• Aces in the Hole

    Two of our favorite artists, filmmaker David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch, Videodrome) and novelist Jonathan Lethem (who’s written liner notes for us and even set the opening scene of his most recent novel in the Criterion Collection office), are joining (dark) forces. According to the Guardian today, Cronenberg is going to direct an adaptation of Lethem’s 1997 novel As She Climbed Across the Table, which is a romance, though one with a decidedly Cronenbergian, sci-fi bent: a man must compete with a miniature black hole for the love of a fellow physicist. Here’s hoping this project happens, along with the ever ambitious director’s planned big-screen versions of Christopher Hampton’s play The Talking Cure and Don DeLillo’s novel Cosmopolis.

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3 comments

  • By Kim McGinnis
    June 23, 2010
    06:26 PM

    I am a big fan of David Cronenberg and I love the intelligence and subtle humor of his films. The element that always wins me over and allows me to forgive other not-so-great elements is humor. Movies (and people) that take themselves too seriously are a bore and should be ignored. No matter the genre of a film, a little humor is always welcome as far as I'm concerned. We are in the midst of producing our first feature with Andy Feld, and even though it is a 'spiritual/new age film', there is plenty of humor in it. For my partner and me at Avenstar Productions, we are looking at more than just making money - we want visibility and want as people to see this movie as possible. It is important for us to show people that developing you spirituality and raising your consciousness is more than contemplating your belly button. If anyone wants to see a trailer of our film, Shamshara... check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4XL73F7GZI
    Reply

  • By MA
    December 02, 2010
    01:01 AM

    In connection, Alan Parker's Birdy, another achievement in literary adaptation, is an important film and a serious work of art, worthy of the catalogue and indeed lacking a decent dvd edition.
    Reply

  • By Mark Morgenstern
    December 02, 2010
    08:11 PM

    Birdy? achievement in literary adaptation? That's one of the few films that's *better* than the book, a slim teenish novelette, and for me a lot of the depth was added by the resonances generated by the juxtaposition of Peter Gabriel's music, which brought specific issues and themes to bear on each scene it was used on, especially for those familiar with the words. From my observations, people who already knew the specific tracks the soundtrack was built from found the film way more brilliant than people who didn't already know the music. But I've always wondered how much of the rich, not-on-the-nose placement of the tracks was deliberate: did Alan Parker (no slouch to musical films) deliberately pick each track for its cross-resonances? or, Gabriel being busy, did Daniel Lanois just layer down outtakes and isolated instrumental tracks to fill in the contract? Was it always the plan to use re-purposed music or did they run out of time to compose from scratch? If you do give Birdy the Criterion treatment, there's a whole commentary track or essay right there... thank you! - M.
    Reply

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