the follow-up to 1967's controversial The Confessions Of Nat Turner with heady subject matter: fascism, war, prejudice, sex, mental illness, art, addiction, child death. By and large, it is magnificently written. So why'd I struggle finishing it?

The narrator, Stingo, is a clear Styron stand-in and thus, a wizard with words. He's also a supercilious twat, sex-obsessed in the manner unique to those who've not yet had sex. The book left me awed at its protagonist's perceptiveness and imagination...sometimes. Other times, I just closed my eyes and muttered, "Shut up, Stinko."

Styron didn't just use the novel format to memorialize his younger, hornier self. He also, through his characters, posits the Holocaust as a general act of evil, a condemnation of humanity as a whole rather than an example of one religion persecuting another. Per the logic, since Christians also perished, surviving Christians need not feel guilt for atrocities committed in the name of Jewish extermination. Styron received massive backlash for this proto-"All Lives Matter" sentiment. While admirable for its surface intent of accountability shared, it can also be interpreted as an attempt to abdicate certain groups from responsibility, thereby precluding the need for any sort of reckoning. 

I feel dirtier reading explicit sex scenes in serious literature than in any work of so-called "smut." 

Everyone understandably flips their banana boats over Meryl Streep as Sophie (has a woman in pieces ever been more piercingly portrayed?) but don't overlook or underrate Kevin Kline's top-notch rendering of petulant hoaxer Nathan. Peter Nichol appears slightly out of his depth as the transplanted hayseed smitten with a hopelessly corroded woman...and therein sprawls the brilliance of the performance.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Hey, I'm facing a "Sophie's Choice" of my own! Except...nah.

By hewing to the original story, Pakula's film excels. Helpful, also, is a sober comprehension of reach vs. grasp, and a wonderful cast operating at peak authenticity. On the screen, Sophie's Choice is a world that does its citizens justice.

Better In Your Head?--NEIGHBORS

 

Spoiler Alert: LCD + OTT  ÷ BYOB x WTF = SMH.

THE BOOK-Written by Thomas Berger, released 1980

THE MOVIE-Directed by John G. Avildsen, written by Larry Gelbart, released 1981

THE STORY-Round in stature and square in disposition, Earl Klease is a middle-aged, middle-class Everyman. He lives the comfy cul-de-sac life, and besides the odd hallucination, complications are prosaic. Until Harry and Ramona move in next door.

MIND THE GAP-Early 1980s suburban warfare meant questionable fashion and forgivable hair (oh how the decade took a turn!). Take sides! Are you infuriated by the new couple, rude and lewd? Or are you flustered by the staid, repressed normie with a wicked persecution complex? I'm Team Earl. Pompous disapproval of behavior deemed improper is one thing. The desire to live free from presumptuous busybodies is quite another. 

Over twenty-four hours, Dud vs. Stud plays out as an assortment of misdemeanors, with a felony or two for flavor. Earl's descent into madness as he tries to convince his family that the new neighbors are overbearing swine is glorious to behold, and his victory (when his wife and daughter admit, yes, Harry and Ramona are maddening shit-sacks masquerading as charming eccentrics) is a splendidly Pyrrhic one.

Neighbors is a jarring, nervous read. Thomas Berger drops a huge clue early on as to his tale's true texture. Earl is "gifted" with a peculiar optical abnormality, wherein objects distort. This is not a constant, or even frequent, occurrence, and Earl is reconciled to these intermittent aberrations. In fact, he's confident he's never been fooled by one. But is that really the case? (You'll be stunned to learn the movie makes not even a coy reference to said abnormality.) 

The bizarre events take place alongside even more bizarre dialogue, a verbal variety of East Coast puffery the film thankfully discards of. Anyone doubting Berger's work as a satire need only read: "Your principles are quite as good as most, and your methods may be eccentric, but they are always founded in rectitude."

Director of Rocky, producers of Jaws, Jake and Elwood...when a movie of such pedigree fails, its fate was usually sealed from day one of filming. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd switched roles before shooting commenced, much to the chagrin of director Avildsen (a man neither respected). They incurred the wrath of Larry Gelbart for taking his script out on a date to the woodshed. Audiences weren't pleased either, expecting buffoon Belushi/deadpan Dan, and Neighbors moved out of theaters before the last box was unpacked. 

The scenes with Tim Kazurinsky and Tino Insana as the crusty, musty father/son servicemen steal the show. Petty theft, yes, but laughter in this movie is rare as a hundredth birthday. Cathy Moriarty went from Raging Bull to this, holy shit. 

"Holiday In Cambodia" appears on the soundtrack, a concession to Belushi's wishes. "Staying Alive" pops up later, a song later parodied fifteen years later in an episode of The Simpsons titled "Two Bad Neighbors." You say it's a coincidence, but I don't believe you. Fuck it, let's have some wine and Chinese food. Unless you'd rather listen to Bill Conti's score. Children will appreciate it, but adults should keep a cup of ginger tea nearby.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Neighbors the book is fabulously overwritten. Neighbors the movie is tragically overbaked. I wonder if any adaptation could've done justice to the coarse genius of the source material. Without the main character's superbly apeshit inner monologue driving the narrative, an engrossing, profoundly unhinged existentialist journey became just another imbecilic flick.

Better In Your Head?--UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE

 

Spoiler Alert: shit ain't changed. 

THE BOOK-Written by Bel Kaufman, released 1964

THE MOVIE-Directed by Robert Mulligan, written by Tad Mosel, released 1967

THE STORY-Calvin Coolidge High is a typical run-down inner-city school. Sylvia Barrett is a typical idealistic inner-city high school English teacher. Amid a maelstrom of indifference and incompetence, she strives to maintain her dignity.

MIND THE GAP-Bel Kaufman logged twenty years in the New York public school system before the publication of her first novel. Up the Down Staircase became a huge bestseller, adults and adolescents alike fascinated by the chaotic menagerie of defiance, diffidence, cynicism, and--somewhere between the first and final paragraphs--hope.

"Get lost & stay there." After reading UTDS for the first time in middle school, this line left my mouth at least once a day every day for a week. (Or, until my father overheard me saying it to my mother.)

