Johnny wrote:
"I thought films made more hard-boiled impact than books,
with Humphrey Bogart etc."
That would depend upon how you define impact. For instance, a
good argument could be made that Bogart was simply the
vehicle for several of the best hardboiled/noir writers, like
Hammett (Maltese Falcon), Chandler (Big Sleep) and Goodis
(Dark Passage).
"Thrillers have pretty strong contraints (at least American
ones do) when they're made into films because they need to
make their money back and so they can't be too far afield.
Once in a while a Memento comes along, though."
While generally agreeing with your lament, are things any
less constrained in other countries? How many HK films are
like Fallen Angel? How many Brit ones are like Following? And
how many French films are there like La Haine?
"I wasn't joking about taking refuge among the French. The
French thrillers are more ambiguous and subtle, especially
the old ones
(50s/60s) before they tried to copy Hollywood. Case in point,
Plein Soleil (Purple Noon in English, for some reason) which
is the Rene Clement film based on The Talented Mr Ripley by
Patricia Highsmith. Compare it to the Minghella version,
which is not without its virtues, but..."
Sure, it's convenient to compare the two since they have the
same source material (however, Hitchcock and Wenders have
also adapted Highsmith, though other books), but you are
stacking yur deck. First, you're digging back four decades.
It's really not fair to compare a 1961 French film to a late
'90s (early '00s?) US film. Many might make the same argument
about US films alone across the same time period, that the
increased blockbuster mentality has erased subtlety and
ambiguity. And as far as that goes, where are the great
French crime thrillers of today? If there are many, I'm
unaware of them (if I'm wrong, please let me know, always
looking for good new crime movies). Those are what should be
compared against current US crime films, of which there are
far better examples than The Talented Mr Ripley.
"And since postmodernism is largely a French invention they
have their funky crime novelists too, like Fred Vargas (a
woman) who does not seem to be translated into English much,
. . ."
Is anything translated? Sounds interesting. We've had recent
disussions of Pennac, Manchette and a few other recent French
crime writers.
". . . and, shockingly, the greatest plotters of all time,
Boileau-Narcejac, a pair who together wrote the novels that
Vertigo
(D'Entre les morts) and Les Diaboliques (Celle qui n'etait
plus) were based on, and fifty others, most of which are not
translated."
Not saying they might not be very much worth reading, judging
from the movies based on them I'll bet they are, but don't
these predate postmodernism, at least the exposition and
promotion of its theories? And there was a lot of great US
writing during the same era (assuming they were written
roughly contemporaneously with the movies based on them).
That was the classic period of the paperback original, for
instance, many of which greatly influenced French directors
like Melville, Dassin, Godard and Truffaut, who all read and
drew on the US books as well as the US movies.
"I live in Paris half the time now, the other half in London,
and my French is only just getting good enough to maybe read
a whole novel in it without my head exploding. So that
doubles the literature. Imagine that."
A lot of good current Brit books coming out, too, many
published by Serpent's Tail and Do Not Press.
As you explore these French authors, please let us know about
them, especially those who have been translated into English
(I can barely get through a French sentence, much less a
novel).
Oh yeah, you mention you're a scriptwriter. Are your
screenplays crime stories?
Mark
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