Forum / Travesty

• 
  Dolemite

  Mar 18, 09:07pm

  Wise Blood (by Cousin Flannery) presented as a hillbilly comedy (complete with banjo soundtrack n' yucks)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_Blood_(film)

• 
  Dolemite

  Mar 18, 09:19pm

  Absolute defilement of a primal work.

  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080140/

• 
  strannikov

  Mar 18, 11:40pm

  Almost as sad that Criterion Collection has elected to "honor" this sorry film, I guess because of the Huston name.

  Had the high misfortune to sit through this once, almost ground some fillings out. (I could not defenestrate Huston, he was long since dead.) Had to conclude Huston had it in for Cousin Flannery for some unreasonable reason. Writing himself into the film was not commendable, either.

  Some/Many literary works are just well left unfilmed. The shooting of screenwriters with firearms or crossbows need not be fatal to be salutary, as long as one's aim shows continual improvement (says the former screenwriter).

  Alternatively: it's always good to recall what talent for butchery Hollywood never loses or disowns.

• 
  Dolemite

  Mar 18, 11:47pm

  I puked/cried/AND/shat myself after about five minutes...

  Unbelievable squat.

• 
  Dolemite

  Mar 19, 12:04am

  She worked so hard,
  for so long,
  on this novel,
  getting IT
  (in all of it's eternal ITness)
  just right (though she, of course,
  was never satisfied...)

  Just a (devilish) defilement...

• 
  strannikov

  Mar 19, 02:32am

  I looked at the IMDb citation, sorry to read that the screenwriter was Robert and Sally Fitzgerald's son (w/ maybe a brother helping out?), whose adaptation may've been faithful enough, I don't propose looking up the screenplay, but under Huston's direction, yikes: JH seems to've had no feel for the material, at all. Maybe if he'd filmed in B/W . . . ? I don't remember Harry Dean Stanton as Asa Hawks, you'd think he'd've been good in the role, but he made no memorable impression. The book is memorable enough, the film eminently forgettable.

• 
  Dolemite

  Mar 19, 02:37am

  "the screenwriter was Robert and Sally Fitzgerald's son (w/ maybe a brother helping out?), whose adaptation may've been faithful enough,"

  Yikes!

  How bizarre, esp. after reading all her (published) letters to them...

  But you're right: the screenplay might have been faithful, but twisted by the vision/interpretation of Huston.

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