a cock and bull story
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is, perhaps, my favorite novel; its narrative heir, Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître, the reason I applied to the College of Letters.
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From: The Dude
Subject: RE: Racecar Redux
Date: January 17, 2005 4:45:15 AM CST
To: David Martin, Anne Fenton, Sara Mirsky, Dave Lievens, Megan Brown, Ron Ghatan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423409/
but how will they film the blank page?
------------
When I first heard word over a year ago that Michael Winterbottom was directing a movie adaptation of Tristram Shandy, I was thrilled. When I discovered that Steve Coogan was starring, I was ecstatic. Surely if any cinematic duo was going to attempt to film the 'infamously unfilmable novel' [although doesn't this apply to practically every high modernist work?], Winterbottom and Coogan were the team to bank on [I should also include writer Frank Cottrell Boyce on the roster]. There was the potential for it to be a disaster, but like all of Winterbottom's film, that didn't necessarily mean that it was going to be uninteresting.
Yet the seeming improbable has happened: in all unlikeliness, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is jejune and, I hate to say, terribly safe.
------------
“Zounds!” cried Phutatorius after a hot chestnut rolled onto his lap. Fired by such a profane oath, a heated debate followed. Mythogeras was fully convinced that it was divine retribution, God condemning Phutatorius for his filthy and obscene treaties de Concubinis. Gastriphere recalled that Yorick never had a good opinion of the treatise and deduced that Yorick must have chucked the chestnut in a sarcastical fling. During his retelling of these events, Tristram Shandy does not offer us his opinion, but merely muses, “It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind: - What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things, - that trifles light as, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it immoveably within it, -that Euclid’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it.” The chestnut debate would never be resolved; no manner of proof could ever persuade the observers on such a hot topic. Each observer analyzed the event from a particular perspective/hobby-horse and no manner of discourse could ever resolve their differences.
------------
The movie is certainly a hard one to criticize. It is fitted with all manner of anti-critic devices, the least of which is the actors commenting on the film after an on-screen screening. The on-screen cast and crew treat the adaptation process with such casual indifference that it almost seems over-zealous to react to the film with anything more than detached apathy. Not that I mind the breezy and genuinely unpretentious tone of the whole piece, but what is completely unforgivable is that they have created a truly dull film.
When I first heard the premise - that the narrative would careen carelessly away from the source text into a sort-of faux-meta-documentary, I was game. Certainly if you are going to film Tristram Shandy, there are going to be some textual divergences - the book practically begs for as much. The film, however, deviates from the plot along the most uninteresting and well-trooded of possible paths: the life celebrity. I am sorry, but I have seen it all before: the tedious art film vs. commercial movie debates, financiers vs. artistic vision, private vs. public, supportive wife vs. attractive assistant. And come on, Tristram Shandy was so so wildly inventive with its playful subversion of the novel format, and yet, the best Winterbottom could come with up in comparison was to turn the screen black while the characters are discussing filming the black page? That is just lazy writing and I hate it because the whole project comes off as quite frankly tristramaphobic and they try to hide it behind layers of irony and academic preening.
------------
A stranger riding on a dark mule enters the town of Strasburg. As he slowly travels, some of the citizens of the town argue over the true nature of his nose. Some think it is real, others think it is made of parchment or brass. As the debate cannot be resolved through means of discourse, the trumpeter’s and the inn-keeper’s wife propose to gain tangible proof by touching the nose. The stranger swears that his nose will never be touched except under the satisfaction of an unknown variable and leaves town. The town soon erupts in discourse; a buzzing chaos likened to a swarming of bees. Everyone investigates the problem through their particular hobby-horse, none of which leads to any conclusions. The naturalists argue over whether the body could sustain such an appendage. The logicians come upon a logic paradox; their argument rests on a petitio principii, a circular argument that has no conclusion. The civilians finally solved the riddle, but “the only objection to this was, that if it proved any thing, it proved the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false.” Soon the ecclesiastical authorities are entangled in the debate. The argument degenerates into two camps: the Nosarians and the Antinosarians who drape the conflict in the larger debate on “the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of God.” The argument spirals out of control since “the less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it.” Since the central issue of both debates can never truly be known, they degenerate into arguments ove each side’s initial premise (hobby-horse/perspective). “The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute – it just served as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity, and then they all sailed before the wind.” It is no longer about the nose, but the irreconcilable premises that each side takes for granted.
