Notes on movies and TV of late
Thu, Mar. 24th, 2011 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarlettinaRest in peace, Elizabeth Taylor. The world will remember you as a pretty fine actress, a dazzling beauty, and a mountain-moving activist. I'll always be an admirer of yours for your ability to survive and thrive despite personal setbacks and illness.
Last night, I went out with the girls to see the new movie version of Jane Eyre. It is beautifully filmed and well cast, but the actors were directed to be so understated that I think some of the emotional journey of the story just gets lost in translation. If a viewer has never read the book, I suspect that the developments between Jane and Mr. Rochester just wouldn't make sense. Even for me, who has read the book at least once every 18 months or so for most of my life, some of the encounters felt forced because the film showed little of the characters' inner lives and spared us facial close-ups that might have provided the revelation necessary to make emotional points. On the plus side, the locations, costumes and--as I said--casting are spot on, the dialogue is truer to the book than I've ever seen in an adaptation, and there are moments when the movie nails every detail. It's still not the definitive adaptation, but I'm glad that filmmakers continue to make the effort. We'll get there, someday. What's your favorite adaptation of this book?
I still have a bunch of movies I want to see: The Adjustment Bureau, Rango, The Last Lions, Biutiful, The Eagle, The Lincoln Lawyer...and a couple I'm sure I'm forgetting. I need to get a move on. Some of these won't be around much longer, if they're not already gone.
Big Love has concluded its run. I've watched every episode since the very beginning, and I think what kept me coming back was the women. I think the show did a really fine job of portraying the journey of these three women in this enormously challenging situation and how they grew toward independence, how their thinking evolved and changed, how they became more authentically themselves throughout everything. Glad I got to go on that journey with them. It made me think about faith and relationships and the very different lives people lead, even as we live in the same country and share a lot of foundational principles. And now that it's concluded, that's one less hour a week I'll spend watching TV.
Last night, I went out with the girls to see the new movie version of Jane Eyre. It is beautifully filmed and well cast, but the actors were directed to be so understated that I think some of the emotional journey of the story just gets lost in translation. If a viewer has never read the book, I suspect that the developments between Jane and Mr. Rochester just wouldn't make sense. Even for me, who has read the book at least once every 18 months or so for most of my life, some of the encounters felt forced because the film showed little of the characters' inner lives and spared us facial close-ups that might have provided the revelation necessary to make emotional points. On the plus side, the locations, costumes and--as I said--casting are spot on, the dialogue is truer to the book than I've ever seen in an adaptation, and there are moments when the movie nails every detail. It's still not the definitive adaptation, but I'm glad that filmmakers continue to make the effort. We'll get there, someday. What's your favorite adaptation of this book?
I still have a bunch of movies I want to see: The Adjustment Bureau, Rango, The Last Lions, Biutiful, The Eagle, The Lincoln Lawyer...and a couple I'm sure I'm forgetting. I need to get a move on. Some of these won't be around much longer, if they're not already gone.
Big Love has concluded its run. I've watched every episode since the very beginning, and I think what kept me coming back was the women. I think the show did a really fine job of portraying the journey of these three women in this enormously challenging situation and how they grew toward independence, how their thinking evolved and changed, how they became more authentically themselves throughout everything. Glad I got to go on that journey with them. It made me think about faith and relationships and the very different lives people lead, even as we live in the same country and share a lot of foundational principles. And now that it's concluded, that's one less hour a week I'll spend watching TV.