The novel's unconventional format did not impede its success. The first and last chapters are exclusively dialogue; the dozens in between are comprised of office memos, note fragments, lesson plans, essays, letters and, most winningly, student contributions to Ms. Barrett's suggestion box. The book meanders occasionally, and no character besides Sylvia Barrett is afforded the honor of a second dimension, but for the most part, UTDS is a zippy time-capsule read.

And a pioneer of the "idealistic teacher touches hardened young hearts" sub-genre. All the hits are present: brilliant delinquent, bitter black kid, resentful chubby girl, slouching loner hidden dynamo, ditzy romantic and of course, misogynist mook one bad decision away from prison. Kaufman gives the reader just enough of these youths to entice interest, but it's the newest overworked grinder entrusted with the furtherance of their education who looms largest. (As would soon be tradition.)

Sandy Dennis (looking like Hayley Mills in a Kathleen Turner biopic) is super-likeable at best, bemusing at worst as the overwhelmed teacher. Most of the onscreen faculty are pleasant, bar Mr. Barringer, whom Patrick Redford managed to make exponentially more odious, a hyper-affected and hypo-hearted jerk whose kind has sadly never stopped reaping life's great rewards. Re: the students, I wanted to beat every one of them up, so, well done.

Mrs. Bannister...Mr. Gisriel...thank you.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Up the Down Staircase is an important novel. It is not a great novel.

The odd format and limited point-of-view means the school year's most interesting moments (events another writer might fatten and flatter) are reduced to bullet points in pro/con columns. The film, by necessity, must flesh out these moments, must make us believe Mrs. Barrett has made a real difference in the life of at least one of these goof-offs. 

It does. No facile exploitation of the problems facing our nation's youth, this. Credit a sensitive director, a lucid script, an age-appropriate cast, and New York City itself. The bustle of an average school day--a daily stab at gradual betterment in the midst of stifling bureaucracy--gains a desperation absent from Kaufman's text. The film didn't make me laugh as much, but it made me feel a lot more. And that's meaningful.

Better In Your Head?--THE COLLECTOR

 

Spoiler Alert: they both deserved better.

THE BOOK-Written by John Fowles, released 1963

THE MOVIE-Directed by William Wyler, written by Stanley Mann & John Kohn, released 1965

THE STORY-Freddie Clegg is a nice chap. An ordinary fellow with an extraordinary butterfly collection. The single tactile triumph in a life conspicuous for its stymied dreams. A financial windfall only stokes the flames of isolation and obsession as Freddie realizes he cannot burn alone.

MIND THE GAP-Second book in the BIYH series where a kidnapper exploits the pretense of a dog in distress. 

Like most art students, Miranda Grey is seeking truth, hunting beauty and fighting lust. Freddie loves Miranda, so he traps her in his farmhouse cellar and awaits the next logical step: the reciprocation of his feelings. Freddie provides for her, photographs her, but never touches her. He waits also, waits for Miranda to perceive his reality and make it hers. Alas, the lovely lass proves far from a grateful angel possessed of infinite patience. She is distant and unknowable (like a butterfly) and for what? Freddie's such a gentleman, all things considered. Yes, he's imprisoned her and taken questionable pictures of her in provocative poses, but not one finger! Come on, most other men would've given Miranda a pearl bralette less than a week in!

The Collector is not a battle of the sexes. It is class warfare distilled. Clerk vs. student, handicap vs. privilege, working class vs. bourgeoisie. However light Freddie's fantasies, reality is a pregnant elephant: he is simply too awkward, too stiff, to win the affection of a lively, liberated young lady, so...she must relinquish her freedom for his happiness.

Poor Miranda. Her stated desire as an artist is to sidestep "clumsy masculine analysis," and this is her fate.

My intense interest in true crime is rooted less in the belief "bad is more interesting" and rooted more in the belief "forewarned is forearmed." Miranda Grey and I are different in many ways (birthplace, socioeconomic status, appearance, demeanor) and yet I could meet her end. It is a risk run by any woman leaving the house, living her life. She's fictional, sure...but there are countless Mirandas in the world right now. I read her story* as intently as I read the story of Joni Lenz, the story of Cynthia Hinds, the story of Marion Parker. (I judge none of them. Second-guessing is one of cheaper and meaner tendencies.) 

Death is the Dominant Drone. From the moment of initial awareness, our lives are spent trying to drown it out. 

The Collector earned William Wyler the last of his record twelve Oscar nominations for Best Director. Odd how so celebrated a filmmaker is so relatively overlooked. His prominent gift--a keen understanding of what made a story work, a sharp eye that enhanced without intruding, interjecting, or insinuating--is the reason he is so often not mentioned among the greats.

Second book in the BIYH series where someone throws ink.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Wyler's mastery aside, the script is too limp to make a dent. No fault of the writers, who faced an insurmountable hindrance from the get-go. The book's brilliance is in the structure--Clegg's justifications book-end Grey's prison chronicles, captor and captive revealing their commonalities. Neither third-person omniscient POV or alternating first-person POVs could leave such an indelible imprint, and a screenplay's got no chance. Miranda's words, especially, are just gut-grinding. Her worst sin (youthful impetuousness) occasionally grates, but I never thought she deserved one second of her abhorrent condition. The constant frustration, the renewed ambition, the futile attempts to mollify a madman, the gradual estrangement from reality...death might've felt good.

The cellar/cell in the movie is too roomy, damn near cavernous. Gave off a rehearsal vibe. Actors Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar do nothing (no facial expressions, no physical gestures) that even hints at the anguish behind their facades.

What we have here is the difference between a canary and a flamingo.

*And The Collector is her story, fuck Freddie.

Better In Your Head?--DESPERATE CHARACTERS

 

Spoiler Alert: in a world of mortals, all stories possess equal value.

THE BOOK-Written by Paula Fox, released 1970

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Frank D. Gilroy, released 1971

THE STORY-The Brentwoods are a pair of panic attacks surrounded by pompous triggers in a Brooklyn slowly reassembling into acceptability. Smack dab in the center of class catastrophe, they suck the venom out of sporadic happiness under the hum of a great reckoning. 

MIND THE GAP-Desperate Characters went out of print in 1980 and would've missed the '90s altogether if not for the effusive praise of king-pen Jonathan Franzen, himself a maestro of collapsing old buildings. New readers discovered a scintillating wonder of economy, a domestic dissection distinguished by sentences that travel wonderfully within the confines. That Desperate Characters fell out of favor relatively quickly, and that literary hitmakers still struggle acknowledging it as a brilliant "short novel" is down to two factors. 

