We hope you're making time for a few literary adaptations in between summer blockbusters, moviegoers. Here are a couple I've recently watched.
On the Road (2012)
I
loved this book, and I was really looking forward to the film. After I missed it
in theaters, though, it was kind of hard to get a hold of until it popped up on
my On Demand offerings—I hoped this scarcity meant that it was just too awesome
for the unwashed masses to appreciate, but that I would still love it. Alas,
no, it was just okay. And it was a bit depressing. And it was kind of boring. I
mean, look, there are moments in the book like this one:
“At dawn I got my New York bus and said good-by to Dean and Marylou. They wanted some of my sandwiches. I told them no. It was a sullen moment. We were all thinking we’d never see one another again and we didn’t care.”
…that
clearly show there were some lulls and some downers in Sal’s adventures. But to
see those moments pervade the entire film was a bit of a letdown. Here’s the other
thing: what excitement there was, was mainly focused on drugs, sex and fast
driving, all of which were played up disproportionately compared to the book.
But where was the unbridled exuberance? And the sense of wonder? Where was the
fun? They tried to sell us on Sal’s and Dean’s friendship with lots of intense,
heartfelt man hugs—a constant coming and going where locked eyes and sincere,
sullen glances were supposed to communicate everything. They didn’t. I thinkall
but the most hardcore Kerouac fans, and even a good number of those, can skip
this one.
The
Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
Ten
years before he became Atticus Finch, Gregory Peck played the role of Harry
Street in the adaptation of Hemingway’s classic short story. But while it
starts off true enough to the original—the necrotic leg injury, the vultures,
the desperate wait for a plane—it takes some liberties that rubbed me the wrong
way. For one, the flashback action was just a cheap rehash of Hemingway’s own
life story: Spanish Civil War, expat Paris, big game hunting, bullfights in
Pamplona. I guess if you’re trying to get Hemingway nuts into the theater, that’s
one way to do it. But it cheapens the work of fiction that’s supposed to be
played out on screen.
And while the trail of tortured romances opened up roles
for Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward, that’s not what the story’s really about. Snows is about examining one’s life, finding it
wanting, resolving to change and redeem oneself… only to have the chance whisked
away at the last second. Bittersweet brilliance. Which brings me to the most
egregious crime of all: the ending. Instead of flying off into the metaphorical snows of Kilimanjaro, a peaceful resignation to death and dying, Harry Street
(and his romance!) are saved. The plane arrives, the vultures disappear, and
all’s well that ends well. I haven’t had a film betrayal like that since The Grapes of Wrath , the movie.
