A number of years ago, I had more or less given up on going to movies of a good book I had already read. Even Remains of the Day, as good as Hopkins was, left me disappointed when the full power of the book just wasn't quite there for me. Then, several years ago, I decided to see The Shipping News, mainly because I'm such a Judi Dench fan, even though I could not conceive of how this Pulitzer-winning novel could possibly be transferred to the screen. I was most pleasantly surprised, and these days I have to keep open the possibility that a screenwriter and a director might have successfully transformed a good book into a just-as-good movie.
This week I have seen the ads for an upcoming movie "No Country for Old Men," and again I am mystified as to how it would be possible to bring Cormac McCarthy's book of the same name to the screen. Cormac is a good writer about a bad world. From Blood Meridian to The Road, the dark, depraved, bad (evil?) side of humankind dominates and overwhelms his writings, though the protagonist are, for the most part, good men. No Country is no different, and scene after scene of depraved violence fills the pages. Here, the worlds of evil and good are perhaps more crystal clear than in his other works, and maybe that is why we now will have the movie. Sheriff Bell is a quiet Christian (Presbyterian judging by his predestinationist philosophy), looking for the good while living with the bad, and contemplating regularly over his good fortune to meet and marry Emma, his wife of several decades. McCarthy emphaticlly separates these positive thoughts into completely separate, short chapters, printed entirely in italics. As the title of the book suggest, there is an alienation of this older man from much of current socitey, maybe that's what drew me into the book to begin with.
I find Cormac McCarthy books cannot be read in sequence, but need some space (years?) between them. There are brief moments of salvation in the perdition through which his stories wind, but you pay dearly to catch those glimpses. No Country for Old Men is not considered one of Cormac's top works, and is just a few pages beyond a short story (thus ideal for a movie script). Knowing the penchance of the movie-makers for overdoing graphical violence, I don't know if I will see this movie even out of curiosity.
2 comments:
Hi John. Very cool blog. I haven't had time to see it all yet, but wanted to comment on this post since I've been seeing the trailers this week, too. I'm not familiar with the book, but was very excited to see the next "Coen Brothers film" coming out. They've done some great films, i.e. Fargo, O'Brother Where Art Thou, The Big Lebowski. While movies seldom deliver like the book, at least the storytelling is in more than capable hands. Hope you and Barbara are doing well.
Brian
Thanks Brian. I agree. Fargo and O'Brother are long-time favorites with me, but without Cormac's subtle counterpoint, the violence in No Place could seem gratuitous
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