Shades of Blue

Lesson Learned

Saw what happened to Bob over on Wafer last night. Took down my work-related post. :)

The Saddest Wookie in the World

John Allison makes me happy by making wookies sad.

The cycle of life

For every death, there is a birth. A slightly belated welcome to Jen Perkins as she joins the 'blogging circle. Good stuff so far. (And I helped her set up her links, etc).

House of Sand and Fog, Cont.

Note: Don't read this post if you want to be surprised by the plot of either the book or the movie.

A while back, I saw House of Sand and Fog and had a very definite opinion of it. I thought it didn't earn its tragic ending, and was curious as to whether it was a flaw in the original book or in the adaptation to film. So, when the book came through the system at the warehouse, I borrowed it for a few weeks and eventually got around to pounding my way through it. Almost all the way through, it was a faithful adaptation, and I was even considering tossing the book and just blaming Dubus, when suddenly I found the crucial change. It doesn't seem like that crucial of a change on first consideration, but it turns the story from a good tragic study into a fatally flawed over-artistic piece-a-junk.

Here it is- when the deputy has the Iranian family locked in the bathroom, in the movie Ben Kingsley's character suggests that he return the house to the county and then buy it from Jennifer Connelly's character at the price he paid, plus some. It provides a fair resolution to the situation, giving her a sizeable amount of money and allowing him to still sell it for the profit he needs to keep his own family from spiralling into poverty. In the book, the deputy suggests this plan. The reason the change makes the movie crap is that it Kingsley's character, by making the suggestion, overcomes his own pride and rigid legalistic morality, recognizing the claim that Connelly has and admitting to the other characters that he is in the wrong as well. This provides the moral solution to the problem, and should lead to a peaceful resolution according to good narrative principles. Therefore, when disaster strikes anyway, the movie turns from a finely honed character study and budding tragedy into a Modernist screed on the random destruction.

In the book, on the other hand, the deputy suggests the plan. This is a craven move on his part, desperately seeking a solution that will keep him from facing jail time, and Kingsley's character accepts in bad faith, planning to betray him at the first opportunity. In this way, both of their tragic flaws (fear and pride) combine to build even further into the climax of destruction, fulfilling the classic Greek doctrines of tragedy and satisfying the inner sense of justice and order that we expect from good stories. In the book, when things fall apart, it is internally justified by the characters' actions and plot arcs, and provides a fitting climax to a good story. In the movie, it just seems like a cheap dodge because the director/screenwriter was afraid a happy ending wouldn't seem artistic enough.

So why change that detail, when otherwise the adaptation is a model of faithfulness and extremely well done? I'm not sure, but several ideas suggest themselves. The first is that the dir./scrnwtr. was ignorant of the laws of classical tragedy or didn't realize he was adapting a classical tragedy, so didn't think it would make that big of a difference. The second idea, in tandem with the first, is the desire to make Kingsley's character even more sympathetic than he already was. I'm not sure whether this was a demand on Kingsley's part before he'd play the character (although I doubt that was an issue, having seen Sexy Beast) or because the director, as an immigrant himself, felt the urge to make the immigrant characters more sympathetic. While it's a nice and certainly understandable notion, especially considering the Xenophobia in this country after 9/11, white-washing the character, even to this small extent, ultimately does serious injury both to the story and to the worth of the character. It's a real shame, too, as the movie was a fantastic adaption of the book in every other sense, and both Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo brought their characters to a much better life than the characters in the book through fantastic acting. Ah well.

Mental Cartography

I'm currently enjoying one of my favorite hobbies, filling in more blank spaces on my internal navigation system. Having moved into the Arbor of Ann last Sunday night, I've been quickly laying out the main navigation paths and flows of traffice, aligning landmarks to the overall map, and sketching in networks of streets, restaurants, stores, gas stations, etc in between the major routes. It's all delightful.

Things in general are in a state of monitored chaos- working as many hours as I can at this temporary painting job I have, trying to hustler up a decent long term job, moving more stuff in, consolidating and organizing space in the apartment for various things, etc etc. Steve and Adam and Caitlin have been great so far, even though none of us seem to have had any time to kick back and relax together yet. Been out to the bar once with some of the Zing people, but's that's about it so far socially. Every other moment of my time so far seems to be filled with some urgent chore, some long term project usually relating to employment that needs my time, or just sitting on the couch staring out the window exhausted. We got rained out painting today, so I swiped Adam's laptop and am sitting in this internet cafe attempting to get caught up on the larger world. I'll be popping back in on an irregular basis for the next month or so, and we're considering getting internet in the aptmnt in Sept, so my web presence may become more regular then. We'll see. :)

Anyway, having fun, miss you all, stop on by if you're in the new neighborhood.