The Replicated Screenplay : A Fable

The Replicated Screenplay : A Fable

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

2 January

The Replicated Screenplay : A Fable

In thanks to Thurber for the pleasure given by his Fables for Our Time

In the hush-hush days of Hollywood, it is well past the point of no return before what has somehow happened comes to light. Through some staggering implausibility, the screenplay that has been developed in one studio is, word for word, identical with that worked on by another*, and they each had gone into production with it.

When the studio heads eventually come to believe (which is not easy for them to do) that this is truly not the result of espionage or collusion, and that litigating the matter will not get them nowhere, they accept the situation for whatever cosmic quirk it is. They agree different names for each film, and that they will battle it out at the box office, relying on the distinction brought to the screenplay of their producers, directors, stars, directors of photography, film editors, wardrobe, make-up, hair, set-design...

When the films are released, though, what amazes them most is that no one includes both films in their reviews, let alone praising one over the other : seemingly, no one has noticed.

From then on, as other studios watched in surprise, Hollywood learnt a lesson, realizing that they had been giving cinema-goers and critics too much credit. They have never looked back.


End-notes

* Many will not be unaware that one is, of course, also indebted here to Jorge Luis Borges, for his story (in essay form) that re-creates the writings of Miguel de Cervantes, 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’ (‘Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote’) (and for having had the opportunity to refer to it a preview, for Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF), of Othello (Otel.lo) (2012)).


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

No cat got any cream

This is a slighting, bullet-point review of The Cat’s Meow (2001)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

23 January

This is a slighting, bullet-point review of The Cat’s Meow (2001)

Dared The Cat’s Meow (2001) on DVD, picked up some time in Fopp’s (@FoppCambridge’s) £2 section for traded-in items. Surprisingly, its attempt at 1924 pleased Den Eltern (the principal aim in buying it some while back and now showing it), but (not in any order) :

* The production-budget was so low that players of sax and banjo were clearly miming, not just the singer whom first we saw

* One never felt that one was aboard a vessel of remotely the size of the one shown in harbour or at sea – momentarily, from time to time, as an unconvincing impression of both movement and the insularity of the action

* In fact, one was all too aware that the interiors were stage-sets, and that action had to be kept indoors (perhaps not implausibly for November, were we not cruising from San Pedro, Los Angeles ?)

* That said, cinematically, director Peter Bogdanovich had avoided, with all the suitable help (of Steven Perros, with a credit for adapting his own stage-play), making it look like a filmed drama

* Yet its dialogue increasingly sounded like one, and it always owed much of its attempt to be a closed world to Murder on The Orient Express (1974) (though not musically, of course, which Sir Richard Rodney Bennett scored so expertly)

* It never claimed to be (based on) a true story, and had the usual disclaimer, but it still liked to give a different impression (with its prologue and postlude)

* It says much that Joanna Lumley was the best thing about it, but, with the ponderous attempt at significance in giving the closing voice-over (as we faded to black), also nearly the worst

William Randolph Hearst

* Eddie Izzard (@eddieizzard) was no Chaplin of interest, and Hugh Laurie (@hughlaurie) would have risen to the challenge better, as would even Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) in substitution for the dismal Edward Herrmann as WR (even if he looked alike) – and not just because of the obvious period link with Jeeves and Wooster

* It told its story well enough, but only with the sort of subtlety that takes in those who feel able to congratulate themselves on their insight into what is coming next on The Archers, so lights on faces in implausible or impossible places, and everything angled to oblige the eye to look in only the desired direction

* It is indicative why Bogdanovich was, prior to it, credited with TV movies (via IMDb (@IMDb)), and returned to them – this is just what The Cat's Meow most resembled...


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)