Better In Your Head?--TO SIR, WITH LOVE

 

Spoiler Alert: "opportunity" is a wonderful word.

THE BOOK-Written by E. R. Brathwaite, released 1959

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by James Clavell, released 1967

THE STORY-Reluctance meets recalcitrance in London's East End. Life for Ricky Brathwaite hasn't been easy. He's educated and experienced, but he's also ebony, so he hears lots of "no's" at job interviews. Words from a stranger lead Ricky to Greenslade Secondary School, where he is tasked with educating a classroom of disrespectful snots. 

MIND THE GAP-To Sir, With Love missed the first round of "Better In Your Head?" since I mistakenly assumed it was a memoir, and thus ineligible for inclusion. Turns out, TSWL is an "autobiographical novel," wherein the author tweaks a tale just enough to avoid litigation. 

Columbia Pictures encouraged filmmakers to spice the soup--a dash of rape, a touch of school-wide skirmish. Something sensational to draw audiences in. Turns out, casting Sidney Poitier as the teacher (renamed Mark Thackery) sufficed. Poitier's effortless dignity and command of character made all the difference between an unenthusiastic thumbs-up and wholehearted applause. Moving the action ahead two decades also helped.

The second-best movie theme sung by Lulu appears twice: over the opening credits and over a still-photo montage of the students enjoying some well-supervised culture. Pure belter, but how funny that an unabashed love song to a teacher became such a massive hit in the decade infamous for an unprecedented proliferation of subcultures that promoted the power of life outside the mainstream.

One of Brathwaite's former charges, Alfred Gardner, wrote An East End Story as a rebuttal of sorts to his chronicle of tough love. Gardner's "Sir" is "a tall, humourless disciplinarian with a fiery temper," prone to hurling objects at non-attentive pupils. The truth is knowable only to a select few, but honestly, book Brathwaite doesn't come off a bastion of appropriacy. His descriptions of female students are gross: "full lips," "long, lovely neck," "large breasts greasily outlined beneath the thin jumper," "their prominent breasts clamored for attention." Uck. Glad he left the teaching biz before he got caught three fingers deep in some under-cooked pie. 

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-E.R. Brathwaite despised the film version of To Sir, With Love. Sentimental slop that glossed over the prejudices he faced, hear him tell it. I wish I felt so strongly either way.

Usually, losing interior monologues in the transition from page to screen is a lethal loss. If Mr. Brathwaite wrote as penetratingly, as eloquently on the difficulties he faced in his job as he does those on those he faced as a black man in post-war England, such would be the case here. The film casts a shadow to this day, and the book is visible only in that shadow.

Better In Your Head?--THE SHELTERING SKY

 

Spoiler Alert: the universe is not our friend.

THE BOOK-Written by Paul Bowles, released 1949

THE MOVIE-Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, written by Bertolucci & Mark Peploe, released 1990

THE STORY-Despair on the dunes. Port and Kit Moresby are two well-off Americans traveling North Africa alongside their pompous pal Tunner. More than a post-war escape, the jaunt is intended as a jolt. Lured by the lurid, the trio drift from dark place to dark place.

MIND THE GAP-The Sheltering Sky is Kit's book. Bowles describes her as a small blonde "saved from prettiness by the intensity of her gaze." On the surface, she seems an odd candidate for the title of Enthusiastic Globetrotter. Her anxieties have anxieties, and she's fond of saying stuff like, "Sunset is such a sad thing." She's the friend I'd see once a month, every month, and know no more about than I did on the day we met. 

This moribund marriage never stood chance one. No one staggers across a desert 7500 miles from home if reconciliation is truly possible.

Debra Winger is a terrible Kit. She eases up on the neurosis, and ergo, the character loses credibility. Her grief-powered collapse--so excruciating on the page--is a half-formed idea on the big screen. Rather than embrace degradation, Winger's Kit stumbles scene to scene, under the neutral influence of a duty fulfilled. Sadly, John Malkovich is underwhelming as Port, meaning Campbell "Steve from Singles" Scott is default best in show as the intrepid Tunner.

Travel in the pre-Internet days was so fun. You could still feel dwarfed by your surroundings.

The Sheltering Sky and Rabbit, Run share more in common besides being famed books turned into forgettable films. Both novels follow compulsively exasperating characters, self-absorbed trespassers squeamish in the here and now. They run--Kit from imminent severance; Port from payments due; Rabbit from responsibility. They run because they want to run. They run, although it would behoove them to stay in place. 

Are we beholden to acts of necessity? Does the willful action even exist? Are our very sneezes predetermined? Just a few of the spirit-smashing rhetorical questions I asked myself while reading The Sheltering Sky.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-After four decades, a noble effort at bringing Bowles's scarred rumble to movie theaters was made by the team behind 1987's Oscars-sweeping The Last Emperor. And so another classic book became cinematic claptrap. 

Bertolucci prioritized class distinctions over existential reckonings, thereby missing the entire point. Unsettling meditations are replaced with scenes of disciplined languor. Yes, the cinematography is lovely, but no single shot matches Bowles's brilliance. 

The man himself put it best: "The ending is idiotic and the rest is pretty bad."

Better In Your Head?--SHAFT

 

Spoiler Alert: I can dig it.

THE BOOK-Written by Ernest Tidyman, released 1970

THE MOVIE-Directed by Gordon Parks, written by Tidyman & John D.F. Black, released 1971

THE STORY-John Shaft is a private eye. Duke of the Curb, Sultan of the Sidewalk. He's not afraid to get physical; shit, he'd rather get physical than get mental. Shaft's no dummy, mind--he just doesn't fool around. When a Harlem mobster hires Shaft for a highly personal assignment, our man stays cool as an icicle, and twice as sharp.

MIND THE GAP-A white guy created Shaft? Mm-hmm. Then later wrote The French Connection.

Richard Roundtree's John Shaft is so astounding a flex, so unrepentant a Sexasaurus Rex, that the paper-and-ink OG stands a cheese ball's chance at Christmas of leaving his own impression in most readers minds. Instead of a mustachioed stud decked out in leather coats and turtlenecks, book Shaft is a clean-shaven Vietnam vet who drapes his buff bod in wool suits, red ties, and straw hats. He's a survivor, not a crusader, distrustful of groups and any endeavor not culminating in fatter pockets. 

Shaft the novel deserves a fairer fate than "oh wow, that was a book first?" Steel-toed dialogue, hard-boiled plot, iffy sex scenes, it's everything I want in a detective story! Blame Isaac Hayes. His soundtrack is synonymous with soul, funk, and above all cool, and without it, Shaft the movie is just The Guy From Harlem with a budget. 

The Harlem mobster sure takes a turn for the crappy. On the page, Knocks Persons is a 6'6" 240-pound bullet. On the screen, Bumpy Jonas resembles every other mobster, just black. Progress!

Ernie Neatguy wound up disappointed in the film, specifically the lead's transformation from brooding mess of "muscle and anger" into a badass comic book character. The OG is just more interesting. He doesn't come off as a marketing gimmick or a casting agent's dream. He's selfish, not narcissistic. He shoots motherfuckers in the head, no quips. He cranks the volume on his alarm clock radio so his one-night stands will get the gist and become one with the mist. What a cool dude.

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-The book? You damn right!

Straightforward, fast-paced, fun-as-cake entertainment is dime per fer sure. Art that makes a socio-cultural impact, buck per bag. I'll gladly give you a dollar today to change my life tomorrow, but sometimes the short-term silver solution is the smartest move. As long as I'm making transactions, y'know?

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.