------------
This may seem terribly unfair, but Al Pacino did this film better in his severely overlooked film Looking For Richard. The difference is that Pacino and crew were not afraid of their text: they delved right in, exploring the contradictions, the intricacies of character, and the levels of emotional resonance.
Most depressing of all, Tristram Shandy translates terribly on screen. Despite the capriciousness of the narrative, the characters themselves exhibit a considerable amount of consistency. Half of the humor is built on the idiosyncratic nature of the characters and the eternal reoccurrence of their various quirks. Without establishing any sort of dynamic or rhythm - letting the audience acclimate themselves to Sterne's cadence - the humor of the adapted scenes falls flat and seems dated. Hell, I have even read the book and the filming of the last chapter was incomprehensible to me.
This is not to say that the film was a complete disaster. Steven Coogan and Rob Brydon are hilarious together, particularly in the end when they imitate Al Pacino [and I kind of secretly loved the fact that they completely wasted the most under-utilized actor working today: Jeremy Northam as Michael Winterbottom]. Still, I don't know if it is depressing or reaffirming that the best comedic moment of the entire movie was a bit of the ole slap-stick: Coogan rehearsing his scene with the hot chestnut.
I am probably being unnecessarily hard on the film. It just pains me that with a text as rich and as forgiving as The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Winterbottom and Boyce took no risks.
------------
Tristram Shandy does offer one piece of advice: “For my own part I never wonder at anything; - and so often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong…For all this, I reverence the truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without, - I’ll go to the world’s end with him: - But I hate disputes… For which reasons, I resolved from the beginning, That is ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented, - or a new one raised, - I would have no hand in it, one way or t’other.”
After all, “so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King’ high-way, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, -pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?”
------------
From: The Dude
Subject: RE: Racecar Redux
Date: January 17, 2005 4:45:15 AM CST
To: David Martin, Anne Fenton, Sara Mirsky, Dave Lievens, Megan Brown, Ron Ghatan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423409/
but how will they film the blank page?
------------
When I first heard word over a year ago that Michael Winterbottom was directing a movie adaptation of Tristram Shandy, I was thrilled. When I discovered that Steve Coogan was starring, I was ecstatic. Surely if any cinematic duo was going to attempt to film the 'infamously unfilmable novel' [although doesn't this apply to practically every high modernist work?], Winterbottom and Coogan were the team to bank on [I should also include writer Frank Cottrell Boyce on the roster]. There was the potential for it to be a disaster, but like all of Winterbottom's film, that didn't necessarily mean that it was going to be uninteresting.
Yet the seeming improbable has happened: in all unlikeliness, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is jejune and, I hate to say, terribly safe.
------------
“Zounds!” cried Phutatorius after a hot chestnut rolled onto his lap. Fired by such a profane oath, a heated debate followed. Mythogeras was fully convinced that it was divine retribution, God condemning Phutatorius for his filthy and obscene treaties de Concubinis. Gastriphere recalled that Yorick never had a good opinion of the treatise and deduced that Yorick must have chucked the chestnut in a sarcastical fling. During his retelling of these events, Tristram Shandy does not offer us his opinion, but merely muses, “It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind: - What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things, - that trifles light as, shall waft a belief into the soul, and plant it immoveably within it, -that Euclid’s demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, should not all have power to overthrow it.” The chestnut debate would never be resolved; no manner of proof could ever persuade the observers on such a hot topic. Each observer analyzed the event from a particular perspective/hobby-horse and no manner of discourse could ever resolve their differences.
------------
The movie is certainly a hard one to criticize. It is fitted with all manner of anti-critic devices, the least of which is the actors commenting on the film after an on-screen screening. The on-screen cast and crew treat the adaptation process with such casual indifference that it almost seems over-zealous to react to the film with anything more than detached apathy. Not that I mind the breezy and genuinely unpretentious tone of the whole piece, but what is completely unforgivable is that they have created a truly dull film.
