MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: WATERLAND (1992)

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Saturday, June 7, 2008

WATERLAND (1992)

Stephen Gyllenhaal ’s film tries to honor the elaborate continuity of Graham Swift’s acclaimed novel, but the unusual time structure doesn’t add enough to the texture of the story. Or is Gyllenhaal’s technique just not up to handling all the metaphysical time & character jumps? The basic story attempts to join Thomas Hardy back-country tragedy (lost fortune, botched abortion, doomed brother) with Terence Rattigan ’s THE BROWNING VERSION (out-of-touch teacher loses wife & position). There are some good perfs (Jeremy Irons gets a chance to work on screen with his wife, Sinead Cusack, and she’s scarifyingly fine), and some bad ones (Ethan Hawke is just too irritatingly self-regarding as a self-regarding character), but it’s refreshingly brief. Did the veddy British novel place its school in the USA?

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

WATERLAND (1992)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE