Reviews - One Book, Two Movies
Aug. 11th, 2004 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariAngle of Repose
by Wallace Stegner
I picked this out because it sounded interesting and was on one of those "Best 100" lists. Still, I wasn't sure I'd like it, but I was happily wrong about that. Angle of Repose is incredibly absorbing and beautifully written. It is about both Susan Burling Ward, an artist and writer who goes out west with her husband in the late 1800s, and about Lyman Ward, her aging historian grandson who decides to reasearch her life roughly 100 years later. Like the best literature, this book is about many things: a marriage between two very different people, a woman's struggle to maintain her own identity and career within the conventions of both Victorian domesticity and a pioneer life, the pursuit of the past, dealing with the past (both the personal and the historical kinds), and vicarious living. In a very subtle way, Stegner uses the story of Susan's personal life and struggles to illuminate the making of America: the struggle to build civilization out of the wilderness and the effort to meld disparate elements into a single functioning unity. I found it personally resonant, too, because my graduate school prospects, like Susan's marriage, seem to be drawing me inexorably westward.
Other Kenjari and I rented two movies this weekend.
Secret Window
There was really only one good thing about this movie - Johnny Depp. He does a wonderful job as the lead in an otherwise lackluster movie. The script was based on a Stephen King story, but it must have been one of his lesser works. Or maybe the script writers were just not that good. The plot has what is supposed to be a shocking or perhaps chilling twist. But a twist loses a lot of its punch when you know exactly what is going to happen within the first ten minutes. The film does however reinforce something I have learned from Stephen King's work: do not spend time alone in a remote cottage on a lake in the woods of Maine. Bad shit will happen. That goes double if you are dealing with some personal crisis. Triple if you are a writer.
Big Fish
Tim Burton redeems himself from the crapfest that was Planet of the Apes. Big Fish is a bit on the fluffy side, but it is also completely charming and quite fun to watch. Like the best of Burton's work, this film has a very distinct tone and feel and an element of fantasy. And Danny Elfman provides yet another quality score. Oddly enough, despite the fluffy edge to it, Big Fish also has a point to make about the importance of storytelling.
by Wallace Stegner
I picked this out because it sounded interesting and was on one of those "Best 100" lists. Still, I wasn't sure I'd like it, but I was happily wrong about that. Angle of Repose is incredibly absorbing and beautifully written. It is about both Susan Burling Ward, an artist and writer who goes out west with her husband in the late 1800s, and about Lyman Ward, her aging historian grandson who decides to reasearch her life roughly 100 years later. Like the best literature, this book is about many things: a marriage between two very different people, a woman's struggle to maintain her own identity and career within the conventions of both Victorian domesticity and a pioneer life, the pursuit of the past, dealing with the past (both the personal and the historical kinds), and vicarious living. In a very subtle way, Stegner uses the story of Susan's personal life and struggles to illuminate the making of America: the struggle to build civilization out of the wilderness and the effort to meld disparate elements into a single functioning unity. I found it personally resonant, too, because my graduate school prospects, like Susan's marriage, seem to be drawing me inexorably westward.
Other Kenjari and I rented two movies this weekend.
Secret Window
There was really only one good thing about this movie - Johnny Depp. He does a wonderful job as the lead in an otherwise lackluster movie. The script was based on a Stephen King story, but it must have been one of his lesser works. Or maybe the script writers were just not that good. The plot has what is supposed to be a shocking or perhaps chilling twist. But a twist loses a lot of its punch when you know exactly what is going to happen within the first ten minutes. The film does however reinforce something I have learned from Stephen King's work: do not spend time alone in a remote cottage on a lake in the woods of Maine. Bad shit will happen. That goes double if you are dealing with some personal crisis. Triple if you are a writer.
Big Fish
Tim Burton redeems himself from the crapfest that was Planet of the Apes. Big Fish is a bit on the fluffy side, but it is also completely charming and quite fun to watch. Like the best of Burton's work, this film has a very distinct tone and feel and an element of fantasy. And Danny Elfman provides yet another quality score. Oddly enough, despite the fluffy edge to it, Big Fish also has a point to make about the importance of storytelling.