When I first heard the premise - that the narrative would careen carelessly away from the source text into a sort-of faux-meta-documentary, I was game. Certainly if you are going to film Tristram Shandy, there are going to be some textual divergences - the book practically begs for as much. The film, however, deviates from the plot along the most uninteresting and well-trooded of possible paths: the life celebrity. I am sorry, but I have seen it all before: the tedious art film vs. commercial movie debates, financiers vs. artistic vision, private vs. public, supportive wife vs. attractive assistant. And come on, Tristram Shandy was so so wildly inventive with its playful subversion of the novel format, and yet, the best Winterbottom could come with up in comparison was to turn the screen black while the characters are discussing filming the black page? That is just lazy writing and I hate it because the whole project comes off as quite frankly tristramaphobic and they try to hide it behind layers of irony and academic preening.
------------
A stranger riding on a dark mule enters the town of Strasburg. As he slowly travels, some of the citizens of the town argue over the true nature of his nose. Some think it is real, others think it is made of parchment or brass. As the debate cannot be resolved through means of discourse, the trumpeter’s and the inn-keeper’s wife propose to gain tangible proof by touching the nose. The stranger swears that his nose will never be touched except under the satisfaction of an unknown variable and leaves town. The town soon erupts in discourse; a buzzing chaos likened to a swarming of bees. Everyone investigates the problem through their particular hobby-horse, none of which leads to any conclusions. The naturalists argue over whether the body could sustain such an appendage. The logicians come upon a logic paradox; their argument rests on a petitio principii, a circular argument that has no conclusion. The civilians finally solved the riddle, but “the only objection to this was, that if it proved any thing, it proved the stranger’s nose was neither true nor false.” Soon the ecclesiastical authorities are entangled in the debate. The argument degenerates into two camps: the Nosarians and the Antinosarians who drape the conflict in the larger debate on “the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of God.” The argument spirals out of control since “the less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it.” Since the central issue of both debates can never truly be known, they degenerate into arguments ove each side’s initial premise (hobby-horse/perspective). “The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute – it just served as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity, and then they all sailed before the wind.” It is no longer about the nose, but the irreconcilable premises that each side takes for granted.
------------
This may seem terribly unfair, but Al Pacino did this film better in his severely overlooked film Looking For Richard. The difference is that Pacino and crew were not afraid of their text: they delved right in, exploring the contradictions, the intricacies of character, and the levels of emotional resonance.
Most depressing of all, Tristram Shandy translates terribly on screen. Despite the capriciousness of the narrative, the characters themselves exhibit a considerable amount of consistency. Half of the humor is built on the idiosyncratic nature of the characters and the eternal reoccurrence of their various quirks. Without establishing any sort of dynamic or rhythm - letting the audience acclimate themselves to Sterne's cadence - the humor of the adapted scenes falls flat and seems dated. Hell, I have even read the book and the filming of the last chapter was incomprehensible to me.
This is not to say that the film was a complete disaster. Steven Coogan and Rob Brydon are hilarious together, particularly in the end when they imitate Al Pacino [and I kind of secretly loved the fact that they completely wasted the most under-utilized actor working today: Jeremy Northam as Michael Winterbottom]. Still, I don't know if it is depressing or reaffirming that the best comedic moment of the entire movie was a bit of the ole slap-stick: Coogan rehearsing his scene with the hot chestnut.
I am probably being unnecessarily hard on the film. It just pains me that with a text as rich and as forgiving as The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Winterbottom and Boyce took no risks.
------------
Tristram Shandy does offer one piece of advice: “For my own part I never wonder at anything; - and so often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong…For all this, I reverence the truth as much as any body; and when it has slipped us, if a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for it, as for a thing we have both lost, and can neither of us do well without, - I’ll go to the world’s end with him: - But I hate disputes… For which reasons, I resolved from the beginning, That is ever the army of martyrs was to be augmented, - or a new one raised, - I would have no hand in it, one way or t’other.”
After all, “so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King’ high-way, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him, -pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?”
posted by d l wright at 3/11/2006 10:16:00 AM
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