The first factor is obvious--misogyny--but the second factor might not be so clear. Look at that title. Not a bad title. Certainly not an inaccurate title. Probably a title better-suited as the title of a New York Times review of the book itself, instead properly titled Cat Scratch Fever.

The Brentwoods, along with their circle of fellow trouble-tolerators, operate with an intriguing insolence worthy of any Fitzgerald. Overwhelmed by the world's new energy, envisioning enemies in every strange new indulgence, they are worried their undeserved privilege will soon make them an irresistible target. Otto Brentwood is a lawyer whose descent into sallow fatalism stinks up every page he's on. In the film, Otto is played by the awfully miscast Kenneth Mars, who lessens every scene he's in with repugnant stand-in vibes. Shirley MacLaine portrays (flatly, barely) wife Sophie, recent victim of an untreated cat bite. Y'all want metaphors, Otto calls the cat a "thug"! 

None of these desperate characters are evil. Oh but that they were. I cannot fathom a one of 'em sneezing. Every person in the book is in the throes of a sincere, severe personality disorder. These people don't converse, they just wait for the other person to stop speaking. These people don't love, they just find hatred exhausting.

"Action is the antidote to despair," said Joan Baez. "Shit or stand!" shouted another JB. "Lose your clothes and find a cheesecake! And mind where the crumbs land!"

The Sixties hangs like a smog all over this shit. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-In evaluating Desperate Characters against itself, I must determine which frustration satisfies me the fullest. Because page after page, shot after shot, of marital sniping and vaguely-defined defense mechanisms does nothing more effectively than frustrate. 

Of the Brentwoods...theirs is an exaggerated despair. A paper cut sold as a gut shot. Their appeal for readers is largely internal. Thus, the losses incurred by flinging the story onscreen are many and massive. The claustrophobia, the intensity, the desperation, the raison d'être!--all gone. The result is a stage play masquerading as a feature film. The script's divergences are cowardly and pointless.*

Oh, these pretentious twats, obscenely fortunate folks who writhe in envy regardless. Love to loathe you, babies. Skip movie night and treat yourself to "the pleasures of Paula Fox's prose."**

*Otto blowing a hateful load into a slumbering Sophie becomes one of those "guess it's not actually rape because she gave in at some point" argument scenes; the ending is no longer abrupt violence, but abject sophistry.

**© 1999, Jonathan Franzen

 

Better In Your Head?--THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS

 

Spoiler Alert: it was this or Atonement.

THE BOOK-Written by Ian McEwan, released 1981

THE MOVIE-Directed by Paul Schrader, written by Harold Pinter, released 1990

THE STORY-When Scared meets Bold....Mary and Colin's Venice vacation isn't going great. Instead of rediscovering the spark, the couple become lost in the city's legendarily labyrinthine streets. Fortunes change after they make the acquaintance of another clever, attractive couple and abandon their shared common sense.

MIND THE GAP-The four characters are expertly drawn and resoundingly distasteful. Mary and Colin represent the easy prey who fancies itself elusive. Overly polite and excessively curious...and too self-absorbed to deduce the threat in their midst. 

Naked yoga on a marble floor. It's not just a choice; it's a lifestyle.

If the film pulls off one feat, it is in casting Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren as the vile Robert and Caroline, imbuing the characters with a charm undetected in McEwan's version. Conversely, Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson in the so-called "good" roles of Colin and Mary go over as well as replacing bacon with broccoli in a BLT. 

The movie belongs to Walken. Sounding like an Englishman trying out an Italian accent, his Robert is the Robert I read, aggressive yet amiable in his Armani threads. 

I lowered the book feeling the same as when I lifted it. One couple is basically decent, and drift apart without much challenge. In one final fit of delusion, they abandon the familiar and task aliens with the duty of rejuvenation. One couple is basically indecent, well-seasoned in the abyss, distorted yet functional. The conclusion of their journey did not move me as strongly as I wish it had. Young souls burgled, valuables smashed...it happens daily. Life is squabble. No discipline exists so rigorous that a practicing disciple can completely circumvent a fracas.

You go to Paris to live. You go to Venice to die.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-One of the most puzzling entries on 1001 Books To Read Before You Die is turned into one of the most puzzling selections of the Criterion Collection!

Ian McEwan hadn't yet wrangled his gift, so The Comfort Of Strangers is weighted down by lavish descriptions of unspectacular stuff and superfluous explanations. Also befuddling was the author's habit of recapping conversations that seemed more interesting than those he left in.

So, yeah, I'm no super fan of the book, but for all its pretensions and eccentricities, it's also an intense experience. The film is not. It is anti-intensity, really, in a way that indie films from 1988-1991 specialized in. Add in a different ending, and Schrader's film is just a lion cosplaying as a lamb. Oh, it looks good, of course it looks good, it was shot in fucking Venice. Sumptuous island squalor, reminding us of our ultimate uselessness, pass me another bottle of a dead guy's wine. Big deal.

Better In Your Head?--THE COLOR PURPLE

 

Spoiler Alert: I have tritanopia.

THE BOOK-Written by Alice Walker, released 1982

THE MOVIE-Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Menno Meyjes, released 1985

THE STORY-Celia writes to God. Life in the American South for a young, poor black girl doesn't hold much promise...but things can always change. Maybe God is the one man who won't let her down.

MIND THE GAP-Perhaps no novel utilizes the epistolary technique as well as The Color Purple. Alice Walker collected a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize, and when Hollywood called, she answered in the affirmative--after assuring 50% of the production team would be of African descent. 

Black leaders and creatives protested TCP as racist, misandrist propaganda perpetuating the stereotype of the violent, oversexed Black Man. Rather than a coming-of-age tale, or a celebration of emotional independence, or a lesson in female friendship, detractors saw the tropes present in every great white horror story. I can see how a proud man reading Walker's work might take umbrage.* Seen in artistic context, however, her male characters are not ludicrous, libidinous buffoons who handle problems with a vicious physicality. Her world is not intended as a macrocosm, and should not be dishonored through such a misunderstanding. The Color Purple is a deceptively cerebral approach to numerous touchy subjects. Besides racism, misogyny, domestic violence and rape, Walker explores how men and women have been tricked into mutual distrust. How the weakest soldiers yell the loudest. How shit rolls downhill, and you always see the same types of people in the valley. How the heat of violence runs highest in situations where income is lowest and options are fewest.

