Friday 18 November 2011

You have fifteen seconds to summarise Proust!

I wanted to upload a post of this Woody Allen video from the film Crimes and Misdemeanors... but fucking embedding is disabled for it.

So for this blog's video fix, time for something completely different.



Summarise Proust Competition by Monty Python

Saturday 5 November 2011

Film adaptations I'd like to make

THE CASTLE, KAFKA

The atmosphere of this book... is so visual and haunting. To visually recreate the scenes of this book with quality cinematography and set designs would be the bomb... The footage shot outdoors with an abundance of snow and whiteness in contrast with the darkness and murkiness of interior shots would be remarkable. Would the screenplay writer add an ending or leave it at a loose end?

THE SOUND AND THE FURY, WILLIAM FAULKNER

I think this has already been made, but from what I can gather that adaptation is a linear recreation of the book. But wouldn't it be cool to attempt a literal adaptation of this? True, it would be almost impossible, but the frenetic jumps in time would be interesting to see on the screen. It would be intriguing to see how a film-maker would try to create a cinematic equivalent of Quentin's mental collapse. With the increasing number of hollywood non-linear flicks I see no reason why someone can't take the bull by the horns and attempt to transpose this into visual form.

THE OBSCENE BIRD OF NIGHT, JOSE DONOSO

Many would argue that the sheer complexity of this novel + the number of perspectives, dual narratives would not tranfer well to the screen. Apparently Luis Bunuel kept telling Donoso that he wanted to film this, but that the narrative strand of the deformed mutants didn't interest him. He wanted to exclusively recreate the old ladies' home. Personally I'd rather see an attempt to construct expensive set designs of the castle Azcoita builds for his son 'Boy' + gory make-up and costumes done for the mutants.

HOUSE TAKEN OVER, JULIO CORTAZAR

Well, I've already written a screenplay for a short film of this, so it'd be nifty to see someone film it.

THE DROWNED WORLD, J.G BALLARD

Ballard is a very visual writer, so he really makes you feel this vision of an inundated London... The thrilling storyline would fare well in a film too.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Reading list for pleasure

Post-Office - Charles Bukowski (Fiction)
Elecciones presidenciales, democracia y partidos politicos en el Chile pos-Pinochet - Alan Angell (Non-fiction, politics)
Habana para un infante difunto - Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Fiction)
The Rest is Noise - Alex Ross (Non-fiction, music)
The Book of Illusions - Paul Auster (Fiction)
A Cultural History of Latin-America: Literature, Music and Visual Arts in the 19th and 20th Centuries - Leslie Bethell (Non-fiction, culture)
Hijos sin hijos - Enrique Vila-Matas (Fiction)
El astillero - Juan Carlos Onetti (Fiction)
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy (Fiction)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Friedrich Nieztsche (Non-fiction, philosophy)
A book on German culture.
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (Fiction)
Existentialism is Humanism - Jean-Paul Sartre (Non-fiction, philosophy)
Los lanzallamas - Roberto Arlt (Fiction)
Los siete locos - Roberto Arlt (Fiction)
History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russel (Non-fiction, philosophy)

I want to broaden my horizons, so about 45% of this is non-fiction.

But... I plan to read all this... in about three years' time, after I've completed university. I'm so anxious to get my hands on these books that dropping out altogether may be on the cards for the rest of my tenure here!

If I manage to organise my time and actually get around to studying (instead of worrying about studying) I may get around to reading all this... but that I ain't gonna happen... Besides, I don't want to be distracted by my studies when dipping into these beasts.