Sunday 17 August 2008

THE SHORT STORY ON SCREEN



The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is a film loosely adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story of the same name. The film starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett will be released (in the USA, presumably) on the 19th of December 2008.

This follows on the tradition of film-makers looking to short fiction for good story fodder: Annie Proulx’s story ‘Brokeback Mountain’ made a fine film; though at 25,000 words it is probably more of a novella. Alice Munro’s story ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain’ was made into the film ‘Away From Her’ last year. Also the very powerful, Australia-set ‘Jindabyne’ was adapted from a Ray Carver story, ‘So Much Water So Close To Home’; it starred our own lovely Gabriel Byrne.

In ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, Benjamin (Bradders) is born aging backwards which causes complications when he falls in love with a thirty year old woman (Cate). The pre-blurb says the film is ‘dark, romantic, and deals with mortality in a pretty unflattering way’. Sounds great to me!

3 comments:

Tania Hershman said...

Ooh, I am looking forward to it, Cate Blanchett is a stunning actress. I loved Brokeback, Away from Her and Jindabyne, all wonderful films. I think short stories lend themselves to the screen far better than novels, I remember a wonderful film by Bertolucci, Beseiged, from James Lasdun's short story. Let's hope this film is as good as that, it sounds very interesting!

Unknown said...

Any excuse to go see Brad...

Group 8 said...

I have a fondness for James Lasdun, I must say.

And Brad. Ah Brad. Sometimes he's a bit wooden though. That Joe Black film was atrocious. Still, the film sounds good and with Cate in it, it's bound to have a good script, I reckon.