Lastly, the men of TCP are layered. Harpo is ill-equipped, rather than ill-willed. Samuel is described as "thoughtful and gentle." Mister, rancid and rotten Mister, received a believable redemption. 

One of the best-acted films of the 1980s. Whoopi Goldberg's superb transition from comedienne to dramatic actress hasn't been equaled in the decades since. Danny Glover accomplishes the minor miracle of humanizing bastard Mister. He wrestles his demons so dexterously, it's hard to imagine an improvement. Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery both earned Oscar nods for portraying Sofia and Shug--my two favorite characters in the book. Mind, Avery's acknowledgment is mysterious. The script stripped Shug of her wild and weary appeal, downgrading a hurricane to a thunderstorm.

The score, courtesy Quincy Jones, is extravagantly laughable. A scene of a father explaining the pros of wife-whuppin' to his son is accompanied by the sort of music I'd expect to hear over footage of a plump child tip-toeing to the fridge after midnight.

The Bible is the most dangerous piece of media ever created.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The difference between a break and a sprain, a spark and a flame. Complexities still scared Spielberg in 1985, and the casual moviegoer hovered around his ear like The Great Gazoo. Sure, he was handcuffed by the era, but eliminating the lesbian subtext that elevated Walker's story and for the film to was, is, and ever shall be lame. The whole thing's just too safe. The novel opens with a young girl telling God she's been raped by her "Pa." The movie opens with two young girls frolicking in a flowery field. Occasional compositional miracle aside, the sentimentality suffocates. There is none of the reflection that set the paper aflame.

*Suppose lotta folks aren't keen on white audiences ogling their pain, be it a multi-million dollar Hollywood production or a ten-minute iPhone video.

Better In Your Head?--MOXIE

 

Spoiler Alert: based on a YA novel.

THE BOOK-Written by Jennifer Mathieu, released 2013

THE MOVIE (stylized as "MOXiE!")-Directed by Amy Poehler, written by Tamara Chestna & Dylan Meyer

THE STORY-Activism is family tradition for Vivian Carter. Sixteen and stymied by mandatory pep rallies, unpunished in-class harassment, and non-stop sexualizing of the female students, Viv takes inspiration from her mother's Riot Grrrl past and creates a zine: Moxie.

MIND THE GAP-The Riot Grrrl subculture sprung up in the Pacific Northwest during the early 1990s. Before social media saturation, before digital playlists, before blogs, DIY print fanzines and personalized mixtapes (as in the actual cassettes) spread the good word. Before long, anyone with an affinity for the punk/alternative scenes knew about Riot Grrrl. The ethos, the sound, the look...the secret was out. Soon enough mainstream music publications like Rolling Stone and Spin picked up on the movement, exposing Riot Grrrl to slings and arrows its participants were scarcely ready for. This isn't to say that well-meaning journalists can't try and do such a rowdy coterie justice...they just probably shouldn't.

Moxie is a Feminism Starter Kit, and doesn't masquerade as anything deeper. Such books should always be written, always be published and always be read, even if the message within is curled at the edges and washed out in the center. Girls and women are beaten down, in ways both subtle and spectacular, and told to bear the bull. Don't raise a fuss, much less a fist. Don't rock the boat or roll your eyes. "Don't" for long enough and she'll realize--such silence is dangerous. 

Viv's cool boyfriend Seth wears a sleeveless Sonic Youth shirt in the book. That he doesn't in the film is just one of several dismaying changes made by the screenwriters. Behold:

--Locale moved from Texas to Oregon

--Zine title inspiration altered

--Impetus for/execution of several rebellious acts by Viv and friends revised

--Student body robbed of viral glory

--Painfully-cliched dinner table rant added

--Addition of scenes at a funeral home that were so bad they made me wanna get married

Okay, some changes worked. Lucy is no longer a bubbly Latina, she's a brash African-Dominican, played by living fireworks factory Alycia Pascual-Peña. She's in a class by herself, unfortunately. Entrusted with the role of Moxie Queen Viv, Hadley Robinson is passable. The rest of the cast floats in the delta between poor and mediocre. 

Viv's mother, played by Amy Poehler, explains to her daughter the flaws of her own high school feminist group: the internecine bickering, the ignorance of intersectionality, calling their meet-ups "powwows." To which Viv says, "Yikes." Really, kid? Fraught friendships, covert racism...and it's the casual use of a colloquial term that provokes the alarmed exclamation? 

Art reflects. Art directs. Art connects. Art, to a degree, protects. Take a breath, resist psychic death. Do not justify your adrenaline to an avowed opponent. A baby rebellion is still a rebellion, baby! 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Girls together outrageously, loud, proud and drawing a crowd, is a hard phenomenon to pin down. (Or up.) The film lacks real menace, and takes the focus off of Viv early on. Posse power is the point, yes, but getting to know Viv Carter made it easy for me to root for her, and thus, root for the Moxie movement. 

Soundtrack is crazy, can't lie. And the ending! "Alala," indeed, girls.

Better In Your Head?--IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

 

Spoiler Alert: it's not all right. I am afraid.

THE BOOK-Written by James Baldwin, released 1974

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Barry Jenkins, released 2018

THE STORY-Young love in early Seventies Harlem. Tish and Fonny are together and forever. Fonny ain't perfect, but he ain't what they say, either. He's a lover, an artisan, a man. Tish, she's everything. Headstrong, heart stronger. They are stars, aching to touch ground. They are blessed. They are doomed.

MIND THE GAP-The fifth of Baldwin's six novels, Beale Street is the only of them narrated in a woman's voice. Certainly there are passages where Baldwin, a gay black man living in self-imposed exile, intrudes. In these moments, Tish sounds overly sophisticated, mature beyond her age and education.* Largely, though, the author crafted an authentic world of contrasting continents separated by sparkling salt water.

"She'd recognize him if he raped her again. But then it would no longer be rape. If you see what I mean." I, uh...I don't.

Wrongful imprisonment, corrupt police, protest and survive--if Beale Street could talk, I bet it would scream.

