Cole Smithey - Capsules: Literary Adaptation

114 posts categorized "Literary Adaptation"

February 06, 2022

BARRY LYNDON — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Stanley Kubrick's interminable adaptation of Thackeray's 1844 picaresque novel would be marginally better without its narrative crushing voiceover-narration.

Cold and remote.

"Barry Lyndon" doesn't hold a candle to Bohumil Hrabal's "I Served The King Of England," if picaresque tales are your thing.

Lina Wertmüller's "Seven Beauties" is another, better, choice if you want roguish social climbers following fate across classes.

Kubrick's signature overwrought filming methods included using [mostly] only candle light for interior scenes.

Whoopie-shit.

Rated PG. 183 long mins.

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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Posted by Cole Smithey at 1:24 PM in Criterion Collection, Literary Adaptation | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 17, 2022

AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Here is a dirty hands biopic with bite.

Jane Campion's rigorous filmic rendition of Janet Frame's picaresque autobiography is a stunner by any measure.

New Zealand's most celebrated author/poet gets a fully voiced telling of a life punctuated by abuse, tragedy, and literary success.

Campion's pitch perfect casting of three actresses to perform different periods of Frame's life, anchors this film in a rare sense of dynamic realism.