| Author | Message | ||
     Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
This may seem like preaching to the converted, but I just discovered a 1996 film by Dan Ireland based on the book 'One Who Walked Alone' by Novalyne Price Ellis based on Robert E Howard's life. The film stars Renee Zellwegger, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Anne Wedgeworth. The films details the relationship between Howard, his mother and Novalyne Ellis. From the review I read in Video Hound's Independent Film Guide from the end of the 90's, it is a film worth buying. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Yeah, I first saw this on TV one afternoon many, many years ago. Great little film. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
My thoughts exactly. Never knew it existed and caught it purely by chance one day. It seemed a weird subject for a movie but was extremely well done and not a little moving... especially being such a huge fan of Howard's work. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
That's good to know. I saw this strange little DVD being given away with a magazine with Zellwegger's name plastered over the front. I thought it was just some cheap early movie of hers that they try to resell now that she's famous. Having looked it up, and hearing it's good, I'm going to have to hunt it down through the 2nd hand DVD shops. Cheers. | ||
| Greg James (Greg_james) Username: Greg_james Registered: 04-2011 Posted From: 62.244.179.50 |
The Whole Wide World is also the best Conan film. They should have gotten D'Onofrio in for the new one. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.54.69 |
Is Lovecraft mentioned in the film? Most of you will know that REH and HPL exchanged long and interesting letters between 1923 and 1936 . . . | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Lovecraft is mentioned but not really dwelt upon. The focus of the film is more on Howard's anguished personal life and mental problems, and his relationships with his mother and Novalyne Price Ellis. However, the title 'The Whole Wide World' does come from Lovecraft's description of Howard as "the greatest pulp fiction writer in the whole wide world." He was certainly the greatest pulp fantasy writer, imo, and still is. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
A splendid film, yes – and one that avoids forcing any narrow 'explanation' of Howard's suicide on the viewer. He was a very troubled person. His writing is tinged with despair – that's party of what makes it so memorable. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Note to self: READ what you type. Party, indeed. Apologies. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Well, after such praise, I think I will have to hold the shop owner up at gunpoint if he hasn't got the magazine with the DVD. Thanks chaps. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 27.252.15.187 |
Yes! Seen the film a few years back and very much enjoyed it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
As to the new CONAN film? I heard one reviewer moaning about it, saying it was - even for his jaded tastes - violent beyond belief, with brains spattering and limbs being sliced off and all manner of blood and guts. And I thought to myself, with some anticipation... wow, could it be they're actually being true to the original stories?... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.19.77 |
If only, Craig. But I fear the time for being true to Howard's stories was the 1970s. His tales are jaw-droppingly un-PC to a quite magnificent degree and any modern adaptations, with the artistic neutering that implies, can only pale beside them, imho. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.10.92 |
Howard tried so hard not to pander to pulp racist and sexist prejudices. Solomon Kane's friend the African witch-doctor talks in a ludicrous pidgin English – but when he communicates telepathically with Kane through astral projection, his voice is wise and eloquent. In another story, the African tribe whom Kane fails to save from predatory winged men are benign and trusting, like children, and he mourns them and avenges their death. That is, by our standards, a condescending view, but the contrast with Lovecraft – who claimed explicitly that black people were 'sub-human' and 'bestial' and unworthy of any regard – is striking. Howard's use of female characters had a voyeuristic element linked to his need to create scenes that Margaret Brundage would illustrate (busty women in chains, women whipping other women, all that). However his female characters were not in general weak or stupid. The witch-woman whom Bran Mak Morn beds in return for forbidden knowledge is sensitively portrayed, while the warrior-queen whom Conan loves, loses and avenges is no wilting flower. Howard had a thing for dominant women. So he was un-PC certainly, but I think he was trying to say the right things, at least when he wasn't just creating a set-piece for illustration. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 27.252.133.145 |
Mmm ....I don't think Michael liked the Conan film. http://michaellouiscalvillo.com/2011/08/21/hail-crom-its-conan-the-bore-barian-i n-3d/ | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.160 |
At least Tarantino didn't direct it. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.145.130.154 |
I actually think Tarantinowould make a good job of a Conan film. He knows what takes a great B movie and pushes it up that extra notch. I even think Death Proof was a really good film. And the soundtrack would be well good. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I thought Death Proof was excellent. Just like a cult B movie should, 'it's' slowly gathering its fans around it. I loved Rodriguez's Planet Terror, too. Laughed my ass off. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.19.77 |
Big fan of 'Death Proof' as well (and 'Planet Terror'). It marked the start of a resurgence for Tarantino, imo, that he went on to fulfill brilliantly with 'Inglourious Basterds'. Apart from a few memorable set pieces I really wasn't a fan of the 'Kill Bill' movies - grotesquely overblown wankfests, imo. But I fear he lacks the seriousness to do a faithful Conan adaptation. Boorman's 'Excalibur' is probably the closest we're ever going to come to what it should have been like. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.19.77 |
Howard had a thing for dominant women. And rightly so! Part of the reason I love the stories so much.  |