Fonny's family is composed almost entirely of rude, arrogant women who spit holy water and knock on dogwood. I hated them fiercely, even as my heart broke for them. 

Is birth a fresh start, or a continuation? The lovely truth is: maybe.

Mankind is a born violator. When Fonny's mother surprise-visits the woman who identified her son as a rapist, she does so out of love, out of despair...and out of options. But she is overstepping her boundaries, right? Or is an intention so righteous it excuses bad behavior? (Regina King owns this scene, the solitary instance where the movie exceeds.)

The individual's responsibility to the collective, and vice versa, are potent themes in Baldwin's work. At twenty-four years old, he fled America for Paris, where he wrote his greatest works. As the fight for civil rights raged, Baldwin threw himself into activism, lecturing students, protesting injustices and posing for magazine covers. He stood out as an astute, passionate advocate. And because he was gay, the movement shunned him. Imagine--fighting for justice alongside people you view as family and they ostracize you because of your sexual identity. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-For Barry Jenkins to turn 200 unforgettable pages into two captivating hours, he'd need to check a daunting number of boxes. He'd need to approach the first-ever English-language adaptation of a Baldwin novel with respect, rather than reverence. He'd require a like-minded team. He'd need a wealth of self-belief and a dash of self-doubt, since a false sense of purpose is the little death of all big ideas. 

Although Beale Street the film falls short of Beale Street the book, Jenkins did not fall short in his artistic mission. His Beale Street is an epic expressionist poem. Vibrant passion, leisurely paced. Don't like the changed ending, though. A black-and-white sledgehammer blow replaced with a full-color palpitation. The difference between "really good" and "great," in one decision. 

*These digressions are forgivable, because Baldwin's style--a flaming tongue, a roaring fist--is simply undeniable.

Better In Your Head?--WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

 

Spoiler Alert: none of the memorable quotes are in the book.

THE BOOK-Written by Henry Farrell, released 1960

THE MOVIE-Directed by Robert Aldrich, written by Lukas Heller, released 1962

THE STORY-The Hudson sisters are living and dying in Hollywood. Once-beloved film star Blanche has spent over twenty years as an invalid. Once-adored child star Jane has logged even more time lost in daydream elation. With the nadir near, will vanity claim victory?

MIND THE GAP-The script kept the plot intact (smart) and sensationalized an already-sordid story (smarter). The psychological torture is ramped up to the limits of toleration, essentially exploiting the real-life animosity between leads Bette Davis and Jean Crawford. This uptick in bitchiness benefited the film greatly, and Davis especially. She is the hideously jealous Jane Hudson, a mesmerizing embodiment of trenchant trashiness whose mental faculties are declining commensurate with her social relevancy. Bette's mad-eyed, clown-faced, gin-voiced performance is legendary. Joan is the lesser performer here, and most everywhere honestly, thanks to her innate vanity. When I consider that we could've seen big sister Olivia de Havilland as Blanche instead, I wanna weep into my morning muffin.

Freed from the shackles of subtlety, Victor Buono is a roar as the forever-aspiring musical accompanist hired by Jane in the batty broad's last-ditch attempt at a showbiz comeback. He puts on airs, accents, and at least a pound a day. I don't particularly care what happens to the guy, I just want to watch whatever that may be happen.

The supporting characters are mostly winners, save for sassy Liza Bates, portrayed by Bette Davis's own offspring. Dear reader, the apple catapulted from that particular tree.

Lazy analysts demean WEHTBJ? as camp...melodrama...menopausal madness. (Decades of wheel-spinning, bitch-slapping spoofs haven't helped public perception either.) It is so much more. It is a bleak, bitter horror classic worthy of serious examination. Thwarted ambition, sibling squabbling, parental neglect--all the juicy subjects gatekeepers normally drool on.

The caged bird is pure film flex, out of the Hitchcock Handbook.* Show the audience the bird, establish its relationship to a seemingly sympathetic figure, then end the relationship in one brutal, undeniable stroke. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Henry Farrell and Robert Aldrich toiled in the shadows of masters. Frankenstein this ain't. Rear Window this sure as sugar-free apple tart ain't. Film fans go into the book with certain expectations. Character depth, expanded interior worlds, familiar dialogue. Farrell's work, dry and serviceable as a cheap blanket, adds little. It is, much like its central antagonist, a disturbed piece of justifiably forgotten art. I found it easy to read the novel and not picture Bette and Joan. Which, in this particular case, isn't a point in its favor.

As a film, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? is can't-miss material. Understanding his cats needed additional room to bat about the crazy ball, director Aldrich expanded the dimensions and let the score tally itself.

Moving pictures, winner by TKO.

*Producers wooed Hitch himself, who (perhaps lamentably, perhaps not) was precoccupied with Psycho promotion.

Better In Your Head?--THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

 

Spoiler Alert: the point isn't to do it like the men! The point is to do it better! Kinder! Smarter! Furor!

THE BOOK-Written by Lauren Weisberger, released 2003

THE MOVIE-Directed by David Frankel, written by Alina Brosh McKenna, released 2006

THE STORY-Andrea Sachs wants to write--specifically, eventually, for The New Yorker. She's not interested in fashion, until suddenly she is, hired for a year-long stint as the junior assistant to the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine. For a pittance (and the promise of the professional reference to end all professional references), Andrea endures a tolerance test beyond her frizziest fears.

MIND THE GAP-In the tradition of debut novelists, Lauren Weisberger wrote what she knew, drawing on her experiences as personal assistant to American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the notorious fashion freeze-queen. (Wintour is mentioned in the book, creating a world where she and her fictional doppelgänger co-exist.)

That I so dug this dishy glimpse into a gorgeous hell surprised me. I've an intermediate comprehension of fashion, and a past blemished by humiliating eruptions agitated by "questionable" clothing choices. People have made me over a thousand times in their heads. I enter a room, and laughter rushes to greet me. Every mirror I gaze into becomes a funhouse mirror. Burns my bacon, y'all. The Devil Wears Prada sucked me in though, thanks largely to first-person narration that kept the protag's journey full of intrigue even as her vessel of choice progressively the light and fight out of her spirit.

