Monday, October 4, 2010

Zozia part 2.

This was very difficult to watch. I'm going to go ahead and caution anyone who has a daughter to definitely skip it. . . and obviously you don't have to have children for this to disturb you, but it's very, very awful. Screaming little girl being hauled away. . .


But I'm kind of glad I watched it, for a few reasons.

1. Seeing Kevin Kline play Nathan Landau was necessary in order to have any positive feelings for the character. It's easier to be repelled by a character in a book because if you don't want to go any deeper into them, you don't have to. His expressions (in the film), the way he was tender and concerned about Sophie, the way he looked completely crazy and was obviously fighting with his own crazy demons came across much louder than in the novel. Kevin Kline was mighty good in this one.

2. Meryl Streep is phenomenal. This was 1983, when actors were doing the work, not the editors. She spoke Polish and German very believably, and her Polish accent while speaking English was amazing. Half the film is a static camera stuck in her face, dead on--best actress in 1983? Damned right. The scenes are long and intense. The actors obviously had a hard job and they really pulled it off, Peter MacNichol included. They went really well together, which makes me wonder if they all had fun working on this project.

3. Film vs. Book? I'm going with film on this. The book was wonderful but it was just too long, all things considered, and very wordy. The condensed film version kept true to the story and eliminated superfluous background, even though it was also long. Bravo.

The Newman-esque neighbor in the Pink Palace has a doppelganger that comes into Starbucks all the time, usually chewing some crumbly item he picked up at Kowalski's and talking with his mouth open wide---Red Hooded Sweatshirt guy? Dead ringer.

2 comments:

Donald said...

This post needs more pictures of Jeff Fahey.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

You know, in 32 years of life, I've never seen Sophie's Choice. This seems like a crazy omission for somebody who loves movies.

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