Originally posted by BackFire
Parts of it did. Some parts were lost in translation. The biggest thing lost was the pure sense of urgency that pushed the book forward. Just didn't capture that in the film.
Out of curiousity, is there any narration of the strange sequences from the book? An example being "Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast"
I found some of this to be the most powerful aspects of the book. It's what really emphasised the sheer isolation and devastation of the world in which the book was set. I think the film would miss it greatly.
Watched the film. As has been said, it's very powerful.
When they meet that old man, and the father and the old man are talking: As the old man started to describe and discuss how important and signifacant children are, and how precious his own son was, I couldn't helped but get just a tad choked up about it. Very nicely executed. I didn't see two actors acting out lines, I saw a desparate father talking to an old man that cherished his son more than anything, but had lost him.
The book sounds like a reader as I remember a couple of times, the narration had some very nice lines...and if the book is chock-full of this kind of prose, it's definitely a shame that NO LOCAL LIBRARY HAS THIS BOOK!
Overall, I give the film a 7/10. Some great acting. Everything looked old...but, other than that, I was overly impressed with anything else.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Watched the film. As has been said, it's very powerful.When they meet that old man, and the father and the old man are talking: As the old man started to describe and discuss how important and signifacant children are, and how precious his own son was, I couldn't helped but get just a tad choked up about it. Very nicely executed. I didn't see two actors acting out lines, I saw a desparate father talking to an old man that cherished his son more than anything, but had lost him.
The book sounds like a reader as I remember a couple of times, the narration had some very nice lines...and if the book is chock-full of this kind of prose, it's definitely a shame that NO LOCAL LIBRARY HAS THIS BOOK!
You should buy it. It's the only book i've ever read in a single sitting and when I got to the end of it I turned back to the start and read it again. It's astounding. Macarthy's writing gets criticised for being technically flawed but it's actually deliberate.
I'm going to see the film on thursday and it's one of few western made films that i've been both hugely excited to see and have doubts about how the novel can be well translated to film.
Originally posted by jaden101
You should buy it. It's the only book i've ever read in a single sitting and when I got to the end of it I turned back to the start and read it again. It's astounding. Macarthy's writing gets criticised for being technically flawed but it's actually deliberate.
Cool. Thanks. Robtard says things similar.
Just curious: what technical aspects are you referring to?
Originally posted by jaden101
I'm going to see the film on thursday and it's one of few western made films that i've been both hugely excited to see and have doubts about how the novel can be well translated to film.
From the reviews, they say it follows the book much better than most book to movie adaptations. Of course, some stuff was cut out...and the mother plays a slightly larger role.
Originally posted by dadudemon
Cool. Thanks. Robtard says things similar.Just curious: what technical aspects are you referring to?
The grammer is incorrect throughout the book. Most of the time you don't notice as the book still flows well but occasionally it makes you re-read a line because of the sentence's structure.
Originally posted by jaden101
The grammer is incorrect throughout the book. Most of the time you don't notice as the book still flows well but occasionally it makes you re-read a line because of the sentence's structure.
Oh, okay. Yeah, he's definitly a smart person, and obviously very educated, so I can see why it would be intentional...and logically nothing else.
Hahaha...The irony is that I just realised how bad my previous post was when talking about grammar (not grammer).
Apparently, after doing a little more digging into why he doesn't use formal grammar, it's another mechanism for putting over the starkness of the book's setting. He doesn't use apostrophies in contractions to strip down the language to further portray the emptiness of the world that is left.
My mom had an interesting thought about his writing style, in how it relates to The Road.
She felt that it seemed as if the narrator was so exhausted that he couldn't be bothered with an abundance of grammar and all that. That it felt like the world in the book, which the narrator inherently came from, drained so much out of him that he was kind of forced to simplify his speech and use run on sentences and what not, simply because he's so tired.
Well...Just back from seeing it...After waiting patiently for quite some time.