Andy Sachs isn't exactly role of a lifetime, and Anne Hathaway does the best she can. The superstar, in theory and in reality, is Miranda Priestly, the tyrannical editor played by Meryl Streep. White-haired and hush-voiced (quite a change from the book's barking blonde Brit), Miranda is the czarina of chic. I'd slap her teeth loose for upbraiding me, absolutely, but I'd admire her way with words nonetheless.

The movie accentuates the ensemble and duly re-renders characters. Andy's boyfriend, Alex, is a sweet, supportive sort in the book. The movie renames him Nate, now infamously vilified by the fandom as the real devil for daring to expect some of his lover's attention every once in awhile. Best friend Lily is an alcoholic slot machine in need of the hard talk. She barely registers in the movie, just another of Andy's obnoxious pals.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Smash begat smash. Thirteen million books sold, $320 million in worldwide ticket sales. Here's me in the minority...the book is better. 

All honesty, the film can kiss my ass. Anne Hathaway is "fat" by the standards of that world, fat and naive and heinous. The actress herself is not fat, of course. That's the joke, right. I'm not an idiot. But it reminds me why reading about the fashion industry is less stressful than actually watching it play out. Some pretty clothes on some repulsive so-and-so's. High fashion is low tide, eroding the soul. If you are beautiful, or beautiful-adjacent, the world is your dog. And there are a million Nigels eager to sniff your heels, to act as apologist for trend-chasers of questionable probity, to excuse abuses as good business practice, to dismiss concerns as illegitimate or inappreciative.

Meryl Streep's insistence on humanizing her characters has led to the misinterpretation of Miranda Priestly as a fictional feminist icon. Any woman who actively degrades other women cannot be so upheld, so applauded, so envied. The book understood this, and Laura Weisberger is on record stating that her only issue with the film is the addition of scenes where Matilda shows vulnerability in Andrea's presence. Andrea's moment of truth is majestic on the page: profane, public, Page Six-worthy. In the movie, it's just a silly, splashy scene with all the payoff of an expired lottery ticket. 

I'm not even mad...just disappointed.

Better In Your Head?--KITTEN WITH A WHIP

 

Spoiler Alert: I'm typin' in a rush.

THE BOOK-Written by Wade Miller (pseudoynm of H. Bill Miller and Robert Wade), released 1959

THE MOVIE-Directed by Douglas Heyes, written by Douglas Heyes & Whit Masterson (uncredited), released 1964

THE STORY-With his wife and young daughter out of town for the weekend, David Stratton should be relishing his alone time. Sitting around the house shirtless. Pouring an extra drink after dinner. Poker with pals. Not falling for the sob story of a 17-year-old fugitive.

MIND THE GAP-Femme fatale? How about homme crédule? Book David is a repressed suburbanite, a reggo, no connections or protections, a shlub prone to biting the poison mushroom. The movie changes him from factory worker to aspiring senator, which makes his wimpiness in the face of a blonde bipolar blackmailer even more idiotic. Judy's repeated threats wither under any bulb forty watts and up, so Stratton's lack of wherewithal to call up a powerful pal and arrange for a dirt nap beggars belief. 

Little Miss Misery needs trust and guidance. Who knows how long it's been since an adult showed her sympathy, and perhaps a home invasion is just her quirky way of asking for an open mind, an open heart. Believe me, neither of those is the organ David's extending to Judy. 

There's no lust in the film, though. John Forsythe is far removed from the David of the book, a slick-haired, stone-jawed aspirant who puts the "pro" in "professional." Forsythe is best in show, but he's as exciting to behold as an empty shampoo bottle.

Notably not drabbing up the screen is Ann-Margret as the kitten herself, a sexy li'l sociopath cursed with more cunning than conscience. Coming off consecutive cream puffs (Viva Las Vegas and Bye Bye Birdie), the bang-boom hottie with a boom-bang body decided on a reputation reset. Twenty-three at the time of filming, she scarfs down scenes, vulnerable one minute, vicious the next minute, a deliciously OTT puzzle of a person. Is Judy a master manipulator? A love-starved teen? Beyond redemption, or worth the wait?

(The juxtaposition between the lead actors in terms of ability is not as jarring as I'd suspected. Yes, Forsythe is the consummate player, but Ann-Margret brought her own fireworks and sets them off with feral glee.)

KWAW swings into high when Jody's friends drop by David's pad, a bunch of budding nihilists who'd sooner throw a baby off a bridge than help an old lady with her groceries. Cross-generational confusions and conflicts ensue, and aren't settled until blood is shed south of the border.

One to grow on: since a woman is almost invariably at a disadvantage in a physical confrontation with a man, she cannot be blamed for weaponizing words, twisting situations, and preying on weaknesses in order to stay afloat (much less, get ahead).

Kitten received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in 1994. It's a lesser entry, for two reasons. First, the movie itself was generally well-made*, especially compared with other MST3K selections like The Creeping Terror and Red Zone Cuba. Second, Mike and the Bots are so flustered by David's reticence and Judy's impulsiveness, flinging zingers takes a backseat to remaining sane and seated.

The whip is metaphorical, see.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Book and film should come packaged as "Conservative Propaganda In Fiction, Pt. Whatever." Douglas Heyes crapped out a camp classic. John Waters calls it "a failed art film," and Judy's beatnik philosopher/future cult leader friend would agree. The novel's better for sure, heftier with insights, quicker-paced, and remarkably consistent for a tag team effort. Best, it comes full circle and leaves us with a protagonist that foresees the bounty from a garden of bullshit and refuses to turn on the hose.

*Okay, there is the sped-up fistfight and some line readings you can breakdance on. I said generally.

Better In Your Head?--ROOM

 

Spoiler Alert: don't worry about it.

THE BOOK-Written by Emma Donaghue, released 2010 

THE MOVIE-Directed by Lenny Abrahamson, written by Emma Donaghue, released 2015

THE STORY-For seven years, Ma and Jack have lived in "Room"--a fortified garden shed owned by a vile sociopath known as "Old Nick." Ma keeps herself and her son fit and vigilant, determined to make a home of hell until their escape.

MIND THE GAP-Odious as the 11'x11' life must've been, the transition into the outside world--and all that pesky freedom--brings new difficulties. For young Jack, born two years into his mother's imprisonment, the struggles are especially taxing. He knows only what was in "Room." 

Motherhood. Is any other role so simultaneously sanctified and second-guessed, so placed in Lucite and under a microscope?

