I've read a few William Faulkner works. They are not for cowards. My first--for a class in college--was The Sound and the Fury. I was so confused by the first section of that novel that I did something I had never done before . . . something that I had always looked down on with disdain: I bought Cliff's Notes for the book. They helped a lot. I got through the read. Didn't enjoy it much, and wondered why the hell anybody would want to write in such a way to confuse the reader, but I got through it.
Eventually I read more . . . a couple of short stories and another go at The Sound and the Fury (which I found to be far less challenging this time around; perhaps it was the nature of the second go, perhaps it was the fact that I was thirty years older, perhaps it was because I had spent twenty years of my life with two autistic people) and got to love Mr. Faulkner so much that for a brief time I entertained the idea of doing a chronological full oeuvre run. And I started reading Soldiers' Pay with a couple of young friends, got close to the end of it before they both pooped out, and for some reason I pooped out, too. I should probably get back to that at some point.
I have very little love for James Franco. In fact, I disliked his acting pretty intensely until he played Will Rodman in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. And that was it until I happened upon a trailer for In Dubious Battle (2016). It was a Steinbeck I'd not read (or not yet read, because for sure Steinbeck is getting the Full Chronological Oeuvre Treatment in the near near), but of course I wanted to see it, and REDBOX actually got it. So I did, too. And it was great. Truly, truly great. Critics and audiences hated it, and it lost just about all $15 million that it cost to make, but I've gotten used to that. For some reason my taste just does not run with the genpop. But knowing that Mr. Franco directed the movie changed my view of him quite a bit. So when I learned that he had also directed The Sound and the Fury (2014) and As I Lay Dying (2013), I started keeping an eye out for them.
I found As I Lay Dying at the Louisville Free Public Library, and I just watched it last night.
It was superb. The kind of movie that creates an ache in your heart and bones. The kind of movie that stretches your soul. Not in a nice, comfortable way, though. More like the way you can stretch plastic wrap until it starts to get thin and threatens to tear. It was a movie that was sometimes painful to watch. There was even a time when I had to look away for a second. But it was deep down good.
So it should come as no surprise that it was egged and soaped by critics and lost a shitload of money. According to IMDb, it cost $15 million to make and had a U.S. Box Office of $15,009 (after an opening weekend of $7,143). It's hard to be incredulous with that kind of specificity, isn't it?
ANYway, two pinkies up from me. Now I'm looking for The Sound and the Fury. Oddly enough, the LFPL doesn't stock this one. And it doesn't look like Amazon sells it, but they do have a rental thing if you sign up for a free trial of some damned thing or other. So as soon as I get through the half-dozen First Run Features features I checked out of the library, I'm on it.
Thanks, James Franco. I hope you keep on doing what you're doing so far as directing new versions of classic novels goes. And if you're only doing those dumbshit movies to finance these things, then hats off to you, man. (I'd rather send you money on a Kickstarter than see one of those things, though. So let me know.)
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