I was worried that they wouldn't capture the starkness and bleakness of the world described in the book. I was wholly wrong about that. Visually it was perfect. What makes that all the more astonishing is that very little of it was CGI.
Unfortunately I don't think they got much else right. Robert Duval was tremendous for his small part. He was the only character I felt anything for especially when he was talking about his son.
I felt Sorry for Viggo Mortenson because he had to work with the most hopeless and unconvincing whiny little shit possible. Bring back Halley Joel Osment...All is forgiven.
The structure was all wrong. They packed in the 1st 100 pages of the book into about the 1st 10 minutes. They made no mention of the father's
Spoiler:until far too late in the book. It was the main reason that he
lung condition and the fact that he was dieing
Spoiler:
couldn't run from the cannibals for too long and that he was desperately stifling his cough so as not to be caught
I did like the scene
Spoiler:
in the cannibal's house...I think they showed probably more than is described in the book in terms of the hacked off limbs
Most of the rest of it was completely wrong though. The swapping of
Spoiler:was a very poor decision. I personally think they shouldn't have compromised on it at all and even made the film an 18 purely for that scene alone.
the baby on a spit scene with the woman and child being chased and killed
I think they failed to portray the relationship between the father and son completely.
Overall i'm hugely disappointed with large aspects of the film.
I thought it may well be in the running for Oscars glory for best actor and supporting but unless Duval gets a mention (which he wont because his part was too small) then it wont. I think best cinematography is about all it can hope for.
So in terms of scene construction and visual power it is by far the best i've seen for a long time. In terms of acting it fell far short. For the father role, perhaps out of poor casting...For the son's roll...DEFINITELY out of poor casting...Surely it can't be that difficult to find a boy that can act.
Originally posted by jaden101
Well...Just back from seeing it...After waiting patiently for quite some time.I was worried that they wouldn't capture the starkness and bleakness of the world described in the book. I was wholly wrong about that. Visually it was perfect. What makes that all the more astonishing is that very little of it was CGI.
Unfortunately I don't think they got much else right. Robert Duval was tremendous for his small part. He was the only character I felt anything for especially when he was talking about his son.
I felt Sorry for Viggo Mortenson because he had to work with the most hopeless and unconvincing whiny little shit possible. Bring back Halley Joel Osment...All is forgiven.
The structure was all wrong. They packed in the 1st 100 pages of the book into about the 1st 10 minutes. They made no mention of the father's
Spoiler:until far too late in the book. It was the main reason that he
lung condition and the fact that he was dieingSpoiler:
couldn't run from the cannibals for too long and that he was desperately stifling his cough so as not to be caughtI did like the scene
Spoiler:
in the cannibal's house...I think they showed probably more than is described in the book in terms of the hacked off limbsMost of the rest of it was completely wrong though. The swapping of
Spoiler:was a very poor decision. I personally think they shouldn't have compromised on it at all and even made the film an 18 purely for that scene alone.
the baby on a spit scene with the woman and child being chased and killedI think they failed to portray the relationship between the father and son completely.
Overall i'm hugely disappointed with large aspects of the film.
I thought it may well be in the running for Oscars glory for best actor and supporting but unless Duval gets a mention (which he wont because his part was too small) then it wont. I think best cinematography is about all it can hope for.
So in terms of scene construction and visual power it is by far the best i've seen for a long time. In terms of acting it fell far short. For the father role, perhaps out of poor casting...For the son's roll...DEFINITELY out of poor casting...Surely it can't be that difficult to find a boy that can act.
I just about agree with you on everything. The child-aspect and the father's hopelessness knowing what the future will ultimately bring just didn't carry over onto the screen, at least not like the book.
I think you nailed it in part with mentioning that the kid-actor in the film was pure shit.
They also cut out where they see
Spoiler:, think this scene would have also added some of the grimness from the book.
the slave-drivers keeping people for food and children as catamites (aka sex-slaves)