RARA-AVIS: Movie adadptations

From: Juri Nummelin ( juri.nummelin@pp.inet.fi)
Date: 29 Jun 2007


Wasn't Budd Schulberg's ON THE WATERFRONT actually a novelization? I think he wrote the script first and then the novel.

***

The French Jim Thompson movie SERIE NOIRE from 1975 (IIRC) is a bit difficult one. The guy in the lead (forgot his name) is awesomely weird, but he's way over-the-top and I've always thought that Thompson's "heroes", however screwed they are, are not over-the-top. The film is also very slow, but it's very much worthwhile if you can spot it.

I understood from the discussion here that it's not on DVD; I saw it ten years back in a screening of the Finnish Film Archive. The director went later on to make some pretty big art-house hits, such as ALL THE MORNINGS OF LIFE (or something to that effect, about the Baroque composer; an excellent film, but not anywhere noir or hardboiled). I seem to remember that the scriptwriter for SERIE NOIRE was Georges Perec, which may explain some of its weirdness.

***

As for Anders's excellent list, Pike's THE MUTE WITNESS is quite good on its own, and I'd say that Garfield's DEATH WISH is way beyond the stupid Winner/Bronson film. Garfield's own sequel is marvellous (THE DEATH SENTENCE). Garfield seems underrated now, but I've enjoyed almost everything I've read by him (except the Churchill novel, what was it called, THE PALADIN?).

On Woolrich: Truffaut's LA SIRENE DU MISSISSIPPI is a version of WALTZ INTO DARKNESS.

Juri

PS. Still on Frank Miller: his artwork on the original Sin City graphic novels is so strong that I was willing to forgive the weak stories. But when the thing just kept on going, I got somewhat bored.

http://pulpetti.blogspot.com



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Jun 2007 EDT