The book tells the story through Jack's eyes. Frankly, this irritated me. At the start. And all throughout. It's enough he anthropomorphizes every object, and obsesses over his "Silly Penis." But counting thrusts as his mother is raped...okay, Ma shelters Jack, Jack shelters reader? No, I didn't need all the grisly details, but I would've appreciated not being treated like a pastel egg shell. 

Ma was abducted on her way to the library. If only women would stop walking outside alone! We must do better, sisters.

If the majority of Room covered their captivity and climaxed with their escape, I'd-a bid the book oodles of toodles a hundred pages in, maximum.

Emma Donaghue wrote the screenplay before the novel was published. Confidence!

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The film does the first half best--the sparse narration is still more cutesy than cutting, but letting the visuals tell the majority of the story is a massive improvement. The book handles the second half best--unsurprising, since most novels do nuance better than most movies. The film also drops numerous uncomfortable subjects (stillbirth, adoption, religious faith, breastfeeding--why is this culture so weirded out by breasts not bared for the purpose of sexual titillation?). Usually, such excisions are to the adaptation's lethal detriment. But when we're talking the difference between a freckled banana and runny pudding. And just like that banana remains pleasingly edible, Room the movie features some great performances.

Jacob Trembley is thankfully unpretentious as Jack. Joan Allen is a superb adoring grandmother. Brie Larson, as Ma, absolutely deserved her Oscar. There's no one scene that best exemplifies her brittle scaffolding. Forever, Ma will bear the burden of traumas prevalent yet distinctive. Larson, to her eternal credit, makes the audience respect this pain.

Better In Your Head?--CATCH-22

 

Spoiler Alert: say it till yer tongue falls out.

THE BOOK-Written by Joseph Heller, released 1961

THE MOVIE-Directed by Mike Nichols, written by Buck Henry, released 1970

THE STORY-A beleaguered bombardier, a paragon of paranoia, a notorious poor loser despite a wealth of practice, caught in the no-win situation. That's our hero? Yossarian? That's not a family name, that's a breed of dog. He's kind of a coward, possibly a traitor. What red-blooded white-skinned blue-veined patriot doesn't leap at the opportunity to lose their life for the winning team? God have mercy on his seditious soul!

MIND THE GAP-Set on the Italian front during WWII, Catch-22 is a classic capture of the infuriatingly absurd. Told straight, it would be occasionally favorably compared to the rest of Heller's ouevre. His chronological audaciousness, from launch to landing, is a masterclass in trajectory.

The team behind The Graduate adored Catch-22. A No-Hero Zone for the ages, full of bureaucratic madness, alliterative names, and temporal leaps. To enact their humble interpretation, Nichols assembled a fantastic cast: Alan Arkin, Martin Sheen, Charles Grodin, Tony Perkins, Paula Prentiss, Martin Balsam, Bob Newhart, Orson Welles! To a man tremendous. Arkin really was the best available fit for the flesh-and-blood Yossarian. Initially, he's a mild amusement, a sidewalk soliloquist in a fancy uniform, a low-energy player in a high-stakes game. As time progresses, and the absurdities accumulate, the effects of enormous effort grow evident, and the only mystery is how quickly and how decisively the facade will fall at the moment of anagnorisis. Will Yossarian draw blood? Or will he just walk in the water?

Catch-22 gained a reputation as a vicious anti-war lampoon, lauded loudly by younger readers incensed over U.S. vulgarities in Vietnam. The humorous paradoxes and calamitous hypocrisies, the barbed sketches of peacock-chested goal-post movers entrusted with thousands of lives, are not elements found in any work intent on selling America on itself. However, Air Corps veteran Heller was not anti-war, and nor was his most famous novel. He had bigger potatoes to blast off the barrel. Catch-22 is anti-idiocy, anti-corruption, anti-religion. His God is not an awesome God, or a jealous God, but a lazy God, a hideous craftsman uninterested in self-improvement. Through Yossarian, the author assaults plain-brains and stone-hearts. Many of whom read Catch-22 and did a whole lotta projection.

The world is full of Aarfys. I'd be made at God, too.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-One's a seriously brilliant landmark. The other's a fine entry in a mighty filmography. Arkin's awesome performance, some intrepid set-pieces emblematic of the era and a few killer verbal volleys that earned even Heller's envy aside, the film cannot keep hold of a mood. 

Catch-22 is definitely better in my head.

Better In Your Head?--THE LOST WEEKEND

 

Spoiler Alert: the best Scotch tastes like wood chips and rancid butter.

THE BOOK-Written by Charles Jackson, released 1944

THE MOVIE-Directed by Billy Wilder, written by Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett, released 1945

THE STORY-Rather than face five days in the country with his brother, Don Birnam chooses five days in the city with his bottles. 

MIND THE GAP-44 years old, four novels in the can, zero published. Maybe I oughta chuck the whole mess down ta brown town. Maybe I oughta chug the last few miles with all-new wheels. No no. Lotsa late-blowing litter on the streets of literary history. Charles Jackson, for example, didn't see The Lost Weekend hit shelves until after age forty. Quality aside, publishers didn't see dollars in the story of a bright young alcoholic wandering Manhattan. Add in a world war, and tales of the woeful individual just didn't pique interests as they might during more relatively peaceful times. Farrar & Rinehart took a chance, then a victory lap, when The Lost Weekend won praise from readers and critics.

Yes, October is the "best damned month of the year."

Lack of 'stache notwithstanding, Ray Milland is a knockout reproduction of the merrily-regressing Donny Drinkslots. His silence shakes the soul as deeply as his firewater-logged wails. Don Birnam is far from the comedic drunk popular on screens at the time. He's no lazy lush, no ready recipient of feeble pity. He is an exhilarating presence, more handsome than is healthy, talented and troubled in a way uniquely his (though it nudges every elbow it comes across). 

The poor decisions that make self-conscious screen-acting so painful to witness--the pompous utterances, the outsized gestures, the exaggerated expressions--work wondrous for Milland. His kaleidoscopic conveyance of piteousness compares favorably with any of the countless depictions of "pathetic dejected tippler" which followed. Still, he can only play what lays, and the familiar gent across the table is hitting the nuts like a junkie squirrel. Jackson's extended internal ruminations are condensed into bolts of personality screwed and loosened as story demands. Bisexuals are magic, but no one in the '40s wanted to hear such a stirring truth. Flashbacks attempt to justify the elevated presence of girlfriend Helen and sell the idea that Don is just one good gesture away from kicking the habit. Totally fine, but still furiously treacly.

