| Author | Message | ||
     Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I happened to spot a film with this name on the listings for BBC2 on Sunday night. I thought hmm, that's a Highsmith novel, checked my bookshelves and I was right. the details seemed to tally between the plot decriptions so I taped the film while I watched the Lost sason 5 finale on DVD and did my ironing. Last night I got round to watching it, and I have to say Paddy Considine is fast turning into one of my favourite actors. This was a very good adaptation of Patricia's novel (that I never knew had been filmed) and suffered only through casting one of those actresses who I'm sure I've seen before but can't remember where in one of the lead roles. Every time she appeared on screen I was trying to place what else I'd seen her in, rather than concentrating on the film. It might not be up there with the best of the Ripley adaptations but it's a film that's well worth checking out. Oh, there was a bit of a loose end left over about the identity of a dead body but that may have been sorted while I was trying to figure out where I'd seen the blonde actress before. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.36.27 |
Taped this. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 82.210.134.81 |
Paddy Considine is bloody brilliant. Check out a film he made with Gary Oldman whose title I've forgotten, set in Spain. As for Dead Man's Shoes, one of the truly great British films of the last ten years. Frightening film, with a chilling macabre humour. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
I was just leaving college when the director of this film was starting. He seemed very young and naive but was definitely enthusiastic. He seemed dumb but eager, and likeable, too, and was very popular with the girls. Jammy bugger. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.72 |
This was the first Highsmith novel I ever read. It took me by surprise. I've loved her ever since. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.6.85 |
The film starts strongly, but wanes as character quirks become subordinate to plot. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
It's quite close to the book IIRC - it's a while since I read it. The problem with filming a Highsmith book is that her character's motivations can be very difficult to get across on film. In the books we are so far into their heads that we accept their most unlikely and extreme actions as perfectly natural. Film cannot put you in that position as we're always on the outside looking in. A skilled author (like Highsmith) has you inside the characters and looking out at their world. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
Graham Greene liked her because he said her characters never did anything expected. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
yup | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I rank Greene and Highsmith as the two best psychological authors of the 20th Century (in my experience). As Weber says, no one gets you inside the warped mental processes of a troubled individual like Highsmith, but Greene was equally adept at sucking you into his characters' moral dilemmas and deepest motivations and thought processes. The two most intense books I have read recently, that transported me completely into the emotional being of a fictional character, are 'A Dog's Ransom' (Duhamel) & 'The Heart Of The Matter' (Scobie) - three quarters through and an emotional wreck every time I read another chapter of the man's heartbreaking moral decline. I'm not one bit surprised that Graham Greene was such a staunch champion of Highsmith's writing. Their gifts were the same but at different ends of the spectrum. |