Fire up the theremin 'cuuuuzzz...hey hey hey hey, Birnam's on the way!

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The Lost Weekend is a heady tale, tidily-told. Jackson's novel is eminently compelling; Wilder's film is compulsively watchable. Their legacies, though, are hardly equal: a raved-about work of realism overlooked by the big boy boards and committees who bestow tactile hosannas here, an all-time classic beloved by the Academy (Best Picture, Director, Actor and Adapted Screenplay) there. I'm keen on blaming literary gatekeepers who've done TLW a disservice throughout succeeding generations by not celebrating its quality and significance, allowing it to shrink inside a mound of dust. Cinephiles, by contrast, refuse to let Billy Wilder's triumph die.

Jackson himself swore the reworking improved on his novel in virtually every aspect, save for the ending, a hackneyed chunk of hopeful diamond that, in my eyes, damages the overall experience. Further, turning Don's lady into an unflappable liberator of her libation-reliant lover doesn't necessary harm the movie...but it annoys me, regardless. 

So, give me the hard-earned evocation of big-city claustrophobia. Give me inessential dream sequences. Give me the powerful simile, the precise metaphor, give me another shot, gimme just one more.

Better In Your Head?--WOMEN IN LOVE

 

Spoiler Alert: size matters.

THE BOOK-Written by D.H. Lawrence, released 1920

THE MOVIE-Directed by Ken Russell, written by Larry Kramer, released 1969

THE STORY-The Brangwen sisters (artist Gudrum and teacher Ursula) are exploring "the intimacies of the mind and the soul" in pre-war England. They fall in love, and revel in their intrinsic marginality. 

MIND THE GAP-D.H. Lawrence wrote a novel using every philosophical argument he'd ever had, or heard, up to that point in his life. Sure it's enriching, but so is cottage cheese. Scandalous? Upon release, but not long after. Misogynist? If depicting multidimensional female characters qualifies, certainly. 

This mad quartet of upper-class bubble-blowers, captivating in their essential paltriness, is best experienced in motion. Although Oliver Reed is disturbingly miscast as sullen industrialist Gerald Crich, Alan Bates is ultra as school inspector/author insert Rupert Birkin, a solo act desperately seeking dyad. Glenda Jackson's Oscar-winning turn as stern and sensual Gudrum steamrolls her competent counterpart Jennie Linden. The contrasts are fascinating.

I wonder if, at any point in my life, I would have enjoyed reading Women In Love. I hope not. 

The title is misleading--and incomplete. Bisexual Intellectuals In Love With The Smell Of Their Own Farts, there we go.

Mankind is broken. Sex is the glue--Beliefs in isolation collapse when believer confronts cynic--To merge is to dilute; to divide, divine--Self-critique is self-care. What torments a mind most, mystery or knowledge? Sentences I wrote while reading Women In Love. Whether I was role-playing, or soul-baring, I still ain't figured.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The "thought over plot" philosophy works better for the film here. It's really the cinematography, shit is gorgeous. Sun provokes shadow, shadow irritates sun, a lover's throat follows the curve of a sieve and snowfall renews wherever it falls. Lawrence's alleged classic vacillates tamely between slog and skip, between pretty pretensions and tense inducements. Russell discarded the book's most brutal bits with the peels, corks and ashes. Chalk one up for naked wrestling guys!

Better In Your Head?--ARROWSMITH

 

Spoiler Alert: the point is to help people.

THE BOOK-Written by Sinclair Lewis, released 1925

THE MOVIE-Directed by John Ford, written by Sidney Howard, released 1931

THE STORY-With mentor's breath blowing mini-hurricanes into both ears, Dr. Martin Arrowsmith flip-flops from station to station, small-town savior one year, big-city budling the next. Respect comes easy, but recognition eludes.

MIND THE GAP-Not the inspiration for the band's name. Just ask 'em. 

Once Arrowsmith enters college, Lewis's Pulitzer-winning prose pivots from dull to delightful, even as the story stretches credulity. The screenplay smartly dumps Marty's salad days into a biohazard bag. Unfortunately, the direction and cinematography took inspiration from the book's dreariest, driest patches. The vituperative score sounds like a scolding from a childless auntie.

"She came, with enthusiasm." In the 1920s? Dubious. 

Received a Best Picture Oscar nod, 'cause sure. The Academy Awards were only five years old, and filling said category with the undistinguished likes of Five Star Final and Trader Horn. Dashing professional crusader struggles with heady moral issues at work and at home, oh yes Arrowsmith, right this way.

Even by the era's standards (theatrical over natural, self-absorbed poses separating self-conscious dialogue) Ronald Colman is an insufferable collision of awkward and smug. Helen Hayes fares better as the doctor's winsome wife Leora, if only by dint of being Helen Hayes. 

Basically, Sinclair Lewis predicted the medical monopoly. The picture of a kindly, transparent caretaker--integrity incarnate!--was snatched from the frame and replaced with a collage of red tape and yellow lights. The healer, now, must also be a silver-tongued salesman--and a brown-tongued stooge. 

Arrowsmith the novel boasts enviable relevance. Published seven years after the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, its appeal to modern audiences only increased a century later, as the world weathered the COVID-19 storm. Dr. Arrowsmith takes off for a Caribbean island ravaged by bubonic plague, vaccine in tow, but rather than dispense the unproven substance to a desperate population, the doctor decides a controlled test is best. Half of those on the island will receive the vaccine, the other half a placebo. Personal tragedy upends the plan, however, and Martin sacrifices scientific principle in the name of moral imperative. 

Profit vs. patience. The individual's rights vs. the individual's responsibility to the group. Information is the impetus for war, not a path to peace. Innovation is mistrusted unless the benefits are instant. We are no longer on one team, we are enough teams to fill a competitive league, and all of the owners are corrupt--except, of course, for the owner of my team.

The brain and the heart cannot split up and still be friends. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Sharing hellishly slow starts, neither Arrowsmith is worth a revisit. The book, at least, deserves a drop-in.